Standout leadership lessons from the CNBC Changemakers Summit 5/26/26

Speaker A: Julia Boorstin. Here this week on Changemakers and power Players, we're doing something a little different. We recently hosted the third annual CNBC Changemaker Summit in New York City. And it was such an incredible day of candid conversations with some of the most fascinating women in business. We decided to pull some moments that really stuck with me. The first moment is with our surprise guest for the day, Oscar winning actress and producer Sandra Bullock. Along with Warner Brothers co chair and CEO Pam Abdy, they're teaming up for Practical Magic 2, which Bullock is co starring in and producing and Warner Brothers is releasing this fall. We begin the conversation on what's fueling Warner's epic run at the box office and the Academy Awards. Take a listen. In the Changemakers and power players spotlight, you didn't just bring original ideas to the box office. You partnered with filmmakers in a way that could tell their stories on a much broader stage. And I think about Ryan Coogler's, Sinner's, Paul Thomas Anderson's One battle after Another. And with these relationships you have with filmmakers, you drove Warner Brothers to record box office, record, um, award recognition. What is it about your leadership style that's enabled you to accomplish this?

Speaker B: Well, I love what I do and I love movies and I've always loved movies. And you know, my partner Mike and I, we really approach. Our leadership style is to bet on filmmakers and bet on talent and let the talent and the filmmakers drive that storytelling. And our job is to give them the resources to give them the best marketing and distribution team to get their stories out into the world and to provide collaboration with them. And we're here for them when they need us. But really give them the space to tell the best story that they can tell. It starts with the filmmakers.

Speaker A: What about the subject matter? You could be making any movie. There are rumors about Speed 2. You could be doing anything. Why? Why this movie now? Why this subject matter?

Speaker C: Really great question. Um, I'm a true believer in timing. Is there for a reason? And if you just lean into it a little bit, especially as the women that we are, we just happen to know instinctually and intuitively some things that we can't explain, nor can science explain it right now. But it wasn't right. It wasn't right. It wasn't right. I still had a bad taste in my mouth from inexperience. But it was just one day. I said, if we could say this and the characters could be this and it could have this. And turns out that's what Alice Hoffman wrote. And I Go. It's not an accident that. That's what I was feeling at the time. And then because of schedules and it benefited the film we shot in London, where the tax incentives were so great for the film. We could make the film emotionally and visually that we wanted to make for a price that Warner Brothers could afford. Yeah.

Speaker B: And it was important that, you know, we have Sandy, Nicole, Denise Denovi, our, uh, female producers. Our filmmaker is a woman. Um, I think the time was like, they could have made this many times probably over the years, but I just feel like things are meant. Things are meant to happen when they're meant to happen and on the pace and the time that they need to happen. And I believe it was meant that we were to come into each other's lives, uh, at this time. I think this movie. I love this movie. This movie is about sisterhood. This movie is about, you know, being there for the next generation. This is about truth. It's about when you. When you sometimes tell lies to protect people. That may not be the right path. And then you have to go set on the right path. The movie has so. It's so thematically rich and I think has never been more urgent than to tell this kind of story about community, about family and about sisterhood than the times we're living in.

Speaker A: You've been very good at social media. Warner Brothers has really had. Been very strategic. I'm not even talking about practical magic. But in general, Warner Brothers has really used social media to drive results at the box office. And I'm sure also in terms of the long tail of social media, Sandra, you just joined Instagram in less than 24 hours. I believe in 24 hours, 4.3 million followers. Now I think you're at six and a half million.

Speaker C: So just family. Mostly family.

Speaker A: But so I think about the complex social media strategy Warner Brothers has deployed. And then I see you pop onto Instagram. What's happening here?

Speaker C: Yeah, it didn't feel like it would ever be my thing. Um, I do have two kids, and I was like, I need to figure this out. So I'd been on social media, but quietly, um, just to, you know, learn, um, and shop. And, um. Ah, it just. It was presented very early on. Is this something that you would do? And I was very reticent. And then this.

Speaker B: I feel like I asked you.

Speaker D: This was like.

Speaker C: You're like a gnat. She just, like, she gets so excited and you're like, well, if she feels comfortable. I said, let me. I never jump on anything. Anything. I'm not spontaneous. I need to plan. I need to think about it. How does that affect. What can I contribute? How badly can I fuck it up? Um, which. That will come. And I'm just going to lean into that. Um, and it was just a really smart conversation we continue to have. And then found a great company of women that had helped several girlfriends of mine, and I love what they're doing. And I went, okay, talk to me. Tell me what you see. Because if I need to be able to make myself look like an idiot and have fun, I will not be doing selfies or makeup tutorials. Or as my sister said, she goes, if you do a makeup tutorial, don't lean out of the filter. I'm like, what about me says that I'm gonna wake up and do a makeup?

Speaker E: No one.

Speaker C: I didn't do this when I came. Three other people outside did this. This is not how I do school drop off. There's an ugly bun on my head and some leftovers up here. Um, but once I realized how creative I could be with them and I said, this doesn't feel right. But if we do this, make it organic, make it just about the film. Honoring the film, honoring the moments in the film, honoring those who are the reason the film is here again. We had a rough road. Getting. It was really easy at the beginning, but then the world and climate and the fiscal side of things changed dramatically while we were trying to pull it together. You cut the budget, you find the way to do it. You get creative, everyone gets on board, you cut your fee, you do. But if that's the way that journey was, I was like, let me toe dip and let me be honest about who I am. Like, she's honest. When you get in a room, I'm not a pit bull, but I'm like a little. Like a little terrier.

Speaker B: You can be a gnat, too.

Speaker C: I can be a what?

Speaker B: A gnat, too.

Speaker C: No, I know that.

Speaker F: Yeah.

Speaker C: But it's much smaller than what you are. Um, you're like pitbull and a gnat. So it's like, gnat's not really dangerous. It's just annoying. Like, she's dangerous. So I'm excited to see how I can contribute and if it works, after the film is over, maybe I'll do a makeup line. So not happening. Um, and I want to know what it's about creatively and be a part of the voice to help support something so many people work very hard on. So just for that reason, it's made sense. And I Had good help.

Speaker A: One of the things that's crazy about the user generated content around practical magic is now there are all these AI tools. If you search for a trailer for the movie, all you will find is AI generated trailers with AI generated versions of you and Nicole Kidman.

Speaker G: We heard that yesterday.

Speaker A: Bruce, has you seen them?

Speaker B: No, I didn't look at it. We were with one of my colleagues yesterday who's on the corporate side, and he went to like see that, the trailer. Cause we haven't, we haven't really. We haven't dropped the teaser yet that we showed at Cinemacon.

Speaker A: There are a lot of fan generated ones.

Speaker B: Well, that's exciting. I, uh, know it's not great, but it's also exciting because that means that there's a desire for it and that means that people want to come and play with the movie, you know, and

Speaker A: they definitely want to play. But for you as an actor, Sandra, is it weird that people are using AI to create fake trailers with your image?

Speaker C: Well, there could be worse. With my image. I haven't seen it, but I've seen the AI of me and my kids and we're laughing so hard. I'm like, I'm so sorry because I've hidden their faces for so long, but just what they've chosen. I'm like, I'm so sorry. I said, but it's, you know, it's here. We have to observe it, we have to understand it, we have to lean into it, we have to use it in a really constructive and creative way. Make it our friend rather than. I mean, we have to be incredibly cautious and aware of it because there are people who will use it for evil and not good. But I do feel that there's a place for it. Um, I wish mine were better. I wish there was just like, I see mine, I'm like, no, it's good, but I think, you know, um, but it's here.

Speaker A: That was my conversation with Sandra Bullock and Pam Abdy. Speaking of Hollywood. I also spoke with Oscar nominated actress Naomi Watts at this year's Changemaker Summit. She was named a changemaker not for her work as an actor, but for how she has worked to destigmatize menopause. She turned her own experience with early menopause into Stripes Beauty, a brand built around one of the most underserved markets in consumer health, with a mission to rewrite a narrative that's been off limits for far too long. Many of us in the room know, uh, you as an actor and you've been in so Many iconic roles. But we named you to the changemakers list because of your work with Stripe, Stud Beauty. And you've really led the charge to destigmatize the conversation around menopause. What's fascinating to me is you were struggling with early menopause yourself, and you could have just done that privately. What made you decide to build a business around it?

Speaker D: Yeah, I would say I felt really frustrated. I felt very alone and very scared. Um, some people might say it was a crazy idea, and I certainly thought of that as well. I thought if I ever were to utter the word privately, I mean, publicly in my industry, it would be career suicide. It's such an ageist industry. Um, I'd already been through hiding my fertility issues and it didn't feel good. Um, and so when I got to perimenopause, um, and then menopause straight after, it just felt like too much to carry, too much of a secret. Why not actually just name it? Own your story and try to see if you can connect with others to see if it is meaningful in any way. And, you know, I certainly didn't think, oh, my God, I'm going to be the menopause lady. When I was growing up, um, I dreamed of being an actor and telling stories. But in a way, this is another extension of what I was already doing, which is trying to move people, trying to connect people, people to their own stories and see it reflected whether it's on the screen or in a jar of product or just come join our website, join our community, learn about what your body's going through, get ahead of it and don't fear was so fascinating

Speaker A: about when you launched this product line. It was products, content, community. It was 2022, and before then, there really wasn't a lot in this space. There was not certainly as much as there is now. And in the past couple of years since you kicked this off, it has really become more of a public conversation. But back then, this was not seen as a business opportunity. But how did you recognize a commercial opportunity before others did?

Speaker D: It felt like it was too quiet. Although I did become aware of, um, the conversation being more open in the uk. Um, and in fact, I was on my. I wouldn't call it a burner account, but I had a private Instagram account where I was sort of like sleuthing around, trying to find, with key searches, um, any information that I could, um, and it just seemed like, why isn't there any information? Why is it so hard? Why is it so taboo? Um, when we are Half the population.

Speaker C: Why?

Speaker D: You know, it's just biology. It's just a health thing that we should be able to navigate with pride and optimize our health. And so, uh, I really tested the waters amongst my own community. I asked other friends, I made estrogen dip jokes. And, um, I talked about it with my kids. Even one kid said, I said, do you know what menopause is? Because they'd heard me on the phone many times, say the word. And one of them said, isn't it when you wet the bed, mom? Because they'd crawled into bed and I'd had nights where I'd sleep and not really wet the bed, but yes, the bed was wet. Um, ah. Or, you know, one even said, isn't it when old ladies die? And look at that. I mean, why doesn't the education start as early as, you know, sex ed in sixth grade? You know, it's just part of the story.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker D: Yeah, part of the story.

Speaker A: And also a story that you're changing the way the narrative goes. Seems like the risk you took paid off just looking at the award winning roles you've played in the past couple of years.

Speaker D: Yeah, I've been lucky. Um, Ryan Murphy, producer, came to the sort of this chapter of my life and he was very aware of the work I was doing in the advocacy space of menopause. Um, and then he's just sort of built it in to, ah, certain scenes where I talked about menopause even. And that's happened a couple of times since I've owned it. Um, a show that I did with Lena Dunham called Too Much. And there's really nothing wrong with it. The whole point is to normalize it so that we can speak comfortably with our partners, with our co workers, with our bosses, with our children. And um, yeah, just so people can understand what we're going through. I mean, we have so much empathy for children who are going through puberty when their hormones go haywire.

Speaker A: Um, I have one of those children right now.

Speaker D: I'm sure many of us do. And you know, when they slam the door in our faces or roll their eyes or start screaming, we go, oh, I know, I get it, I understand, honey. You know, but we don't get the same empathetic reactions as a woman who's going through those physiological changes. Plus high pressures, probably at work, high pressures, um, you know, possibly in their marriages, um, you know, ailing parents even, who knows? And an emptying nest or if there's kids involved, you know, so there's a lot, uh, for A woman to hold at this point. And so taking the taboo and stigma out of the menopause message was just very important to me.

Speaker A: That was my conversation with Naomi Watts. Next up, uh, a leader with one of the most high pressure, high stakes jobs anywhere, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. She's running the largest police force in the country with 50,000 employees, and she's been modernizing this legacy institution under intense public scrutiny. She gave a fascinating look into how she's driving transformation at scale. Take a listen. Another theme of your career has been technology. And from the time you worked in counterterrorism, you were really interested in utilizing the latest technologies. Now, I have a question about another balance. The balance of modernizing with the latest systems and the benefits from that, and deploying these technologies that could keep people safe with concerns about privacy.

Speaker F: Yes. I am known in city government as a modernizer. I do not accept the status quo just because it is the status quo. In fact, oftentimes I reject it if that status quo doesn't best serve New Yorkers and in government. But I assume in lots of other industries, there is always a, or there is often the inclination to rest on or rely on what you know, even if what you know isn't what you need. And I think that that problem is more profound in government where there is less competition. Um, so I really, uh, started my career by trying to modernize the New York City Police Department, which at the time was basically as far as tech was concerned in the Stone Ages. This was like, in like 2010, your average police officer in New York City didn't have a phone, didn't have an email address. Like, none of the basic tools, even that me and you used to, uh, do our jobs day in and day out were available to our cops. But you are correct that as technology goes in particular in policing, you have to be very thoughtful about other equities. And among them, quite obviously, is privacy. And so what we do. My approach to developing technology in government, but specifically for policing, is not to think about privacy concerns as an afterthought. Privacy needs to be accounted for and addressed when you are still conceiving of the idea or the tool that you want to build and those protections or that policy, whatever it's going to be, have to be built into the tool. So, for example, we built like a ring of steel around New York City. Cameras, license plate readers, radiation sensors, um, gunshot alarms. And before we even started building and developing, before the first camera went up, we had put in place a policy that said for Example, most obvious, we are going to delete all video within 30 days unless there is a specific law enforcement or public safety need to keep it longer. Um, and that type of thing thing is built into the system.

Speaker A: So how do you keep up on the latest technology? Because I feel like every day there's a new headline about new AI tools, but also cybersecurity risks and the risks that come with AI. How are you watching and determining what to implement next?

Speaker F: So I have to say I have always been blessed by working with team of people who are quite gifted, talented at uh, what they do. I like to joke with my chief of staff that if ever I leave government service, I am going to open a talent agency because I really have an eye for spotting, um, talent. And our tech team at the NYPD is always looking at the latest and greatest, not usually in policing, because oftentimes the NYPD is the largest police agency in the country. We're usually ahead of all other policing agencies, but we look at what private businesses are doing, we look at what is emerging, and then we figure out how can we incorporate that into our operations.

Speaker A: That was NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Our summit also included a conversation with two mission driven leaders who had to figure out how to adapt to when the rules change mid game. Val Ackerman, Commissioner of the Big East Conference, and Sherry Weston, President and CEO of Sesame Workshop, producer of Sesame street, which lost critical funding. They both shared how they stayed anchored through major disruption. And you have both managed strategic pivots of your organizations during moments of crisis. Val, let's start with you and let's go back a decade. You took the helm of Big east at a moment of transition. It had just lost its football program and you were given the task of figuring out what the next step is going to be. How did you think about shifting focus to basketball and maintaining momentum?

Speaker H: Well, I would say first of all, it's great to be with my colleague Sherry. Um, for me that part was easy because I'm sort of a basketball head. Uh, my background has been as a player. Uh, I worked for many years at the professional level in the sport. And so when the opportunity presented itself to me to in effect bring back the Big east, that part, um, not having football was pretty easy for me, but it was a lot of work. Um, we had to really rebuild the infrastructure from scratch. Um, this was at a time when the Big east was a victim of, of so called realignment. Those of you who follow college sports know that, um, it's possible that a school could Leave a conference, join another conference. And that's when in effect happened to the old, to the old. Big E. Schools were leaving and the new league had to pick up, um, with some new members and go from there. So for me, um, it was a real challenge, frankly to do it. I had to rebuild the staff and um, get a lot of the business structures back in place. Um, but you know, it was just sort of a matter of taking every day one at a time, um, making sure you have the right people on the bus with you. Because those kinds of endeavors can't be done by a single person. They really do take a lot of manpower, woman power, et cetera. And the good News is, now, 13 years later, the Big east is in a pretty good spot. And uh, I look back, I wouldn't want to go through, um, what we did then again, but it was very exciting to be part of that.

Speaker A: And Sherry, you were appointed CEO of Sesame Workshop. I understand you were not looking to be CEO, one of an accidental CEO as we call it. But you were appointed CEO in 2024 at quite a time. Its partnership with HBO ended. Federal funding was cut. How did you approach finding new distribution in such a volatile time?

Speaker G: Well, listen, we had no choice because you're right, our HBO um, deal, which was 10 years old, we knew it was coming, um, to an end. But it was also a time that unfortunately the media landscape has changed drastically. So most people don't understand that Sesame Workshop is a non profit organization. But we have the luxury of having these, um, earned revenues through media distribution, our licensed ip, to help support our mission driven work in addition to philanthropic support. So that media landscape revenue changing drastically meant that we had to really rethink our entire revenue model. We had to downsize, which is always so difficult for any organization and I think maybe even more so for mission driven organizations because everyone there is so purposeful and believes in the mission. And so it's very hard. But I think it also gives you the advantage of feeling so purposeful that, that you're focused on how do we sustain this work, how do we make sure Sesame street is there for the next generation? And we did prevail. We have an incredible deal now with Netflix, which means, um, you know, again, the landscape economically has changed, but we're now reaching more children than ever before. Netflix reaches children in 190 countries, 300 million households. And that combined with our longtime partnership with the PBS, so we reach all children across the U.S. and um, YouTube means that from a mission standpoint, we're in A stronger position than before.

Speaker A: Sheri, what do you think your leadership superpower is that's enabled you to navigate all these complicated organizations and media companies?

Speaker G: Well, I would say probably it's being able to put myself in someone else's shoes. Because I do think that when you can look at what would make it a win win versus just trying to win, um, often you can get where you're trying to go and maybe even further. So I think it's about bringing people together.

Speaker A: I want to hear a little bit more about your mission and your purpose because in this time of losing funding, instead of narrowing your vision for Sesame, you actually expanded it and you leaned into a humanitarian purpose beyond just education, bringing resources to refugees, and education to refugees. Tell me a little bit about that decision to lean into this new mission as well.

Speaker G: Well, I would first correct to say that I don't think it's a new mission. And if you think about Sesame's origins, it was, you know, 1969 and it was because there was so much research that showed that children who didn't have access to quality early learning, children in poverty, were falling behind and they didn't have the skills they needed when they arrived at school, schools. So Sesame started as a huge experiment. Could you use media? You know, it was television, its day to teach, but more importantly to reach those who needed it most. So when I look at taking Sesame to, um, the Middle east to reach displaced children, you know, when we realized there were more displaced children than any other time Since World War II, that was really after the Syrian crisis. Today there are more displaced children than any other time period. But so to be able to bring Sesame to children who would have no other access to quality early education, who've left everything behind, and that's by creating local, um, Sesame content, but also partnering with those, um, organizations on the ground, to me, that is the most logical extension of our mission. And so it's really staying true to our origins. It's just, um, doing so in a way that's really relevant and that's meeting the needs of today's children.

Speaker A: That was Val Ackerman and Sherry Westin. The final moment we're going to share from our Changemaker Summit comes from the panel I hosted called AI for Good. With such a saria, founder and CEO of Bayesian Health, which uses AI to identify life threatening conditions before they escalate. And Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, CEO of Zero, which deploys AI to automate workflows for millions of small businesses. They delivered invaluable Insights and into navigating the age of AI. How do you advise leaders about how to embrace AI, Especially when they have to be careful. They're high stakes decisions for every company and you want to avoid hallucinations. Suchi what are you doing about that or what would you advise?

Speaker E: Absolutely. So when we're partnering with health systems, right, these are systems like Cleveland Clinic, Mayo, et cetera, like top leading systems, they are literally taking care of patients every day. The last thing we can afford is for me to go there, drop my software and screw crap up for anybody, right? So we have to be extremely thoughtful about building trust. And there's a few different levers for it. The first lever is that when we implement AI, we think very hard about measuring performance. So we essentially go into every single system and for their population measure performance. That means we are creating a process by which we are explaining to the leaders. Here are all the ways in which there could be impact and here's how we're going to measure and risk mitigate every step of the way along the way. So I think today people have a little bit of this idea that maybe AI in healthcare means you just take ChatGPT and then you dream up some high level diagnostic and then you drop it in a doctor's office. And if you did that a lot of bad things would happen. Um, and there are now plenty of studies showing that. And so in our uh, scenario, both in the way we've developed the software, which is we've developed it to be, you know, it's taken us many years of R and D to be able to build the kind of software where it has a lot of the guarantees and quality guarantees that we need for it to be deployed safely in patient care. And this is pretty cool. So um, on Friday we just got news that uh, we got recommended for CMS's reimbursement under uh, its breakthrough technology program. And that's CMS way of uh, incentivizing adoption. And we'll be one of the first multimodal AI programs to be reimbursed. So point being that each one of these is many, many layers of due diligence you have to go through to just make sure the software is built in a way that you really are thinking through all the risks and measuring that it's not going to screw up

Speaker A: and certainly different kind of risk. Now sukinder, do you think being a great leader is different now in the age of AI?

Speaker I: Yeah. And maybe go back one click. Uh, I'll tell you what I think Might be different. But before that, how do I get my leaders to adopt? Very simple. Like you make them get on the tools. So about a year ago, I was trying, you know, my board's like, AI, AI, AI, AI. It's like, okay, yes, we got it. You know, we've been doing traditional AI and machine learning for 20 years, but, okay, got it. So, um, and a year ago, forget what's happening today, I was like, you know what? I want to go build an app. So I got on replete and I built myself a styling app because I like fashion. And by the way, just so you know, it's like talking to the most sycophantic but inept engineer. Okay? That's what it's like. You're like, hey, build me this website. It looks amazing. I'm like, this button doesn't work. And it's like, um, I'm so sorry, Sukhinder. You know, let me do. Let me redeploy code. I was like, hey, it still doesn't work. I mean, like, sending something to production was interesting, but then I was like, I learned a lot about what was possible, right? And so in our board meeting, before the board meeting, we ran a workshop. We put all our board members together with a leader from Xero, and they had an hour to, uh, ideate and build an app. So right now I'm trying, obviously, I'm trying to. We've just done a big deal with Claude, but I want to understand Claude coworking code on the desktop, right? Like, what more can it do? So I've given my leaders two weeks, my direct team. Like, you have two weeks to get installed on your desktop and try something, because, no offense, it's not enough that you can do glean so you can write. Well, like, we, we are a technology company, right? So even the non technical, all of you need to be builders. So I think kind of that's the way we've approached it. Um, is being a big lead a leader different? I'll tell you what is different. I think in a world of AI, particularly for those of us maybe who are builders of tech, for others, but for everyone, if you want to be a great user of AI, you have to be a bit of a systems thinker, right? You have to take a problem and be able to break it down into, like, 10 prompts. So I think everybody is, uh, system thinker a little bit. Does that make sense? I don't think that's very well understood. But I'm like, if you really want to take Advantage of AI. Even if you're creative, you have to stop list out the steps.

Speaker A: It's a system.

Speaker I: Um, so first piece of advice, how do you just take any problem, even if it's creating a styling app, go list out the 10 steps, spit them into, uh, any, uh, chatgpt, anything you want to try, watch what happens and you're going to sort of be training yourself to think as the systems thinker

Speaker A: and suchi final word, what does it take to be a great leader now in this AI age?

Speaker E: I think you have to be ready to pivot like next week. Like I think, um, it's funny, I learned about Myers Briggs as I was forming this company because I thought everybody was mostly the same. It just shows you how naive I was when I first founded the company in the way they worked. And then I learned about Myers Riggs and I was like, oh, there's ENTP and intj and so on so forth. And these various personality types. There are people who like predictability, structure, the rigid. And what was really interesting to me was that in the age of AI, basically things are changing so rapidly and I as uh, someone who grew up native to this field since I was 18 years old, to me it is um, completely unbelievable like how many new capabilities are opening up using the same technology. So it's both exhilarating. But you did your headcount plan using one thing three months later, like in December when Claude introduced their new framework and the new models, it's really dramatically better than what we had, which means there are lots of things where you would have done a headcount for that you now probably should completely differently plan what you're going to do. So I do think as a leader building a company, I mean startups are always about uncertainty, but that's a whole another layer of uncertainty. I really love strategy games, so for me this has been really fun.

Speaker A: That was Suchi Saria and Sukinder Singh Cassidy. I was so thrilled to be able to host our Changemaker Summit this year. I want to give a huge thanks to all the leaders who joined us on stage, along with the incredible audience who showed up in Manhattan and to you for listening. If you like this episode, make sure to subscribe to change makers and power players. I'm Julia Boorstin.