The Chemistry of Leadership

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Mike Stern, CEO of the Climate Corporation, combines scientific rigor and empathetic leadership to innovate and build businesses in agriculture.

Episode Notes

Dr. Michael Stern, CEO of the Climate Corporation and Head of Digital Farming for Bayer Crop Science, shares how he blended a deep scientific knowledge with a distinctive leadership approach to build products, teams, and businesses in agriculture. Mike shares early education experiences that helped him choose a career in chemistry, his introduction to and fascination with agricultural science, some of his biggest career successes, and the way his research skills opened opportunities to develop and grow as a manager and leader. Mike shares his secrets to success and the way he’s used the tools of science to be a successful leader at the intersection of science, technology, and agriculture.

How does scientific research work together with business and environmental needs to create a better world? How do you make innovative decisions in a changing industry? How do you take advantage of disruption to strengthen your business? What role can science play in developing industry-defining technologies? How are traditionally low-tech industries being redefined by science and technology?

Guest Bio

Dr. Michael Stern serves as a member of the Executive Leadership Team and as Head of Climate Corporation and Digital Farming for the Crop Science division of Bayer. Based in St. Louis, Stern leads a diverse team that develops digital tools to help the world’s farmers understand their fields in ways that have never been possible before.

Before joining Bayer, Stern was the CEO of The Climate Corporation and a member of Monsanto’s Executive Team. Prior to his role at The Climate Corporation, Stern led Monsanto’s Row Crop Business in the Americas with responsibility for its corn, soy, cotton, specialty crops, licensing and crop protection businesses across the regions. During his tenure at Monsanto, which began in 1988, Stern has served in leadership roles for a variety of its businesses, including: Vice President, U.S. Seeds and Traits; President, American Seeds; CEO of Renessen LLC, a biotechnology joint venture with Cargill; and Director of Technology, Agricultural Productivity.

Stern is an active member of the St. Louis community, where he serves on the board of the Missouri Botanical Garden. He is married with three children.

Building Blocks

Think about your version of applying a skill set from one context into another context. Maybe you're really good at playing an instrument and you're just starting a programing job. How could your musical acumen help you as you build, refine and ship software code? Maybe you're somebody who's traveled a lot or you speak several languages fluently. How can your ability to think in a different language open you up to new opinions and perspectives among your colleagues? Think of something you're good at or specially trained in and ask yourself, how can that thing help me in some other area of my life?

Helpful Links

+ Episode Transcript

Mike Stern [00:00:05] For me, it was actually all about being willing to take some risks in your career and, you know, stepping through doors that open, that you didn't exactly know what was going to be on the other side. But, you know, it was going to be interesting, important. You were going to learn something and develop new skills and being willing to take some of those risks. And I think that's been kind of a hallmark when I do a kind of a self-assessment of my career, you know, being willing to step through some of those open doors that I never would have thought would have opened for me. And they did. And I took advantage of them.

Jesse Purewal [00:00:49] From Qualtrics Industries. This is Breakthrough Builders, a series of conversations with people whose passions, perspectives, instincts and ideas fuels some of the world's most amazing products, brands and experiences. I'm Jesse Purewal today on the show, how a deep love for chemistry and inclusive leadership style and the ability to experiment at scale enabled Mike Stern to deliver technology innovation to farmers all around the world and move the global agricultural industry forward.

Jesse Purewal [00:01:30] I am here with Dr. Michael Stern. Mike, it's great to have you.

Mike Stern [00:01:34] Pleasure to be here, Jesse.

Jesse Purewal [00:01:36] So, Mike, you and I have worked together a good bit over the years. You've been a big influence on me. I think you're an astute leader. You're a thoughtful teammate. You've been committed over the course of your career to learning and making decisions based on facts and data, but also on empathy. I kind of characterize you as somebody who has a three hundred sixty degree empathy of the facts, the feelings, the science and the skill sets you apart in my mind as as a builder. So I'd love it. Mike, if you could first lay out maybe a little bit about your background and your areas of expertise.

Mike Stern [00:02:09] Sure, Jesse. I have a PhD in chemistry, some formally trained as a scientist and have been utilizing that skill set for my entire thirty two year career. I've worked my entire career for Monsanto Company, starting out as a scientist in the laboratory and then ultimately moving up into various commercial roles, leading global businesses. And today I'm the CEO of the Climate Corporation, which is now part of all this as part of their crop science. And the Climate Corporation is a digital ag company that I've been the CEO for the past six years.

Jesse Purewal [00:02:44] And Mike, you are an adroit scientist. You went deep in chemistry early in your career. But I think even earlier in your life, how did you know as a young person that you had a deep interest in science? Was there an inflection point or a set of experiences that catalyzed that?

Mike Stern [00:03:00] I first really became interested in science when I was in middle school and in high school. And I did have a a chemistry teacher whose name was Ken Drewes. It was very inspirational to me. He made the science fun and interesting and I just really fell in love with chemistry. And so I took two years of chemistry from him at high school and often a professional go look back in there in the early years as a teacher who really made an impact on them. And Ken was that impact for me. And I went into my college career knowing that I was going to be a chemistry major. So and science and math, all these things came together for me in high school.

Jesse Purewal [00:03:42] You went from high school, I believe, before you started at Denison for your undergrad. You had the unique experience of getting to volunteer at at Johns Hopkins, is that right?

Mike Stern [00:03:53] Yeah. Yes, I did. Around my senior year in high school, I really knew that I enjoyed the lab work a lot and had a chance to do that, of course, in high school. And I grew up in Baltimore, so I had a chance to volunteer at Johns Hopkins University, working in a lab. And this was really my first lab experience where real scientists doing work. We were studying melanin, which were skin pigments and trying to understand their role in skin cancer or protecting against skin cancer. And I just remember being there every day and I had a little job. I was running Gel's in the lab and mixing some reagents, but I just thought it was the best thing I could have ever done. And it really excited me about going forward as I went to college and continuing my training in chemistry.

Jesse Purewal [00:04:42] I love it. So you go on to your undergrad in chemistry, you get a master's then from Michigan and Organic Chemistry, a PhD from Princeton. You do a postdoc, Mike. You get deeply committed to this field. So as you were going through that academic journey, did you have an end goal in mind or were you on this journey kind of in a mode of learning and discovering where it might take you?

Mike Stern [00:05:06] I definitely went into my professional training knowing I wanted to get a PhD in chemistry. So I felt very fortunate about that. And having three boys and seeing them go through the learning process of trying to figure out what their careers are and just other other kids. It was really, I felt in hindsight, very fortunate to know where I wanted to go and to get a PhD in chemistry and then do a postdoc as well. It wasn't exactly clear to me whether or not I was going to go into academics or into industry, and it just turned out that my PhD advisor, Princeton guy named John Groves, was also a consultant for Monsanto and Monsanto at that time was from our industrial scientific organization, was one of the leaders in the country, in the world. And I was talking to him about career opportunities and he connected me with the head of their corporate research group. That's kind of how I ended up in industry.

Jesse Purewal [00:06:05] Were you one of the few people who had a very highly specific domain expertize in the room in those early years or because of the industries where the company was engaged, did you find yourself with people who were very different depth sort of domain experts all around the company?

Mike Stern [00:06:26] You look back on your career and you find these watershed events or circumstances or opportunities that in hindsight do you see very, very clearly had a tremendous influence on your career and future growth? I joined a small group within corporate research, which was called Chemical Sciences, and it was about thirty five PhD scientists with all sorts of different backgrounds. So it was a very collaborative, very diverse group of highly well-trained scientists. The task of this particular group was to come up with these new innovations that were going to shape the future of the company going forward and to kind of push the envelope. And so I had this great opportunity to work very closely with a bunch of highly talented scientists early in my career.

Jesse Purewal [00:07:19] Mike, can you talk about the specific opportunity or the problem that you were trying to solve in in your role in that group? And I think the piece that you were involved in at that stage of your career was actually not just influential in pushing the envelope in your leadership acumen, but also taking the company in a new direction.

Mike Stern [00:07:38] If I recall, right in the mid nineteen nineties, it was clear that one of our key products, which was Roundup, was going to come off patent in 2000. And there was a big effort put together at the corporate level to begin to explore ways to make the active ingredient glyphosate, as well as formulate that product to make it essentially cheaper and better, because we knew we would be facing generic competition four or five years into the future. And so I had the opportunity to be able to go ahead and lead this entire project within Monsanto. I was actually called G50, which stood for cutting the manufacturing and formulation cost of glyphosate by 50 percent. This was really my first foray into the ag industry and it was also my first role moving really out of the laboratory to be a truly a technology manager. And so it was a very big developmental opportunity for me, but it was also incredibly impactful to the company. And over those four years, we came up with all sorts of new technology that actually is still being implemented in use today. I learned a lot about managing scientists and just managing people in general still had this, but in the context of science.

Jesse Purewal [00:09:00] And Mike, you obviously had domain expertize that allowed you to get where you needed to get cognitively around the product, around the science. But as you took on more and more of that management accountability, Mike, how did you shore up your understanding of the business and use that understanding to bring the organization along?

Mike Stern [00:09:21] It's really a question about my career trajectory. And after working on this special project, this G 50 project, which, of course was very visible within Monsanto and really began to operate at the interface of the science as well as the business from that work, I actually began to get more attention from the commercial team and and people began to see me not only as a science leader, but also as a commercial leader. Those opportunities came my way because of the work I was doing within science. I began to think of myself now as someone who could actually not only understand the science, but now I could actually move more into running these businesses. And in fact, that was kind of my career path. And it was also my first realization that my science training was actually going to serve me very, very well in business. Know the rigor of how you approach a problem of framing it in designing experiments. I had the same kind of fundamental processes hold for business as well.

Jesse Purewal [00:10:25] And Mike, about 10 or 12 years ago in that time when we were getting to know each other, you and the team would talk a lot about what I remember as as technology parity, that even if one company in agriculture had a technology edge one year in the product or somebody had a distribution advantage, at some point, the steady state that you and the team were long term scenario planning around was just like the network might get commodities and telco or the chipset might get commodities and computing, that the seed and chemistry technology could get to parity within a competitive market. And so I remember you looking out at the market and saying, boy, we. I have an opportunity to differentiate with former customers in some different ways. Can you talk about that reflection of what you learned in that point?

Mike Stern [00:11:14] If you're an innovative company or a company that is driving innovation, it's all about continuing to do so because ultimately new innovations do become commodities and you need to be moving on to the next thing. What's interesting about the business that we were in, particularly the seed business, was we actually drove this parity because of a decision we made early on to license our biotechnology traits broadly across the industry versus just keeping them to ourselves and our own brands. There was a lot of debate about that. But ultimately, by licensing these very innovative biotech traits and new technology to to the industry, we were able to get on virtually all the acres, not just our 30 percent market share. And so it was a it was clearly a good business decision to be able to do that. But it also created challenges, as you mentioned, if you're going to take your your new innovations and actually allow your competitors to utilize them as well, then you have to begin to think about how to compete on different dimensions. And we had several different dimensions that we were we were developing. First of all, we had gone out and bought 30, 40 seed companies, small independent seed companies. So we had a variety of different brands, which created a variety of different segments in the marketplace. So we were going to compete in this, of course, where you and I got to work together a lot on what would be our brand strategy to differentiate ourselves, what were the segments and how could we take these brand assets and align them uniquely across these different customer segments in the marketplace. So we had to really think hard about how we were going to compete differently. And so it was in brands, it was in brand equities, it was in service for sure. It was in our in a multiple distribution channels that we were operating in because of the brands that we had. So it was very, very different and it was very disruptive to the industry for us to go ahead and actually bring multiple different brands together under one roof that would actually be competing in the marketplace through different channels. But we felt that this was going to be a true differentiator. And of course, that was there was an awful lot of work done to figure out how do we bring this to the marketplace to be successful.

Jesse Purewal [00:13:35] And Mike, can you talk about the way that those kinds of decisions help evolved the category to potentially become more grower centric, more farmer centric? You were in some ways with these decisions you were making on behalf of driving different value propositions to different segments, forcing sort of a reckoning around a legacy retail business that had been well-established for many decades. So what was that disruption like as you collaborated with but moved things forward with your retail partners?

Mike Stern [00:14:10] It was very disruptive. And I think the learning kind of the high level learning there is that disruption often is at the core of true innovation. This was a big change for the classic egg industry, particularly in North America, and a big change and how Monsanto thought about our go to market strategy. And it became a it was definitely a challenge for our retail partners at the time. We're questioning our what is this? Is this all about going around us or we have your flagship brands and what does all this mean to us? And it took quite some time, several years to to work this out. But now, if you look at the industry today, virtually all the multinational major seed companies now have a multi brand strategy. Either they have gone through retail or they and then went out again and bought independent companies or had independent companies have now decided to go through retail. So this innovation, with respect to how we thought about going the market in the mid 20s, is now really just kind of standard practice in the seed business right now with some of the larger companies in the industry.

Jesse Purewal [00:15:21] Yeah, and it was really interesting at that time to either accept or reject, depending on which your null hypothesis was the notion that farmers didn't care about Brand or that, hey, these these are growers who are product driven and they're just following the yields are following the productivity. Very true that yields and productivity were exceptionally important. But I think it was really helpful to kind of empirically validate that there was an emotional importance of brand in sort of helping steward that relationship to kind of give permission to some of the decisions that maybe were were on the table in terms of doing something differently.

Mike Stern [00:16:04] Yeah. I think it goes all the way back to our earlier conversation about what formed my world view, if you will, with respect to management and in my training, and I always have gone back and and relied on the training in the physical sciences, you cause and effect designing experiments. And ultimately, for me, it was going back to the data. Let's talk to our customers. Let's look at this objectively. There's no way for us to kind of just feel our way through this. It's too disruptive. We need to ground ourselves in some fact and some data and conduct some experiments on how we would go forward. And that's exactly what we did. And as you know, this was not something that just happened in a single season. This evolved over many years. But ultimately, relying on on data and conducting experiments has been a hallmark of how I have thought about virtually every job I've had. And it's always served me very well.

Jesse Purewal [00:17:02] And Mike, you mentioned your time leading American seeds here in the US, but a few years after that, you're actually running the entire state and trait business for the Americas. Did you ever sort of pause at that juncture and say, wow, you know, we've done a lot. I've kind of done a lot with this company, grown a lot, had a lot of impact, or was it always like now like we're on a mission to feed the world, we're supporting the AG community. The work is never done. As you got to that stage, what were your reflections on where you'd gone and maybe where you wanted to go next?

Mike Stern [00:17:36] Running the business for the Americas I found to be incredibly exciting and challenging because the types of products we were developing in our seed business, we were really just beginning to launch them in South America. And of course, South America was a very different place, particularly in Brazil, in different culture, geopolitical situation. I went fairly rapidly from running American seeds to running the US business and to running the business across the Americas. I did step back every now and then and kind of pinch myself and ask the question, how did I get here? I was a chemist from Baltimore. I didn't grow up on a farm. And I and I look back on kind of where my career. Kind of how it evolved and where I ended up, I just can't imagine doing anything else. I'm passionate about agriculture. The things that we do really do make a difference. The products we bring to the marketplace does make a big difference on how we think about producing food globally. So it clearly, in some ways, I look back on it and look at what a surprise. I never if you would have interviewed me while I was doing my post-doctoral fellowship at MIT, that I would someday be running this global ag business with all sorts of neat technology associated with it. I don't think that was even in the realm of I would have said it was in the realm of possibilities for me early in my career. For me, it was actually all about being willing to take some risks in your career, stepping through doors that open that you didn't exactly know what was going to be on the other side. But, you know, it was going to be interesting, important. You were going to learn something and develop new skills and being willing to take some of those risks. And I think that's been kind of a hallmark when I do a kind of a self-assessment of my career, you know, being willing to step through some of those open doors that I never would have thought would have opened for me. And they did. And I took advantage of them.

Jesse Purewal [00:19:36] Mike, let me ask you to extrapolate that one one step further. So for kids who don't grow up on farms, who who they might have great skills and great education, deep knowledge base, it could get put to good use in a category like agriculture or digital agriculture. How do you attract those kinds of people, that kind of talent, into the business?

Mike Stern [00:19:59] Well, I think the industry today is even more attractive than it was 15 or 20 years ago. But today I feel it's a much more inclusive and diverse industry. And one of the reasons is that it is so clear today of the challenges that we have going forward. And agriculture is at the heart of many of these things, whether that be, you know, how are we going to feed a planet sustainably when we're going to put two or two and a half billion more people on the planet over the next 20 years with decreasing arable land, fewer natural resources? Absolutely a changing climate. So I think the industry itself is facing challenges that are necessitating us to bring in a much more diverse skill sets. My role today as the CEO of the Climate Corporation, just another example of that about how we think about data and data science in this area, in agriculture and of course, how that's bringing in a whole different set of folks that have never stepped foot on a farm, yet are bringing important skill sets and talents and creativity to to address some of the real challenges that we have. I think that's great for the industry. I think it's great for our business, you know, to be able to bring in a bunch of different types of folks trained differently. My experience as a scientist, just to kind of go back to my scientific roots and trying to solve really difficult problems, and I've seen this over and over again, not only my personal experience, but observing others really hard problems are more often than not having to there has to be solved at the interface of many different disciplines. And so cross-functional teams and diverse talent in them are the way you solve these really, really tough and important problems more often than not. And I do see that continuing and particularly in agriculture.

Jesse Purewal [00:21:57] And Mike, I do want to go next into your journey into becoming the lead of the Climate Corporation. But before I go there, when did you first detect. Digital experiences, data access to data on mobile devices starting to come into the agricultural decision making process in a meaningful way, whether that was at retail or whether that was with with farmers, but outside of corporate, you know, in in a in the ecosystem of the producers and then the input side, when did you start to realize that, OK, this is going to be potentially the next wave in agriculture?

Mike Stern [00:22:46] There wasn't an enormous amount of external things going on 10 years ago outside of weather, really. Of course, what you began to see are more weather apps and people tracking weather on their phones. But again, even 10 years ago, if you think about smartphones, they were just beginning to really proliferate. So it was a very, very different environment than where we are today. We began to see at Monsanto early on that we had an enormous amount of R&D data research data that we were developing just in bringing our products to the marketplace, particularly in the field and field trials, that we felt it was going to be underutilized. And it was just the beginning of of thinking about how can you bring these datasets together? Can you begin to go and extract more value from them than we had in the past? If you had the right type of data, the magnitude of data, you can really begin to do some unique things in agriculture, formulating in our minds that this, in fact, was going to be this next wave of innovation, this data science wave.

Jesse Purewal [00:23:55] And so Mike, late 2013, I think Monsanto decides to make an investment in data science in a big way by acquiring the Climate Corp, and it would become a meaningful part of of the next stage of your career. You were asked to take on the role of of CTO there as it became the data science business within Monsanto, even before Bayer have to think that there are there are some in your shoes who would have said, OK, I'm I'm leading the business for all the Americas as part of what was then a 15 billion, 16 billion dollar business. I'm owning a lot of revenue, many customers, many products, versus a more burgeoning almost startup within the business, totally different stage of maturity. And to boot, it wasn't even in your home in the headquarters city of St. Louis says out in California. So all all kinds of ways to disrupt yourself there. Can you talk about the choice that you made to go run climate and what compelled you to do it?

Mike Stern [00:25:00] You know, I look back on that and it was kind of a situation that I found myself in many times in my career. So, again, as you mentioned, I've been running the Burning the Americas, but only for 18 months. I'd been running the commercial businesses now for four or five years. But this broad, you know, about 80 percent of Monsanto's revenue and thousands of employees. And I was asked at that time to consider whether or not I would leave that job to go run the Climate Corp, which was, again, a small startup ahead. A hundred and twenty employees in San Francisco and Seattle and very, very different. I looked at it again, one more as as an opportunity. I've always been driven by, hey, what else can I learn? I've always been a learner and wanting to learn new things. And I just saw this as a an opportunity to really do something that I felt could make a huge impact on agricultural and Monsanto going forward. I felt as well that, look, to do this, you need to bring somebody in who has a knowledge of technology as well as a deep knowledge of the business. And so I looked at it as a way to actually combine two huge pieces of my training over the past at that point. Twenty seven years in the business and just an opportunity to come and use all my skills and learn brand new things and have this opportunity to create something brand new. And you don't often, particularly in agriculture, you know, you don't often have this opportunity to truly create something brand new. And I saw the Climate Corporation as that opportunity. So I took the leap. But I'm even more convinced now that digital agriculture, digital farming will be this next wave of innovation in agriculture and truly will have a big impact on how we think about producing food in the future.

Jesse Purewal [00:26:58] And Mike, how how do you put this into action? For farmers? Farming is an industry where highly considered purchases, you know, you make. Decisions for your planting year, your crop year that are generally irreversible. The value of data and driving a decision is unquestionable. Yet there's a need to sort of make that work for the farmer and educate them and sort of bring them along just like there would be any user group as you're rolling out new technology. So how do you bring your community of customers along on this journey and and have them participate with you in a way that's helping you build relevant product, generate relevant data, but at the same time acknowledge that, hey, we're experimenting and we're building and and this isn't tried and true stuff with with 20 year patents on it.

Mike Stern [00:27:52] Yeah, I know. This is--was and still is--all very new to farm farmers. I think our experience has been that it kind of tracks a typical kind of innovation distribution. We have early adopters and we've really relied heavily on that early adopter group. And so we kind of leverage that that network of of early adopters to really begin this journey today. We're well beyond that group. We're operating not just in the US. We're operating. Twenty three countries around the world on three continents have one hundred and fifty million subscribed acres from now on our platforms. One thing is for sure, farmers are always looking for innovation and they recognize that data is an underutilized asset on their farm. I can tell you how many farmers I have spoken with through this journey are where they say I have an enormous amount of data and you'd walk into their machine shed or their office and you'd see three ring binders on the wall, you know, on a shelf or a bunch of thumb drives. And they're saying, I have all this data, but I don't know what to do with it. But if you could do something with this that helps make me more productive, that would be fantastic. And that's really kind of the conversations we've been having with growers over the years. And that's at the core of our offering climate, which I think one reason why it's been so successful with respect to getting growers on board is that we've recognized a very, very common pain point. Whether you're in in Illinois or Mato Grosso in Brazil or in the Ukraine or in South Africa, farmers want all their data in one place. They want easy access to it. They want to be able to glean information from it.

Jesse Purewal [00:29:37] And I don't think the listener to this will necessarily appreciate the degree to which a farmer is actually, you know, absolutely a small business owner or an enterprise. I think it's easy from the outside to say, OK, well, you know, we're talking about which seeds are they going to plant and are they going to spray some things? But but the reality is it's much more complicated than that. And so I think for people listening who are thinking about both digital and farming, but it's a really interesting intersection of. Legacy ways of doing business trust in well-established, well-heeled kinds of personal ecosystems, local ecosystems and the need, you know, the opportunity and the obligation to do more with data, the crosshairs of tradition and respect and loyalty and trust, along with, hey, what's the data telling me? So Monsanto today is a part of Bayer CropScience Milk, and now you lead climate as well as digital farming for all of Bayer. So you're the best person I can think of to answer this question. How should we think about the role that data and data science will play going forward in the business of farming?

Mike Stern [00:30:53] The things that intrigued me about coming to the Climate Corp six years ago, I think have been even more firmly entrenched in my mindset about how data and digital agriculture is in fact going to be this next wave of innovation. Put it into some context. The late eighteen hundreds was the mechanization of agriculture. You know, tractors started showing up in the field and then you could look at Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution and breeding of wheat and beginning to bring fertility and crop protection in into agricultural production were big innovations and of course, in the 60s and 70s. And then as we moved into the, you know, the 90s, late 80s and early 90s biotechnology and then using DNA sequencing to begin to understand how you actually breed plants and breed better plants. And so all these I consider as watershed events. And I think digital farming is another watershed event. And I do believe that 20 years from now we'll look back on on this. And the way we will be farming will be different. I mean, you'll still be growing crops, but it's going to be data will be just integral in everything we do. I think there'll be more autonomy. You'll see farming is going to look a lot different in many ways than it does today. But underlying all of this will be data and data science and the use of AI machine learning and developing algorithms that are going to allow our growers or operations to be able to make more informed decisions in real time on how to manage a crop. And that's really, really important because today there are so many things going on on the farm that lead to large variations of outcomes and data can help us begin to address many of those. So I think people see the promise of of this type of technology and how we can utilize data to help farmers make more informed decisions to improve their productivity, help them manage risk, allow them to simplify their operations, automate their operations and ultimately farm more sustainably. And, of course, as I mentioned earlier, these are you know, we need to figure this out. We need to go figure out how we can produce more food on less land, you know, with fewer natural resources in the face of changing climate technology is the way for us to do that and digital technology, I think, in fact, will lead the way.

Jesse Purewal [00:33:21] That's great. I love that it's almost like there's this series of incremental breakthroughs in things like computational power and mobility and A.I. and machine learning and delivery mechanisms that are there all coming together to create this bigger breakthrough which will move the category forward and some really interesting ways, data driven way. So thanks for laying that out, Mike. I want to move into a lightning round here for some rapid fire questions. You ready? Yep. Most memorable thing you ever saw or did visiting a farm or customer.

Mike Stern [00:33:54] At one point, I was the technology director for Animal Egg Division, and by far it was the artificial insemination of a dairy cow.

Jesse Purewal [00:34:03] Three words that describe your leadership style.

Mike Stern [00:34:07] Inclusive, databased and direct.

Jesse Purewal [00:34:11] The fraction of US farmers that rely on their kids to teach them about technology and data today?

Mike Stern [00:34:19] Oh, for sure. Somewhere between 50 and seventy five percent.

Jesse Purewal [00:34:23] What do you think you would have done for a living if if you hadn't come into agriculture?

Mike Stern [00:34:28] I think I would have been a professor. I would have been a teacher.

Jesse Purewal [00:34:31] At the college level. Or do you think you would have been kind of earlier in Students' Journey?

Mike Stern [00:34:38] I think I would have been at the college at the university level. I think research was something I was always interested in. So I would I would be at a research university teaching.

Jesse Purewal [00:34:48] Your biggest professional breakthrough.

Mike Stern [00:34:50] I came up with the discovery to completely revamp a very old chemical process that made a commodity chemical that was used in making tires. And it was very environmentally inefficient process. And for every pound of product that was made in this process, three pounds of chemical waste was made so very inefficient. And I discovered a brand new process to do this, where the ratio was for every pound of product made point zero, seven pounds of waste was made. So I still look back on that. That was my first patent I ever got. And I look back on that as a big a big breakthrough.

Jesse Purewal [00:35:36] That's something like a 40 or 50 X improvement. So that counts as a breakthrough. Mike, last one, your secret sauce, that thing or combination of things that's unique and special about the way that you show up.

Mike Stern [00:35:49] I feel that I show up as a very authentic and very open minded. As I mentioned, I just throughout my training and my experience, I think problems are solved at the interface of different disciplines and at the interface of diverse skill sets and and talents. And and so this inclusive nature, I think, is very, very important. You know, how can you bring a bunch of folks together all focused on solving the same issue, but with very different backgrounds. And then you can do that. But as a leader, if you don't listen, you don't step back and let the team do their thing, then it's kind of all for naught. So I, I feel like I am a very inclusive, authentic listener and that has served me well and I think hopefully serve my team as well.

Jesse Purewal [00:36:38] And Mike one one final question for the builders listening here. If they wanted to know what the most important piece of advice they should take from you, given the world is you've seen it the world as you've experienced it and the world as you've helped build it, what would that advice be?

Mike Stern [00:36:53] Two pieces of advice that I would give? First of all, try to work on something that you're passionate about and that changes and just be you know, it doesn't always just come to you right away. Sometimes it takes time to understand that and passion around different things evolves as well. You might start thinking might start being absolutely passionate about something. And then over time you learn something new and you become more passionate about that. So I always felt that a getting up in the morning and truly looking forward to what you were going to go do that day was really important. So I would advise people to try to find that in your life and in your professional life. And the second piece is something I've already talked about, which is I think you need to take some risk in your career. Door's open and you have to be willing to step through them. And you don't always know what's on the other side. But often it's new learnings or the ability to to develop passions around other things to work on. It's just so important to be able to go ahead and be willing to try new things and to really press forward and expand your horizons. And that often means taking a little risk in your career.

Jesse Purewal [00:38:00] Mike, thank you so much. It has been a pleasure. I'm so glad that Dennis Plummer got our organizations connected all those years ago and that we got a chance to know one another. And you've been a huge influence on me. And and I appreciate you. Thanks so much for the time today.

Mike Stern [00:38:15] Jesse, thank you for having me. And likewise. It has been a true pleasure and. Great learning experience, having the chance to have worked with you over the years as well.

Jesse Purewal [00:38:35] Thanks to Mike for joining us on the show today, Mike is one of the true mentors I've had in my career. His ability to simultaneously apply the scientific method to a key decision and earnestly respect the views and opinions of everyone around him made such a deep impression on me early in my career. I'm grateful to Mike and grateful that we got some of his time on today's show. And of course, I'm grateful to all of you for listening. Welcome officially to season two of Breakthrough Builders.

Jesse Purewal [00:39:04] So Mike is the CEO, chief executive officer, you don't get to that role without having a few things break your way. But in my mind, Mike made a lot of his own luck through focus and hard work. He wasn't haphazard early on. He knew deep in his bones that he wanted to be a scientist and specifically a chemist. When the door opened for him on the G 50 project to show the whole company what he could do. He didn't just walk through it. He sprinted through it and learned he could be a great manager as well as a great scientist. And when he got to lead up a business unit at Monsanto that represented 80 percent of the company, his stewardship of his team and of his customers and channel partners was just incredible. So it was no surprise to me when he got tapped to become the CEO of the Climate Corporation and living here in San Francisco and knowing Dave Freyberg in the history of climate, it was really cool to see worlds colliding in that way. So onto building blocks, one core of Mike's message was that he discovered the applicability of the scientific method to business problem solving, and that helped him be really inclusive as a manager and leader and also better as a decision maker. So for this week's building block, I want you to think about your version of applying a skill set from one context into another context. Maybe you're really good at playing an instrument and you're just starting a programing job. How could your musical acumen help you as you build, refine and ship software code? Maybe you're somebody who's traveled a lot or you speak several languages fluently. How can your ability to think in a different language open you up to new opinions and perspectives among your colleagues? Think of something you're good at or specially trained in and ask yourself, how can that thing help me in some other area of my life? It'll be a fun exercise if you want some templates and tips and tricks on how to get started. Check out the show notes right here in the app. You're listening to this episode on or over on our website. Breakthru Builders Dotcom. That's Breakthru hyphen builders dot com. Hit me up to the website and share some of your reflections. I'd love to hear from you and get into a dialog and do what I can to help take care of breakthrough builders and be well.

Jesse Purewal [00:41:17] Thanks so much for listening to Breakthrough Builders. You can subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, I'd be grateful if you could spread the word by leaving a rating and a review. It really does help other listeners find us. And please tell your friends.

Jesse Purewal [00:41:34] Breakthrough Builders is a production of the industry's team at Qualtrics. The show is written and hosted by me, Jesse Purewal. Mastering by Nate Crenshaw. Post-production and music by Clean Cuts Audio, part of the Three Seas Collective. Design by Baron Santiago and Vansuka Chindavijak. Website by Gregory Hedon and Photography by Christy Hemm Klok. Special thanks to the entire Breakthrough Builders crew at Qualtrics, including Ali Rohani, Jeremy Smith, John Johnson and Kylan Lundeen.

Season 2Jesse Purewalleadership, innovation, breakthrough builders, agro tech, agriculture, big data