Executives Uncovered: The Greatest (and Funniest) Q&A Solutions From the 2023 Dallas 500
Over the course of the summer season and fall, D CEO editors had been busy gathering Q&As for the 2023 Dallas 500, our signature publication that includes the area’s strongest and influential leaders. A file 461 executives offered responses for the brand new version, and it resulted in a great deal of unique, intriguing, enjoyable, and, at occasions, puzzling content material.
All through the approaching 12 months, we’ll publish full-length Q&As from numerous leaders every Wednesday in our on-line Meet the five hundred collection. We will even publish a number of the responses within the On Subject and Main Off pages in our month-to-month print version. However for now, we’re sharing a few of our favourite, most shocking, and funniest solutions we obtained.
We requested executives to share their first automotive story. Some drove extra glamorous vehicles than others:
TruePoint Communications’ CEO Jessica Nunez stated, “I owned a 20-year-old crimson Ford Fairmount that I purchased for $500 once I was 16 years previous. I wrecked it two months later driving on black ice for the primary time.”
“My first automotive was a 1990 Ford Topaz,” stated Harrison Blair of the Dallas Black Chamber. “The oil line fell from the automotive earlier than I may drive it.”
“My first automotive was a 1972 Cutlass,” Haynes & Boone legal professional Jeff Dorrill stated. “I used to be 17 and I purchased it from the previous anchor at WFAA, Bob Brown, who had simply been employed by ABC Information to anchor the nationwide night information. He needed to promote his automotive in at some point and I used to be the primary one to name him. He was spectacularly gracious, filling up the tank and giving my dad and me a tour of the WFAA studios.”
“My first automotive was a Volkswagen Beetle,” Kimberly-Clark’s Chief Digital and Expertise officer Zack Hicks stated. “It was so rusted that you may see the road dashing by by the ground as you had been driving. And my mother and father let me drive this factor! Completely different occasions, for certain.”
Round 400 of the Dallas 500 stated they stay life with out regrets (actually?), however one govt took the time to share a detailed encounter with loss of life:
Chris Cassidy, the president and CEO of the Nationwide Medal of Honor Museum and Basis, was NASA’s chief astronaut previous to his publish in Arlington. Past planet earth, is the place the previous Navy SEAL recollects his largest remorse in life. “Throughout a spacewalk in 2013 my crew-mate, Luca, had a malfunctioning house go well with. None of us knew the severity of Luca’s go well with issues, however my intestine informed me to journey again to the airlock with him simply in case he wanted assist. Given the data we had, nonetheless, Mission Management made the logical resolution for Luca to return to the airlock and requested me to remain on the work website cleansing up our repairs and instruments. That’s when issues started to spiral past our management and his spacesuit stuffed up with 1.5 liters of water. If I may change one factor, it could be to stay with him whereas he labored his method to security.”
Others talked about alternate careers they’ve dreamed of getting:
If Jay Allison was not the CEO of the multibillion-dollar Comstock Sources, he says he could be “an oceanographer with the purpose of working with the likes of Jacques Cousteau on marine life—a minimum of that’s what I believed I’d be doing once I was a toddler.”
In one other life, Chris Trowbridge says he could be “having fun with operating a comfortable ski lodge within the Alps with an amazing restaurant and wine checklist.” Den Bishop says he would “be a artistic director someplace. I as soon as had enterprise playing cards the place the title was ‘Chief Maker-Higher.’”
Actual property exec Jon Altschuler had his eyes set on an important sports activities function: “I believe I wish to be standing on an NFL sideline tasked with managing the sport clock. I believe I may very well be the very best.”
The American Most cancers Society’s Jeff Fehlis says, “I’d both be operating a sea airplane service out of Key West or proudly owning a minor league baseball workforce in some seashore city.” Tony Vedda of the LGBTQ Chamber could be Dallas’ Willy Wonka: “I’d wish to be a chocolatier. I’m fascinated by the science of chocolate, and it’s one thing that makes nearly everybody pleased. You possibly can’t eat a bit of fine chocolate and be unhappy.”
From a younger age, Riveron’s Ellen Wharton Smith was enterprise minded. Her first job “was in grade college because the founder and CEO of a piñata enterprise. I used to be very fashionable for neighborhood birthday events in New Jersey. I realized the basics of being buyer centric and the way essential consumer satisfaction is for repeat enterprise.”
Different noteworthy enjoyable details:
Yen Ong, the co-founding associate of 5G Studio Collaborative, wins the award for many weird behavior amongst Dallas 500 honorees: “I’ve developed a decade-long behavior of devouring a minimal of two kilos of grapes each single evening simply earlier than midnight.”
Dallas Museum of Arts’ Brad Pritchett wins the award for coolest buddy: “As an alternative of ready tables in faculty (snooze fest) with all my fraternity brothers, I opted to place my skills to make use of and carry out within the exhibits at Six Flags Over Texas. It was there that I met Kelly Clarkson who grew to become my present associate for the outside Vacation within the Park present. For months we laughed our manner by mistaken choreography, missed lyrics, and inappropriate inside jokes. Whereas touring in Dallas a couple of years again, she yelled my title out and we caught up backstage like no time had handed.”
We realized this 12 months that the Dallas 500 has a couple of resident tv stars:
Joanna Ridgway, the managing director at Santander, stated: “I performed violin in a McDonald’s industrial in 1993! It was a industrial for a catfish particular. Catfish at McDonald’s didn’t take off.”
“I had a talking half in Hawaii 5-0 once I was 13—the unique collection, not the remake,” Main League Rugby Commissioner George Killebrew stated.
Match govt Jonathan Kirkland stated, “I used to be featured on an episode of HGTV’s Home Hunters.”
This 12 months we requested executives what spirit animal they might select.
It’s a query GFF govt Evan Beattie is aware of. “I used to be requested this query once I interviewed for a job at The GAP subsequent to UT’s campus in 1999 and my reply then was a laughing hyena, which received a superb snort out of my future boss. I’m going to stay with laughing hyena 25-years later.”
Chuck Dannis couldn’t determine on his spirit animal: “I’m torn between a lion (I’m a Leo) and a sloth.” Doreen Griffith and Connie Babikian wish to tackle the perspective of their pets. “My lengthy coat chihuahua is brief, she is sassy, and he or she is aware of what’s what,” Griffith stated.
“I’d be our household’s French Bulldog, Tater,” Babikian stated. “He’s nearly at all times smiling, strongly dislikes bodily train, and doesn’t do nicely in temperatures above 80 levels.”
Mimi Crume Sterling likes the agility of a sure sea creature: “At occasions, I really feel like an octopus. They seamlessly camouflage into their environment, their eight tentacles give them the flexibility to have their ‘palms’ on many issues without delay, and so they can match into any house in a good spot.”
Blue Cross Blue Protect of Texas President James Springfield didn’t choose only one animal: “On this enterprise, essentially the most correct reply might be completely Noah’s Ark!” Harry Dombroski, the dean of the School of Enterprise on the College of Texas at Arlington, stated, “At this level in my profession, I believe any sort of dinosaur would work.”
On a extra severe notice, we requested executives to share what they might change about their business:
Hillwood President Fred Balda shared what he would change about actual property: “Crucial factor I’d change is the notion that affordability equals low high quality and low-quality equals dangerous neighbors. Housing affordability is an actual concern and up to date occasions have solely made it worse. Altering that notion for neighbors and municipalities would go an extended method to giving builders and builders the zoning flexibility they should present stunning, high-quality housing and master-planned communities which can be inexpensive and in places the place folks need and must stay.”
Taylor Shead, the founding father of STEMuli, says she would change the funding path for Black and different minority ladies. “I used to be the 94th Black lady within the historical past of the world to boost over $1 million in enterprise capital. If I may change one factor concerning the business it could be the movement of enterprise capital {dollars} into minority ladies. In only a few months I’ve been capable of see the simple advantages that entry to capital has had on our group. I hope that every one minorities have this chance.”
Bryan Trubey had a lot to share about what he would change about structure. “Architects don’t tackle sufficient accountability,” he stated. “There’s a time period ‘design pondering’ that’s a part of our present lexicon. It’s even utilized by fairly a couple of industries that aren’t within the design house in any respect. They use this time period as a result of it signifies a deeper, broader extra strategic third-dimensional mind-set. What I name, nearly, a client product design course of. The place analysis helps decide each attribute of the product and is taken into account one thing to ‘design’—from the interior and exterior look to expertise, ergonomics, configuration, supplies, operations, advertising, and distribution.
“What we do as architects is extra an invention and our career of structure has the accountability to be extra influential within the development of the constructed atmosphere such that it may be a optimistic change agent in our world by actually evolving what we create every time.
“The problem is that many architects and shoppers assume the utmost an architect can do is create one thing stunning. I consider creating one thing stunning is the minimal, and our career must be actively engaged within the form of analysis and improvement which different main professions and industries spend and dedicate important sources. We must always have a deep understanding of the enterprise economics of our shoppers’ industries such that we create tasks which can be internally ingenious and externally stunning, all searching for the extraordinary. They need to be progressive to the constructing varieties we’re designing in order that the locations we construct are in flip progressive to our tradition and the time we stay in. That is true innovation. Now we have an expression we use usually because the take a look at of whether or not we’re actually inventing or simply repeating—authentic thought: if one thing we create doesn’t look and carry out in a manner that achieves this purpose it gained’t encourage, excite, rework, and redefine then it gained’t create worth.”
Solutions to the “enjoyable truth” query are sometimes essentially the most shocking and revealing.
The CEO of Drive Shack Hana Khouri admits that she “can’t wink … I simply form of shut each of my eyes and squint. However I strive laborious!”
Dallas-based brokerage platform Thirty-4 Industrial is called after a Corridor of Fame basketball participant, says President Sarah Kennington. “I used to be an avid NBA fan as a bit of lady and Charles Barkley was my favourite participant. He wore quantity 34 which is the primary a part of the story behind the Thirty-4 Industrial title.”
Nirav Tolia, the founding father of NextDoor, and new Dallasite says, “I used to be a singer in an all-male a cappella group at Stanford known as the Fleet Avenue Singers. As of late I largely sing in my automotive and within the bathe, however again in faculty I used to be actually into it!”
In the event you haven’t picked up a replica of the 2023 Dallas 500, you may order your copy right here. As this sneak peek exhibits, it’s actually insightful and entertaining. Get pleasure from!
Writer
Ben Swanger is the assistant editor for D CEO, the enterprise title for D Journal. Ben manages the Dallas 500…
