Leadership Webcasts
This four-webcast series features engaging discussions with community civic leaders who help shape our understandings and perspectives of the post-pandemic world in general and specific implications for the Houston region.
The pandemic has changed our world by accelerating trends, making problems more transparent and creating opportunities to change the world in which we live in ways we are just beginning to understand. We discuss how these – and other – new realities that will shape our future nationally and locally with civic leaders and innovators engaged in adapting the present to the future and in shaping new ways in which we will work, live, communicate and play.
Previous Webcasts
On September 23 at 12 p.m. CDT, as part of the Civic Leaders on Houston's Post-Pandemic Future webcast series, Center for Houston's Future hosted a conversation with Ann Stern, President and CEO of Houston Endowment. Scott McClelland, President of H-E-B Food/Drug Stores, moderated the discussion. Stern and McClelland discussed how COVID-19 has changed philanthropy and the foundation’s priorities.
Ann Stern is President and CEO of Houston Endowment, a private foundation dedicated to a thriving Greater Houston. Established in 1937 by Jesse H. Jones and Mary Gibbs Jones, the foundation has over $2 billion in assets and invests approximately $80 million each year to advance equity in public education and civic engagement. The foundation also supports arts, parks, and initiatives that strengthen our region’s vibrancy and resilience.
Prior to joining Houston Endowment, she was executive vice president of Texas Children’s Hospital. She previously served as vice president and general counsel for the Hospital. Before joining Texas Children’s, she was in private law practice and taught business law at the University of St. Thomas.
Stern currently serves as a director on the boards of Invesco Funds, The University of Texas Law School Foundation, and The Holdsworth Center and as chairman of the board of Good Reason Houston. She is also a member of the Baker Institute Board of Advisors. She previously served as the chairman of the board of St. John’s School and on the boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and Texas Children’s Hospital.
Stern received her bachelor’s degree in Plan II from the University of Texas at Austin, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. She also received a Juris Doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin.
Scott McClelland is the President of H-E-B Food/Drug Stores. HEB is a $25B retailer that operates 390 stores in Texas and Mexico. In his capacity Scott oversees the operations of all HEB banners in Texas. Previously McClelland served as President of HEB's Houston operation.
H-E-B strives to be a good corporate citizen and as such Scott serves on numerous local boards, including Greater Houston Partnership, where he was Chairman on its Board of Directors. Scott is the former board chair of the Houston Food Bank and headed their $56mm capital campaign to fund the construction of the largest food bank warehouse in the United States. Scott spearheaded Houston Super Bowl of Caring Food Drive, which is now the largest in the state and annually collects over 2 million pounds of food for Houston's hungry. In addition, he sits on the boards of Memorial Hermann Hospitals and Brighter Bites.
In 2017 McClelland co-founded an education based non-profit called Good Reason focused on improving education for ALL students across Harris County from cradle to career by eliminating achievement gaps. Scott has worked at H-E-B since 1990 after a ten-year career at Pepsico's Frito Lay division. He's served in a number of Marketing and Operations positions before being named President of all HEB stores in July 2017.
McClelland received his bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and graduated from Harvard's Advanced Management Program.
On July 21, Center for Houston’s Future hosted a conversation with Anne Chao, a distinguished community leader, educator and philanthropist who manages the Houston Asian American Archive (HAAA) at Rice University, which “collects, documents, and preserves the lived experiences of the Asian diaspora in Houston.” Stephen Klineberg, Founding Director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, moderated the discussion. Through the conversation, Chao and Klineberg explored the indelible impact of the Asian American community on Houston, from a historical context and through the lens of the city’s post-pandemic future.
Anne Chao is a lecturer in Humanities at Rice University. She received her B.A. in Chinese Studies from Wellesley College, M.A. and Ph.D. in Modern Chinese History from Rice University. Her research interests include cultural and intellectual history of the late Qing, early Republican China, the use of digital humanities techniques in history, as well as the immigration history of Asian Americans to the U.S. South. Dr. Chao has taught courses in the Program in Poverty, Justice and Human Capabilities and in the Department of History at Rice. Currently, she is Program Manager of the Houston Asian American Archive (HAAA) and a College Associate and Divisional Advisor to humanities students at Lovett College. She is a member of the advisory boards of Rice University’s Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Chao Center for Asian Studies, School of Humanities, the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, the Shepherd School of Music, and a member of the Patron Group of the Moody Arts Center. She also serves on the governing boards of the Houston Ballet, the Houston Endowment, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Dunhuang Foundation.
Stephen Klineberg has been shaping local thought on the ongoing changes in the Houston metropolitan region for almost 40 years. Through his work on the “Kinder Houston Area Survey,” now in its 40th year, he has tracked the economic outlooks, demographic patterns, experiences and beliefs of local residents. Under contract with Simon & Schuster, his book, Prophetic City: Houston on the Cusp of a Changing America, was released in 2020. Klineberg is the recipient of twelve major teaching awards and a much sought-after speaker in the Houston community and beyond. He is a graduate of Haverford College, the University of Paris and Harvard University. He and his wife Margaret have called Houston home since the early 1970s; they have two children and five grandchildren.
We began this series on May 18 with a conversation between Hewlett Packard Enterprises CEO Antonio Neri and Houston entrepreneur and business leader Paul Hobby. This event is cohosted with the Harvard Business School Club of Houston.
Among the topics they discuss: HPE’s decision to return to Houston from California and what the decision says about the future of our state; the impact of the pandemic and remote work on information technology and on HPE’s next generation cloud strategy; the role business leaders must play in addressing climate change and HPE’s plans to lead in this area; and Neri’s thoughts on his role as HPE’s first Hispanic CEO.
CHF Leadership Webcast Series
A Weekly Community Webcast On Leadership
In this weekly series, community leaders will share advice, observations, lessons and take questions on leading before, during and after times of crisis. We’ll highlight a broad range of topics, from general leadership to specifics related to COVID-19 and the way forward to ensure our region’s successful future.
Episodes
Panel: Building Public Trust in Communications about COVID-19
This webcast, presented by Center for Houston's Future and Leadership Now, focuses on ways to build public trust in communicating about the pandemic and what strategies policymakers and health officials can use to provide fact-based, simple communications to the public about COVID-19.
Panelists:
Dr. Asaf Bitton, Ariadne Labs
Dr. Emily Brunson, Texas State University
Christy Feig, The Rockefeller Foundation
Alex López Negrete, López Negrete Communications
Episode 1: A Conversation with angela blanchard on recovering from crisis
Angela Blanchard, President Emerita of BakerRipley, is a globally recognized expert practitioner in community development, disaster recovery, and effective long-term integration for immigrants and refugees. Blanchard’s breakthrough strategies have successfully revitalized neighborhoods by leveraging Houston’s diversity, while providing a powerful model for cities across the globe facing the complex challenges of community transformation.
Episode 2: A Conversation with Judy Le on adaptive leadership
Judy Le has over 20 years of leadership development experience in the for-profit, non-profit, and higher education sectors. As president of TakeRoot, she helps organizations build their capacity in people to lead at all levels of an organization. She is also the facilitator for the American Leadership Forum and an instructor for the leadership certificate program at Rice University's Glasscock School.
Episode 3: A Conversation with Senator Kirk Watson
We speak with Kirk Watson, founding Dean of the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, about his perspectives on leadership and adaptive change. Kirk has had a distinguished public service career serving four terms as a Texas State Senator and as Mayor of Austin.
Texas Monthly once described him as “A man with a vision of what the community wants, and the moxie to carry it out.”
Building on Angela Blanchard’s perspective as a disaster recovery practitioner and on the Adaptive Leadership framework discussed by Judy Le, Kirk will discuss how we can exercise leadership during the COVID-19 crisis and what opportunities and adaptive challenges the crisis presents for our city, state and nation. He will share his perspectives on actions that local and state officials should be taking to deal with the current crisis. He will also talk about his vision and goals as founding Dean of the Hobby School.
Episode 4: A Conversation with Dr. Eric Boerwinkle
We speak with Dr. Eric Boerwinkle, dean at the UTHealth School of Public Health, about the models he and his team created that project COVID-19 case numbers for the region. His work, which considers scenarios around different levels of interventions, has been used by government and business leaders in Houston as they make decisions on stay-at-home orders and other issues.
His team used artificial intelligence to first create the modeling based on cases in China and Italy and applied that to 150 countries around the world. As the virus spread to the U.S., the modeling was used first at the state level and then the major metropolitan areas in Texas, including Houston.
“This is part of our mission at the School of Public Health: to give leaders the information they need to make sound public policy and health care decisions,” he said last month. “Although there are a lot of numbers and a lot of details, we saw two consistent patterns: earlier intervention was better, and more stringent intervention was better than less stringent.
Boerwinkle provides data-driven information that can be married with the leadership frameworks set out by Angela Blanchard and Judy Le in our last two webcasts.
Episode 5: A Conversation with Dr. Stephen Linder
We host Dr. Stephen Linder of UTHealth School of Public Health to discuss how disparities shape effects of Covid-19 on various communities, as illustrated by the Houston Chronicle earlier this week.
Dr. Linder’s research suggested the coronavirus would likely impact some of Houston’s poorest neighborhoods the hardest. Using census and other data to identify neighborhoods with high incidence of the CDC’s high risk criteria, his study identified neighborhoods in which severe cases would be most likely.
Our previous conversations in this series have built a framework on leadership in time of crisis, looking at how leaders respond to a complex and systemic challenge such as this pandemic. We have discussed the phases of a disaster, how the framework of adaptive leadership helps us move from response to an unfolding emergency, to mitigation and recovery, and then to use the focus and energy of that crisis to transition to new ways of working and behaving.
Dr. Linder shares how existing health disparities have influenced this crisis and what changes need to be made for a more equitable and healthy future for our community.
Episode 6: A Conversation with Sandra Wegmann and Dr. Robert Hausmann
We consider previous conversations in this series and the framework we’ve developed for leading in a time of crisis. Sandra and Robert lead us in a facilitated dialogue on applying the ideas as we begin to envision and create a better future.
EPISODE 7: A CONVERSATION WITH Steven Pedigo
We host Steven Pedigo of the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Policy. As we turn our attention forward, Steven will share his ideas on what Texas and the Houston region will face in the "next normal."
Steven’s work as the director of the LBJ Urban Lab leads him to a focus on urban areas. His recent work suggests the Covid-19 crisis may not be as devastating to cities as we might fear, and he has provocative ideas about how the state and the region might go forward.
Our previous conversations in this series have built a framework on leadership in time of crisis, looking at how leaders respond to a complex and systemic challenge such as this pandemic. We have discussed the phases of a disaster, how the framework of adaptive leadership helps us move from response to an unfolding emergency, to mitigation and recovery, and then to use the focus and energy of that crisis to transition to new ways of working and behaving. Our conversation with Steven turns our gaze forward to thinking about what we keep and what we leave behind as we move into the future.
EPISODE 8: A CONVERSATION WITH Dr. Asaf Bitton and Scott Mcclelland
We had the great pleasure of hosting Scott McClelland of H-E-B Food/Drug Stores and Dr. Asaf Bitton of Ariadne Labs in Boston. As we turn our attention forward, we explored what the country, Texas and the Houston region will face in the "next normal."
Previous conversations in this series have built a framework on leadership in time of crisis, looking at how leaders respond to a complex and systemic challenge such as this pandemic. We have discussed the phases of a disaster, how the framework of adaptive leadership helps us move from response to an unfolding emergency, to mitigation and recovery, and then using the focus and energy of that crisis to transition to new ways of working and behaving.
This conversation continues looking forward, to think about what we keep and what we leave behind, and how systems and organizations can innovate in a crisis.
Click here for Ariadne Lab’s checklist of things to do before, during and after grocery shopping during COVID-19: https://covid19.ariadnelabs.org/grocery-shopping-checklist/.
Excerpt: Scott McClelland on Masks
Episode 9: A Conversation with Marvin Odum
A respected business and civic leader, Marvin has twice been tapped to help guide Houston through crisis recovery. As the region reeled from the effects of Hurricane Harvey, Marvin was named Harvey Recovery Czar by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. Now, as we as a region and a world are facing an unprecedented global health crisis, coupled with tremendous economic impacts, Marvin has once again stepped up to help guide the city as COVID-19 Relief and Recovery Czar.
Our previous conversations in this series have built a framework on leadership in time of crisis, looking at how leaders respond to a complex and systemic challenge such as this pandemic. Most reports show that the Houston region, with a fast social distancing response, was successful in flattening the curve of the outbreak, with demands on hospitals and ICUs staying within the capacity of our health care system.
We rely on our leaders to help us maintain the successes we have seen so far as the city, state and much of the country begin to open. Marvin will discuss how the City of Houston and other local leaders are addressing the challenges of reopening safely.
Episode 10: A Conversation with Rives taylor
Our previous conversations in this series have built a framework on leadership in time of crisis, looking at how leaders respond to a complex and systemic challenge such as this pandemic. Most reports show the Houston region, with a fast social distancing response, was successful in flattening the curve of the outbreak.
Now as we begin to open up, we will be challenged to maintain the successes we have seen so far. Last week's webcast featured Marvin Odum sharing how the City of Houston and other local leaders are addressing reopening safely and what plans are in place to mitigate flare ups if they occur.
This week, we'll talk with Rives about how Covid-19 is shaping or will shape how we work and where we live, as well as about transit, and climate change and resilience.