About the guest

Cheryl McKissack Daniel is President and Chief Executive Officer of McKissack & McKissack, a construction company with a family history spanning five generations. A civil engineer by training, she earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees in engineering before beginning her career in New York and later joining the family business.

Under her leadership, the company has contributed to major projects including LaGuardia Airport, the World Trade Center site, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Cheryl is also chair of the New York Building Congress and the author of The Black Family Who Built America, which chronicles her family’s history, resilience, and contribution to the built environment.

What You Will Learn

· How long-term thinking and strategy sustained a company across five generations

· Why relationship building is essential to leadership and business development

· How to move through fear by treating courageous action as a beta test

· Why leaders must be decisive, consistent, dependable, and clear

· How to manage stress through boundaries, ownership, meditation, and perspective

Join us for this episode of the Take Command Podcast as Cheryl McKissack Daniel shares how strategy, courage, and relationships shaped a five-generation leadership legacy. Whether you are stepping into a difficult room, building confidence, leading through uncertainty, or creating an organization where people can grow, this conversation offers practical lessons on speaking up, staying consistent, and building beyond today.

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About the Guest

Marc Cooper is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Solomon Partners, an independent investment bank specializing in mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, and capital advisory services. Since becoming CEO in 2016, he has led the firm’s transformation from approximately 35 bankers to more than 200 while expanding its industry coverage from two sectors to more than twelve.

Before becoming CEO, Marc led Solomon Partners’ Consumer Retail Group and advised companies around the world on major strategic transactions. He is a member of The Conference Board’s CEO Center, the CNBC CEO Council, and the Economic Club of New York. A proud Dale Carnegie graduate, Marc credits the experience with helping him build confidence, strengthen his communication skills, and develop tools that continue to guide his leadership today.

What You Will Learn

• Why growth requires getting outside your comfort zone
• How Marc overcame learning disabilities and built confidence
• Why leadership must be authentic and personal
• How transparency and shared ownership create stronger cultures
• What Marc learned from stepping into the CEO role unexpectedly

Join us for this episode of the Take Command Podcast as Marc Cooper shares how resilience, adaptability, and personal growth shaped his journey from a young professional struggling with confidence to the leader of a growing independent investment bank. Whether you’re navigating change, developing your leadership style, or preparing for an AI-driven future, this conversation offers practical lessons on building trust, investing in yourself, and continuing to grow throughout your career.

Please rate and review this Episode!

We'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review helps us ensure we deliver content that resonates with you. Your feedback can inspire others to join our Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast community & benefit from the leadership insights we share.

About the Guest

Jayney Howson is the Chief Learning Officer at ServiceNow and the architect behind ServiceNow University, a free AI-powered learning platform designed to prepare people for the future of work. Under her leadership, the platform has grown to approximately two million learners and is on a path toward three million. She oversees learning programs that help customers, partners, employees, and aspiring professionals develop the skills needed to succeed in an AI-powered economy.

Before moving into learning and talent development, Jayney built a career spanning hospitality, marketing, communications, sales, and leadership. Her diverse experiences have shaped a leadership philosophy centered on curiosity, courage, trust, and human connection.

What You Will Learn

• Why being interested is more important than being interesting
• How early hospitality jobs can teach lifelong leadership lessons
• Why asking for help strengthens relationships and teams
• How great leaders create the conditions for others to thrive
• The role trust plays in high-performing organizations

Join us for this episode of the Take Command Podcast as Jayney Howson shares lessons on leadership, learning, courage, and human connection in an age of artificial intelligence. From restaurant tables to the forefront of AI-powered learning, her journey offers a powerful reminder that our greatest advantage isn’t technology alone. It’s our ability to think, connect, adapt, and grow together.

Please rate and review this Episode!

We'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review helps us ensure we deliver content that resonates with you. Your feedback can inspire others to join our Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast community & benefit from the leadership insights we share.

About the Guest

Cybele Negris is the CEO and Co-Founder of Webnames.ca, Canada's original dot-CA registrar and a provider of hundreds of domain extensions, web hosting, email, security products, and other online solutions. A serial entrepreneur, seasoned board member, speaker, mentor, and columnist, she has grown Webnames into a multi-million-dollar company serving some of the country's largest corporations, governments, law firms, and global Fortune 500 brands.

A Hall of Fame inductee of Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women and a nine-time winner of the PROFIT W100, Cybele serves as Vice-Chair of the Board of the Royal Canadian Mint and sits on the boards of BCAA and AGF Management, among many others. She is a columnist for Business in Vancouver, a sought-after speaker at events including TEDx, and a passionate mentor. She is also a second-generation Dale Carnegie graduate, part of a family legacy that now spans three generations of graduates.

What You Will Learn

• Why “feeling the fear and doing it anyway” is the key to growth
• How to recognize and move past imposter syndrome
• Why authentic, vulnerable leadership builds deeper connection
• How empowering smart people, rather than commanding them, creates stronger teams
• The power of mentorship, for both the mentor and the mentee
• How to turn adversity into a competitive advantage

Join us for this episode of the Take Command Podcast as Cybele Negris shares how courage, authenticity, and humility can transform the way we lead and live. Whether you are building a business, wrestling with your own self-doubt, or learning to step outside your comfort zone, this conversation offers honest, practical lessons for leading with resilience in an ever-changing world.

Please rate and review this Episode!

We'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review helps us ensure we deliver content that resonates with you. Your feedback can inspire others to join our Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast community & benefit from the leadership insights we share.

About the Guest:

Howard Hochhauser is the CEO of Ancestry, the global leader in family history and consumer genomics. After serving as the company's CFO and COO for more than a decade, he became CEO and quickly led a cultural and business transformation centered on customer focus, employee engagement, and innovation. Under his leadership, Ancestry has renewed growth while leveraging artificial intelligence to make historical records more accessible, searchable, and meaningful for millions of people around the world.

Howard is passionate about building organizations rooted in curiosity, transparency, and humility. He believes leadership is about surrounding yourself with talented people, listening carefully, and creating an environment where honest feedback drives continuous improvement.

What You Will Learn:

• Why humility is one of a leader's greatest strengths
• How curiosity fuels innovation and better decision-making
• Why feedback should be treated as a gift, not a threat
• How AI is transforming historical data into meaningful human stories
• The importance of staying approachable as a leader
• Why focusing on today's work creates tomorrow's opportunities

Join us for this episode of the Take Command Podcast as Howard Hochhauser shares how purpose-driven leadership, curiosity, and humility can transform both organizations and the people within them. Whether you're leading a team, navigating change, or embracing new technology, this conversation offers practical lessons for leading with authenticity in an AI-powered world.

Please rate and review this Episode!

We'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review helps us ensure we deliver content that resonates with you. Your feedback can inspire others to join our Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast community & benefit from the leadership insights we share.

About the Guest:

Ania Smith is the CEO of TaskRabbit, the global marketplace connecting people who need everyday tasks done with skilled local "Taskers." Born in Poland, she immigrated to Sioux Falls, South Dakota at 12, learned English, and went on to study business — including an exchange back in Poland — before earning her MBA at Wharton. She began her career in international development, moved through investment banking and consulting at L.E.K., and held leadership roles at Expedia, Walmart, and Airbnb before taking the top job at TaskRabbit at the end of August 2020.

Ania is known for her candor about ambition, her belief in running toward growth and discomfort, and her conviction that great leadership is fundamentally human. She leads TaskRabbit (now part of the IKEA family) with a focus on helping Taskers build meaningful income while keeping human connection at the center — even as AI reshapes the way we work. Hear more about her journey from a paper route in South Dakota to the CEO seat in this episode of the Take Command Podcast.

What You Will Learn:

• Why resilience is "getting up after the fall" — and how to stop catastrophizing setbacks
• Why careers are non-linear, and how lateral moves and new skills set you up to lead
• How humility ("hire people smarter than you") becomes a leadership superpower
• Why listening is the single most important skill of a good leader
• How to build relationships that last by keeping in touch when you need nothing
• Why human creativity and connection still beat AI's "generating to the mean"

Join us for this episode of the Take Command Podcast to explore what it takes to lead with grit, humility, and heart. Ania Smith doesn't claim to have all the answers — she'd rather hire people who do — but her journey offers clear, practical lessons for any leader navigating uncertainty and growth.

Please rate and review this Episode!

We'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review helps us ensure we deliver content that resonates with you. Your feedback can inspire others to join our Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast community & benefit from the leadership insights we share.

About the Guest:

Eric Ries has been a force in entrepreneurship and innovation for over twenty years. He is the creator of the Lean Startup method and the author of The Lean Startup, The Leader’s Guide, and The Startup Way. His ideas have shaped how startups and large companies approach growth, decision-making, and innovation.

As a founder, Eric has applied his principles with ventures like The Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE); Answer.AI, an AI research lab; the Lean Startup Co.; Virgil, a legal services startup; and IMVU, where many of the concepts that became the Lean Startup method were forged. He has served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School and IDEO. Eric lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children.

What You Will Learn:

• How to create systems and cultures that encourage experimentation and learning
• Lessons in influencing and leading without formal authority
• Why long-term thinking matters for both founders and teams
• The importance of compounding small, deliberate actions over time
• Insights on how Lean Startup principles can transform established organizations

Join us for a deep dive into leadership, innovation, and the mindset that allows founders and executives to build companies that last. Eric’s approach is practical, disciplined, and forward-thinking. Tune in to gain strategies that go beyond theory and into the real-world application of building lasting organizations.

Please rate and review this Episode!

We'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review helps us ensure we deliver content that resonates with you. Your feedback can inspire others to join our Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast community & benefit from the leadership insights we share.

About the Guest
Janice Bryant Howroyd is the Founder and CEO of The ActOne Group, a global workforce solutions company operating in more than 30 countries. She is recognized as the first African American woman to build a multi-billion-dollar enterprise.

A best-selling author and global speaker, she has been honored for entrepreneurship, leadership, and innovation, and has advised leaders across business, government, and education. Her work focuses on connecting people to opportunity through a deeply human-centered approach to business.

What You Will Learn:

• Why “no shortcuts, no excuses” is a leadership mindset for long-term success
• How asking better questions and listening drives stronger outcomes
• Why resilience is essential when facing adversity
• How AI is changing work but increasing the need for human skills
• Why people must remain at the center of leadership and growth

Please rate and review this Episode!

We'd love to hear from you! Leaving a review helps us ensure we deliver content that resonates with you. Your feedback can inspire others to join our Take Command: A Dale Carnegie Podcast community & benefit from the leadership insights we share.