The difference between success and failure is the ability to work through challenges with perseverance, no matter how long it takes. Success–the result of hard and smart work–requires grit and risk that others aren’t willing to take. A leap of faith, or many leaps for that matter, is the cornerstone of successful behavior and choices that can lead to truly remarkable achievements.
It is said that we, as humans, are programmed by response. That if we act a certain way, and it elicits an unfavorable response, we are less likely to do it again. Featured in CSQ’s Summer 2018 Sports & Entertainment issue are Visionaries and NextGens who have ignored bowing to adversity. They have not been afraid to take risks, face rejection, or ask questions when it has counted the most, and instead have counted on their instincts and their own ideas to succeed.
As CSQ continues to celebrate its 10-year anniversary in 2018, we also once again celebrate a cadre of some of the best and brightest leaders and influential minds across the spectrum of the sports and entertainment fields in this selectively curated and ultimately inspiring Q3 issue. These leaders are types who don’t take “no” for an answer, no matter how many times it’s given.
One such leader is Hollywood’s Brian Grazer, featured on our cover as Visionary of the Year. It wasn’t an easy road at first for Grazer, who coped as kid by being a jokester, and then was diagnosed with childhood dyslexia. That diagnosis could have thwarted him, but with his grandmother’s belief in him, and an insatiable curiosity, he was able to rise from a Warner Bros. office clerk to a multi-time Oscar- and Emmy-winner and chairman at Imagine Entertainment.
Another is Gillian Zucker, president of business operations at Los Angeles Clippers. One of the most highly positioned women in the sports industry, Zucker got her coveted role by asking everyone she could in her network to introduce her to Clippers owner Steve Balmer, convinced that he would hire her if she could just get a chance to talk with him in person. She was right.
For 40-year-old Bonin Bough, a mobile marketing mogul, who at 34 was the youngest C-suite executive at Mondelēz (formerly Kraft Foods) after a skyrocketing career that included global marketing at PepsiCo, and came up with innovations such as a 3D Oreo and marketing approaches transforming the billion-dollar consumer packaged goods industry, innovation is key.
And for David Renzer, CEO of Spirit Music Group, being a musician himself, and feeding that passion, led to his huge deals in the music industry and in his philanthropy for the City of Hope.
These Visionaries, as well as NextGens and C-Suite Advisors featured in our pages, remind us all of that passion and relentless inquiry that changes lives, industries and our connected world.
I hope, as you read, you are as moved as I am by their stories and more in this special issue.
David L. Wurth
Founder & Publisher
