In this episode of the Leadership Quotient Podcast, Deborah Magid, Co-Founder and Managing Director at NextStar Venture Partners, shares why leadership is ultimately defined by the opportunities you create for other people—and why trust sits at the center of both numbers and relationships. Drawing on her path from GE to IBM’s corporate venture world and into building a new fund, Deborah explains how her background in cognitive psychology shapes how she evaluates founders: not just on experience, but on how they engage, build credibility, and influence others across an ecosystem. Deborah and Lindsay explore why remote investing makes team assessment harder, how great leaders avoid micromanagement by distributing ownership and responsibility, and why many early-stage teams stall by chasing too many opportunities at once. They also discuss what founders need to understand about enterprise selling, how to use networks and external validation to drive focus, and why “AI dust” is the new “blockchain dust” in startup storytelling. The conversation closes with Deborah’s view of the next wave of value creation: investing in the physical world—energy, healthcare, agriculture, and other real-world systems—where enduring moats are built through trust, community, and impact.

In this episode of the Leadership Quotient Podcast, Michael Frank, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Gildre, shares how a career on the trading floor shaped his leadership philosophy and why the habits that create success in markets translate directly to entrepreneurship and private equity. From his early days on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange to building and exiting a multi-exchange trading operation, Michael reflects on what it means to reset every day, take accountability for outcomes, and stay sharp in environments where the rules can change overnight. He explains why great leaders listen before they act, including a pivotal story about taking a painful loss after finally trusting his partners’ instincts and how that lesson mirrors the founder’s challenge of letting smarter people run with the ball. Michael and Lindsay explore the difference between “organized chaos” and the real-world messiness of startups, including why credibility, execution, and incentives matter more off the floor than most investors expect. They also discuss how value creation is shifting as distribution becomes the true barrier to building, why Michael believes more entrepreneurs should consider search funds and acquiring durable businesses instead of starting from scratch, and how AI is changing the risk landscape for leaders across every industry. The conversation closes with Michael’s practical advice for founders: work hard, build community, hire people who are better than you, and always be the person willing to raise your hand and ask for the ball.

In this episode of the Leadership Quotient Podcast, Henry Myers, Co-Founder and Managing Director at High Water Search, shares why entrepreneurship is one of the clearest mirrors for leadership and what that reveals about talent in private equity today. Drawing on his path from finance into building a global PE-focused search firm, Henry explains how personal responsibility, self-awareness, and discernment shape effective leaders on both the investor and operator sides of the table. He unpacks why great recruiting is less about volume and pedigree and more about pattern recognition, timing, and deep alignment between a firm’s culture and an individual’s direction of travel. Henry and Lindsay explore the growing bifurcation between mega-funds and emerging managers, how incentives like carry structures shape behavior and collaboration, and why many investment professionals struggle when moving from large institutional platforms into more entrepreneurial environments. They also discuss the behavioral traits that increasingly differentiate successful PE leaders—empathy, adaptability, communication, and the ability to build trust with founders and management teams—and why reputations travel fast in a small ecosystem. The conversation closes with a look ahead at how private equity talent needs are shifting as value creation replaces multiple expansion, AI reshapes deal teams, and a new generation of leaders reassesses what kind of firms—and cultures—they actually want to build.