Episode Details

For full show notes go here: www.chiefmaker.com.au/93

This week we are joined by Isabelle Nussli. She is the former US CFO and chairperson of the NUSSLI Group, a leading international provider of portable and permanent infrastructures for sport and cultural events at exhibitions just like the Olympics. They built the iconic Bondi Beach Volleyball Stadium at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, and have been involved in FIFA World Cups.

Isabelle is the author of the Amazon bestselling book "Cockfighting: Solving the Mystery of Unconscious Sabotage at the Top of the Corporate Pyramid". Drawing on the latest research and interviews with more than 70 chairpersons and CEOs, Cockfighting presents Isabelle's findings on the conscious and unconscious drivers of conflict, and provides invaluable tools for increasing self awareness, overcoming differences, and facilitating collaboration for those at the very top of the corporate world.

Isabelle has an MBA from Kellogg School of Management and is currently the Chief Energising Officer for Leverage-Your-self.com, where she leads a team of experts in business, behavioural economics, and applied psychology that support business in navigating change and capitalising on their organisations' full potential.

• I conducted interviews with 70 chairpersons and CEOs, which produced novel insights and led me to the writing of the book Cockfighting. What was really, really interesting was that I got a glimpse of something more profound behind the machinations of leadership that neither law nor corporate governance could explain, and this something was the human element, a part that I've always been fascinated by.
• So we had a strong value system in place, that I mentioned the handshake, which is something beautiful. Of course we all need contract, but it's still beautiful, still today, if you can go with a handshake. But I also learned where money came from. So while I was still in school I started to work, because I earned my bike, I was folding cardboard boxes for a potato chips producer and I was so proud that I had my first bike.
• During business school when my, at that time partner, now husband, asked me to follow in his footsteps. And I thought wow, quite big footsteps! So I approached the dean of my business school, former dean, and I laid out my options, and things I could have like, I thought ... It was not my plan to go back to Switzerland anytime soon. I thought maybe China or India or US. So h