Nigel Travis has run Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin-Robbins as CEO of Dunkin' Brands since 2009. And he's as surprised as the rest of us at the resurgence of doughnuts. In this interview, Travis talks about how his background in human resources makes him a better CEO, why it's so difficult to find employees these days, and the No. 1 thing people like to buy with their doughnut (the answer will probably surprise you). Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Charlie Rivkin took over as the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America in late 2017. He is perhaps uniquely qualified for the role running the trade and lobbying organization for the Hollywood film industry; he worked in entertainment, including a stint as the CEO of The Jim Henson Co. before serving as an ambassador to France, followed by time as an Assistant Secretary at the State Department under President Obama. In an interview with Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal, Rivkin talked about why President Donald Trump hasn't been bad for the entertainment industry, the enormity of the overseas market for Hollywood movies, and why he's not at all worried about a content bubble. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Foodies will know the James Beard Foundation as a nonprofit that supports the culinary arts through scholarships, chef programs, and the James Beard Awards, sometimes referred to as the Oscars for chefs, restaurants, and cookbook authors. This year's awards were a first for Clare Reichenbach, the organization's new CEO. They were also notable for including more women and people of color than ever before. It was considered a bright spot after months of #MeToo allegations against some high profile chefs. Reichenbach has some big plans for the James Beard Foundation and its role in bringing change to the restaurant world, from getting more women into the restaurant business, to changing food supply chains. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Whether you're familiar with Qualcomm or not, you probably use their product (especially if you're reading this on your mobile device). The 30-something year old tech company makes the chips that help power the cellular technology we use today, found in iPhones and Androids alike. They've been in the news recently because some of the business they do in China could be at risk if the Trump administration escalates a threatened trade war. But as CEO Steven Mollenkopf explains, the most important and exciting work they do isn't concentrating on today — it's building for the technology of the future. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Bob Iger was less than two years into his role as CEO of Disney in 2007 when he sat down with us to talk about running one of the most well-known companies in the world. But even then, Iger was thinking about making some bold moves that would shape the company's future. For the first time, hear their extended conversation about why Iger wanted to buy Pixar, his reasons for experimenting with streaming early, and who Iger wanted to work with next (including George Lucas).  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Golf is hundreds of years old, and even today, it’s known more for its traditions than memes. And that makes for a tricky proposition for Jay Monahan, the newish PGA Tour commissioner. “Five years ago, when you came to a PGA tournament, we didn’t let you bring your cellphone on site," he said. Monahan talks with us about bringing social media onto the green, competing against other sports like football and what it’s like when your biggest stars are essentially freelancers.  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

White Castle announced this week that it will start serving the Impossible Slider, a traditional White Castle slider made by Impossible Foods, featuring their plant-based substance that mimics the taste and texture of ground beef — it even bleeds. CEO Lisa Ingram said the addition is about continuing to respond to consumer tastes. When vegetarians first started ordering sliders with only cheese and onions, the company updated its menu with veggie sliders. And now, a plant-based meat alternative. "This was a natural evolution for us," she said. Ingram spoke with host Kai Ryssdal more about why she wanted to partner with Impossible Foods, what it's like to run a company with family, and how she thinks White Castle stacks up to the competition.Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

The chief operating officer could be called the "second banana" position to the CEO, but it's often seen as a stepping stone to that top job. And while the COO position is most commonly held by men in the United States, as with the CEO, there's been an uptick in the number of women taking that critical COO position at high-performing tech companies. That's according to Leigh Gallagher, editor at Fortune. She says think Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook. Could this be the beginning of a Silicon Valley with more female CEOs? Or is something else going on here?Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

He's not a CEO now, but he once was. Now Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has a pivotal role in our economy and in President Donald Trump's economic agenda. On Feb. 26, he talked with us on stage at UCLA's Burkle Center for International Relations about taxes, the deficit, strengthening the middle class, sanctions and more. You'll hear the audience, largely made up of students, reacting to what Mnuchin had to say — sometimes hissing, sometimes applauding. At the end, Mnuchin answered some of their questions as well. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

In a unique deal, a handful of hospitals and clinics around the country are working together on something new: making their own pharmaceuticals. Their plan is to manufacture generic drugs that they say pharmaceutical companies charge too much for. Dr. Marc Harrison is the CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, one of the health systems involved. He talks to Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal about what convinced him to join the group, what he hopes the partnership will look like in five years and why he's watching what Jeff Bezos at Amazon is doing with health care, too. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

You may or may not celebrate Valentine's Day, but it's still one of the busiest days — no, weeks — of the year for these CEOs and their companies. Jim McCann is the founder and CEO of 1-800-Flowers, and when he talked with us back in 2014, he called this week the company's "Super Bowl." Then: Tariq Farid may have started his career as a florist, but he came up with a new business idea when he decided to use fruit instead of flowers and went on to found and run Edible Arrangements. He talked with us back in 2015. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.  

Warren Buffett, of Berkshire Hathaway; Jeff Bezos, of Amazon; and Jamie Dimon, of JPMorgan Chase, announced they would form a health care company together. We thought it was a perfect time to revisit this interview.We talked with Buffett back in 2012 about Dimon, the business decisions he regrets, and yes, eating Oreos for breakfast. Buffett had recently released a book with Carol Loomis, a longtime financial journalist who had covered Buffett's career. She joined him for this interview. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Larry Fink, the CEO of the giant asset management company, BlackRock (think pensions and mutual funds), wrote an open letter to corporate CEOs about social responsibility. Specifically, about how companies shouldn't just think about profits, they also should be making a "positive contribution to society." It's kind of a big deal, coming from a guy running a company with $6 trillion in investments to manage. Host Kai Ryssdal talks to Fink about why he wrote the letter and what he hopes will happen next. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Tim Mayopoulos joined Fannie Mae in 2009, shortly after the mortgage-backing company went into government conservatorship. He had left behind a career on Wall Street, where he worked for some of the biggest banks. Mayopoulos became CEO in 2012, but he says in the those early days at Fannie Mae during the financial crisis, "I wasn't sure things were actually going to be OK." He talks to host Kai Ryssdal about the crisis and the lingering effects it's had on Fannie Mae; why he's not convinced the legal entity, Fannie Mae, needs to exist; and about the affordable housing crisis.Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

You've probably heard of a corporate board, but what do they do exactly? Host Kai Ryssdal talks to Jena McGregor at the Washington Post about what a corporate board can and can't do, what its real responsibility is and how it might be changing in this post #MeToo era. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Susan Burton served six prison sentences in 17 years. Then she founded a nonprofit that helps formerly incarcerated women stop the cycle that has them returning to prison again and again. Since 1998, A New Way of Life Re-Entry Project has provided transitional housing and support services for over 900 women. Burton talked to Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal about her memoir, "Becoming Ms. Burton" which details how a lack of grief support services led to her spiral into addiction after the death of her young son and her journey to found A New Way of Life.Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

In the age of Amazon, The Home Depot (yes, it's The Home Depot) has managed to become one of the largest e-commerce companies in the U.S.  CEO Craig Menear tells Kai Ryssdal how a company known as the go-to place for remodeling your bathroom is transitioning to digital, and how growth doesn't always mean opening new brick-and-mortar stores. We also hear how, when your company operates in more than 220 retail categories, you end up with a lot of competitors. 

Dawn Ostroff's last job was running The CW, which was then a newly launched network aimed at young people. A little over five years ago, she left Hollywood to join Condé Nast, the magazine publisher behind such titles as Vogue and Vanity Fair. As president of Condé Nast Entertainment, Ostroff was charged with figuring out how to turn published magazine articles into films and television shows and more than that, to figure out ways to turn Condé Nast from a print company into a digital media company too. She talks to host Kai Ryssdal about how she keeps up with all the reading, whether there's a digital content bubble (and should we be worried), and how she got Condé Nast editors to trust her.  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

DeVon Franklin had been instrumental in developing Sony’s faith-based film branch with hits like “Heaven is for Real” and “Miracles from Heaven,” films that had small budgets but did well at the box office, much to the surprise of critics. He was at the height of his game when he told his boss, Amy Pascal, that he was quitting. He talked with us about starting his own company, Franklin Entertainment, and what it's like to produce faith-based films in a secular industry.  

When Sharon Price John was named the CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop in 2013, she was tasked with turning the DIY stuffed-animal retailer around. She talks to host Kai Ryssdal about what needed to change at the company, why she's not worried about technology replacing teddy bears and that time she launched her own toy company.  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

The car and home insurance business isn't exactly known for breakneck innovation, but for Tom Wilson, the CEO of Allstate, the industry is full of change. The company's had to grapple with more severe weather in the past decade, like Hurricane Harvey, than in years past. Then there are self-driving cars — will the automakers be the ones liable if an automated vehicle gets into an accident? Wilson talks to host Kai Ryssdal about that and about the economy, tax reform and why he set Allstate's minimum wage at $15 an hour. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

David Cordani, CEO of Cigna Health Insurance, acknowledges it's a tumultuous time to be running a health insurance company. But "it's energizing because there's so much need and opportunity to drive change," he says. Most of Cigna's business is in the employer insurance market, but it does operate on a couple of state health care exchanges. Cordani talks to Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal about how our health care system needs to change, why he wants to keep Cigna in the exchanges and why he sees the company's attempts to help solve the opioid epidemic as a social responsibility. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts. 

Bill Ackman is the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, but the companies he's probably most associated with are the ones he's investing in. As an activist investor, Ackman is known for buying a chunk of a company as a way to make changes to the company's board and the way the company's run. He's done versions of this at Target, JCPenney and Herbalife. His most recent project is ADP, the payroll processing company. He talks to host Kai Ryssdal about what he wants to have happen at ADP's board meeting on November 7, why he thinks it's an "honor" to be called an activist investor and why he's fed up with how company boards are run. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

...And he loves it. Tom Hayes is less than a year into running Tyson Foods, one of the largest meat companies in the world. Besides its eponymous Tyson chicken, the company includes a number of other well known brands like Hillshire Farm, Jimmy Dean and Ball Park. Since Hayes took over, Tyson has started selling antibiotic-free chickens and launched new initiatives around worker safety. He talks to host Kai Ryssdal about the benefits of being one of the biggest meat companies, the future of the meat on our plates (and yes, it includes plant-based protein), and what he's most likely cooking up in his own kitchen. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

The National Parks Service has its own fundraising arm, tasked with raising private money to keep the parks open and maintained. The National Park Foundation was established by Congress in 1967 in part through the efforts of Lady Bird Johnson and Laurance Rockefeller. CEO Will Shafroth has held the job since 2015. The National Park Foundation gave $126 million to the parks last year, boosting their annual budget of about $3 billion. Shafroth talked with us about why private funding is so important to keeping the national parks operating, their efforts to get more young people and people of color into the parks, and how he thinks about the National Park Service's $12 billion maintenance backlog. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Reshma Saujani founded Girls Who Code after running for Congress ... and losing. During her campaign, she toured a number of computer science classrooms and was puzzled at how rare it was to find women taking those courses. So she launched Girls Who Code, a nonprofit that introduces middle school and high school-aged girls to coding through after school clubs and summer programs. As the company's CEO, Saujani talks to host Kai Ryssdal about her elevator pitch to big tech CEOs, her goal to reach a critical mass of women in tech within a decade, and how a fictional book series she compares to "The Baby-Sitters Club" will help her get there.  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Hearst Communications is a 130-year-old company best known for its magazines like Cosmo, Elle, and Esquire. A year ago, it appointed Joanna Coles, then the editor-in-chief of Cosmo, as the company's first ever Chief Content Officer. She talked with us about her career in journalism and why she thinks magazines will never go away.Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Arne Sorenson is only the third CEO in Marriott's history and the first not to have "Marriott" as his surname. Last year, he oversaw the company's multibillion dollar merger with Starwood Hotels and Resorts, making Marriott the largest hotel chain in the world by far. Sorenson joined us from the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton in New York City to talk about how the travel ban has affected his business, that open letter he wrote to Donald Trump, why he hopes tax reform comes soon, what hotels of the future will look like and his personal tips for travel. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Satya Nadella is only the third CEO at Microsoft. When he took over that from Steve Ballmer in 2014, the company seemed close to trouble. It had entirely missed out on the rise of the mobile phone, was lagging in cloud technology and just didn't seem as cool as competitors in the industry. Nadella's leadership seems to be working. He talks about his leadership philosophy and the personal experiences that have shaped him in his new book, "Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone." Nadella talks to host Kai Ryssdal about Microsoft's future, the responsibility that technology companies have to make life better, immigration and tax reform, and more. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

When Rebecca Minkoff asked her dad for a loan to expand her eponymous fashion brand, he said no. Instead, he told her to call her brother, Uri, who has a background in tech. That's how Rebecca and Uri Minkoff ended up running the luxury fashion brand together. They talk to host Kai Ryssdal about why they like using technology to augment the shopping experience, their strategy for overcoming retail's recent slump, and what it's actually like working with your brother or sister (there's corporate couples counseling involved).  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

You've seen Chronicle Books whether you know it or not — they often pop up at unexpected retail outlets, like Sur La Table and Urban Outfitters. Tyrrell Mahoney is the newly appointed president of the company, but she's been with it for nearly two decades. She talks to host Kai Ryssdal about Chronicle Books' complicated relationship with Amazon, Grumpy Cat and the need for speed, and the flip side of selling your merchandise outside of a bookstore.  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

The number of female CEOs may be higher today than it was 10 years ago, but it's still not great. And in the last couple of months, some high-profile female CEOs have been forced out of their jobs. Julie Creswell at the New York Times and Jena McGregor at the Washington Post have both written about why corporate America has been so slow to hire women for C-suite positions and what happens once women get to those positions.  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

When David Hagan started at Boingo in 2001, the iPhone didn't exist, laptops didn't come with Wi-Fi chips and Boingo's airport Wi-Fi subscription fee was $74.95 a month. Today, the Wi-Fi company's networks are used by more than a billion people, and those users almost always expect that service to be free. Hagan talked to Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal about how Boingo figured out how to make money from free Wi-Fi, how the iPhone changed the industry and what he means when he says technology of the future will be "distributed within us."Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

For a good long while, Sherry Lansing was the highest-ranking woman in the entertainment industry, both as the head of production at 20th Century Fox and then later as the CEO of Paramount. Under her tenure, Paramount saw huge success with "Forrest Gump," "Braveheart," "Titanic," "Saving Private Ryan" and the launch of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. We talked about her life and career, which is also documented in Stephen Galloway's new biography "Leading Lady: Sherry Lansing and the Making of a Hollywood Groundbreaker." Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

It's officially summer, as you may have heard, so this week’s Corner Office is all about the business of vacations. Cruises, actually, under the umbrella of Carnival Corp. Carnival is one of the biggest travel and leisure companies in the world. Its brands include Carnival, of course, but also Princess and Holland America. This week, Kai talks with Arnold Donald, who’s been president and CEO of Carnival since 2013.  

Los Angeles International Airport is the second-busiest airport in the country and the fourth-busiest airport in the world. Oh, and it's also in the middle of a multibillion dollar renovation project. Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal talks to Deborah Flint, the CEO of Los Angeles World Airports, about it. Wait, airports have CEOs? Yes, she had that question at first, too. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Venmo. Bitcoin. If there's one company that's become synonymous with digital money, it's PayPal. On this episode of the Corner Office, Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal spoke with Dan Schulman, the who became CEO of PayPal in 2014. They talked about the future of digital money, how PayPal keeps closes tabs on its users in order to prevent fraud and how mobile banking could change the landscape of small businesses. According to Schulman, mobile banking may not destroy brick-and-mortar stores but re-envision them.  "If you go out 10, 15, 20 years from now, most stores are going to be distribution points for sending materials or products to consumers," Schulman said. "Or having consumers come in and pick up those products. But they'll be ordering those products and paying for those products through their mobile phones and online. And so there's a fundamental transformation going on. And PayPal's platform and scale that we have both on the consumer and merchant side is helping to enable that."

Glenn Kelman has been the CEO of Redfin since almost beginning of the online real estate brokerage. In this interview with Kai Ryssdal, Kelman talks about why technology hasn't disrupted the real estate market like it has other industries, what "Love in the Time of Cholera" has to do with his leadership style, and what he learned from his previous job at a tech startup."I started a software company with a couple other folks, it went public, we made plenty of money. And I thought it was this incredible mission but in fact, we sold software to Haliburton, we sold software to Frito-Lay and Pepsi and all these companies that didn't necessarily do good things. And at the end of it, all these people who I thought were my brothers in arms, where I thought we were doing something beautiful, actually it was just all about the money. And the deal that I made with my family and myself is that I was never going to do that again." Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

If we focused on preserving old buildings instead of building new ones, could we make our economy bigger and stronger? Stephanie Meeks is the CEO of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit that protects historic sites in the United States. In this interview with Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal, Meeks talks about why our economy needs old buildings, what types of places we need to do a better job protecting and how they prioritize what gets saved and what doesn't. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on Apple Podcasts.

You probably already know of 23andMe as the company that will analyze your DNA and then send you back a report on your ancestry. But whether or not you have a little bit of Neanderthal in your family tree is by far not the only thing your DNA can tell you. With new clearances from the Food and Drug Administration, 23andMe can now look at your genetic makeup and tell you your risk for some pretty widespread diseases, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's among them. Kai Ryssdal spoke with 23andMe CEO Anne Wojcicki about the changing business of genetics. 

Bill Cobb has a background in tech and spent years working for eBay. So it might be no surprise that as the CEO of H&R Block, he's partnered with IBM Watson this tax season. He talks about running a seasonal business, the kind of tax reform he'd like to see and who does his taxes. This interview was originally part of Marketplace's Make Me Smart, a new podcast hosted by Kai Ryssdal and senior tech correspondent Molly Wood. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on iTunes.Subscribe to Make Me Smart on iTunes.

In 2015, fashion icon Donna Karan stepped down from her role as chief designer of Donna Karan International and released a memoir, "My Journey," about her career and personal life. She talked to Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal about why fashion designers need to talk to their customers more; the person who advised her to get into fragrance; and the one item every man and woman should have in their wardrobe. Enjoy this interview from the Marketplace archives. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on iTunes.

Stacy Brown-Philpot took over as CEO at TaskRabbit less than a year ago. Today, she's announcing that the on-demand chore and handyman service will double the number of cities it operates in over the next six months. The first five include Cincinnati, Minneapolis, and Charlotte, North Carolina. Brown-Philpot also talks to host Kai Ryssdal about the changing nature of work and why she thinks working for companies like TaskRabbit is the future.  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on iTunes.

In this episode of Corner Office, Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Expedia and an Iranian immigrant, talks about Trump's travel ban and the travel industry. "Companies don't like uncertainty, travelers don't like uncertainty," Khosrowshahi said. Also, how Ticketmaster helped him convince Barry Diller to get into the online travel business and why those cheap United airline tickets might be a good thing for Expedia.Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on iTunes. 

When John Janick was an undergrad, he started a record company out of his dorm room called Fueled by Ramen. It went on to represent artists like Jimmy Eat World and Fall Out Boy, then later Panic! at the Disco, fun. and Paramore. Now he runs a considerably bigger company as the CEO of Interscope Geffen A&M Records. Janick was hand-picked by Jimmy Iovine to be the music industry legend's successor.Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on iTunes.

Sallie Krawcheck was one of the highest-ranking women on Wall Street. She was at Citigroup when the financial crisis hit, and she tried to convince her bosses to refund their clients some of the money they lost. That didn't go so well, and she was fired. After that, she ran Merrill Lynch, which had been acquired by Bank of America. Her division did well, but she was still pushed out. Now she's the CEO of Ellevest, a company she founded and which provides digital investment services for women. In her new book, "Own It: The Power of Women at Work," she looks at the reasons why gender diversity in business has stalled out, and what to do about it.Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on iTunes.

Peter Kim's first introduction to the garment industry came after a panicked phone call from his dad during spring break, when Kim was a student at the University of Southern California. The family business was in trouble and Kim needed to help get it back on track. Now, Kim runs a premium denim company he founded, Hudson Jeans. It's based in Los Angeles but the denim comes from Italy and Turkey while much of the manufacturing is now done in Mexico. Kim's paying close attention to what President Donald Trump does next on trade.  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on iTunes.

Equinox Holdings is the company behind the fitness clubs of the same name, as well as SoulCycle and a chain of no-frills gyms called Blink. Now, they're getting into the hotel business. Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal talks to Equinox CEO Harvey Spevak about what he realized about the way we work-out way before anyone else did, and what that means for the way we want to live.Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on iTunes.

In the 1960s, Bob Moog started making synthesizers. His company, Moog Music is still thriving, thanks to Mr. Moog’s ability to engineer instruments musicians love to play. Mike Adams heads up the company now and has done so for the last 14 years. Earlier this year he talked about Moog Music's legacy and enduring appeal to musicians with Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal. Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on iTunes. This episode was produced by Robert Garrova. Bridget Bodnar contributed. 

There weren't many female CEOs in 1994 when Ann Drake took over running DSC Logistics. In an interview with Marketplace host, Kai Ryssdal, she explains why she signed on to Paradigm for Parity, a coalition of CEOs who want to help get more women hired in corporate leadership.  Subscribe to the Corner Office podcast on iTunes.