The Stewards Amongst Us

Modern Stewards: Learning from Those Carrying the Future

One of the unexpected gifts of writing Surfing the Tsunami has been the conversations. One day I would be speaking with someone responsible for tens of thousands of employees and a business operating across the globe. The next day I would be talking with an educator, an entrepreneur, an actor, or a founder trying to solve a problem no one had solved before. Different lives. Different responsibilities. Different ways of seeing the world.

If you gathered them all around the same table, they would almost certainly disagree on many things; but they would also agree on equally important issues.

With the group of more than 30 extraordinary global leaders who I have profiled in this book as examples of what stewardship in practice looks like, what surprised me was not what they believed: It was how they approached the responsibility they carried. Again and again, I found myself leaving conversations with people who thought deeply about the impact of their decisions on others. Their teams; their customers; their communities; and their children. The people who will inherit whatever future we are building together.

None of them pretended to have everything figured out. In fact, many were remarkably candid about what they did not know. Yet they remain in the conversations; they wrestle with complexity; they make difficult decisions without the comfort of certainty; and they accept responsibility for the small corner of the future that somehow lands in their hands.

The more conversations I had, the more I found myself returning to the same group of people. Neither because they were the most successful, nor because they were the most visible. But because every

time I spoke with them, I learned something about what it means to carry responsibility well.

Over time, I began thinking of them as Modern Stewards.

Not because they are perfect. Not because they would describe themselves that way. And certainly not because they all share the same worldview. They do not.

What they share is a way of showing up in the world. Each of the people in this section illuminates a different expression of stewardship. Complexity. Coherence. Trust. Healing. Transformation.

They are not presented as heroes to imitate. They are companions to learn from; who help us to ask the right questions, and serve as a collective lighthouse for making coherent and compassionate decisions in our own lives. Together, they paint a picture of the kind of leadership our rapidly changing world increasingly asks of us.

My hope is that somewhere in their stories, you begin to recognize something already waiting within yourself.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to some of the many Modern Stewards who have shaped my own journey; and who are leading us in this age of tremendous complexity - beginning with our Steward of Complexity, Wayne Allan.

Wayne Allan

Steward of Complexity

When I think about stewardship, Wayne Allan is one of the first people who comes to mind.

Wayne sits at the center of one of the most important industrial ecosystems on Earth. As Chief Strategic Sourcing and Procurement Officer and member of the Board of Management at ASML, he helps oversee the systems, supply chains, and operations behind the extraordinary machines that make modern semiconductors possible. Many people will never hear his name - yet much of the digital world

rests upon the work of people like Wayne and the thousands of employees they help lead.

What struck me when we first spoke was not the scale of his responsibility - it was his groundedness. There was no performance. No executive theatre. No need to impress.

Just a thoughtful human being trying to do right by the people and systems entrusted to his care.

That pattern began long before ASML: Wayne grew up in Idaho, shaped by two very different parental influences: His mother was deeply trusting and saw the best in people. His father was practical, hardworking, and carried the values of farm life. Somewhere between those two energies Wayne developed the combination that would define much of his life: genuine care for people coupled with a willingness to do difficult things when they needed to be done. That became clear when life interrupted his plans.

While he was in college, during a challenging period for the family, Wayne made the decision to leave school temporarily to help his family and reduce the financial burden of his college education. This required Wayne to set aside his own aspirations, at least temporarily, to support his loved ones. He began working nights at what was then small semiconductor company called Micron - not because it was part of some grand strategy - but because responsibility arrived.

And when responsibility arrived, he stepped toward it.

Over the next three decades, he worked his way from the night shift to running global operations at Micron, by then a huge company - before eventually joining ASML. Yet despite the scale of the organizations he has helped lead, he still talks about leadership in surprisingly simple terms: Find good people. Help them grow. Take care of them.

At one point he told me, “If you help people reach their potential, you don't have to worry about yourself.” I found myself thinking about that sentence long after our conversation ended.

Many of the people who worked with Wayne earlier in his career, later chose to work with him again. It wasn’t due to his charisma, though he is very charismatic; and It was not because he offered the biggest title. But primarily because people trusted him.

Trust is one of those words that gets used so often, it can lose its meaning. Yet when you look closely at Wayne's career, trust appears everywhere. People trusted him when he was young and still learning. Mentors gave him opportunities before he had the credentials. Teams followed him because they believed he cared about their success as much as his own.

He often speaks about how much of his leadership was learned through apprenticeship rather than formal education.

"I learned leadership skills and life from people."

That feels increasingly important in a world becoming obsessed with credentials, signals, and increasingly, artificial intelligence. Wayne represents a different path. A reminder that mastery is often built through experience, humility, trust, and a willingness to keep learning.

One of the themes that surfaced repeatedly in our conversation was the burden carried by leaders.

At a certain level, you are no longer simply managing projects or making decisions. You are carrying people, teams, families, suppliers, and communities. Entire ecosystems become connected to the choices you make. Wayne understood that immediately.

He also understood the importance of having somewhere - or someone - to go to, to set that burden down. When I asked what helped keep him grounded through decades of complexity and pressure, his answer came without hesitation.

"My wife is my life partner. She's my rock." There was something beautiful in the simplicity of that response.

Neither a productivity system, nor a leadership framework - a relationship. A family. People who matter. In many ways that was the thread running through our entire conversation.

Beneath the complexity of global supply chains, advanced technology, and industrial systems was a man who still fundamentally viewed leadership as a human endeavor. That perspective becomes especially important as we move into the age of AI.

Wayne sees the changes coming. He sees automation accelerating. He sees disruption arriving faster than many institutions can comfortably absorb. Yet unlike some leaders, he doesn't speak about these shifts with triumphalism.

His concern is not whether the technology will work - it is whether people will be left behind.

How do we make sure the benefits are shared? How do we preserve dignity during periods of massive change? How do we keep society coherent while everything is moving? Those are stewardship questions.

And perhaps that is why Wayne belongs here.

Not because he has all the answers nor because he operates at enormous scale; but because he represents something increasingly precious: the ability to carry extraordinary complexity without losing sight of the humans inside the system. In the years ahead, we will need many more leaders like that.

If complexity is now the environment in which we live and lead, how do we bring coherence to it? How do we align people, institutions, investors, governments, boards, operators, and stakeholders around something larger than themselves?

Few people I have met have devoted more of their life to that question than Joseph Fan.

Joseph Fan

Steward of Coherence

One of the least appreciated leadership skills is the ability to create coherence among people who want very different things. It is relatively easy to lead when incentives are aligned, relationships are healthy, and the path forward is clear.

It is far more difficult when governments, entrepreneurs, investors, regulators, boards, and management teams all see the world differently, and have competing priorities. Yet it is precisely in those environments that Joseph Fan has spent much of his career.

Over four decades, Joseph helped shape some of the most significant telecommunications, media, and infrastructure businesses in Greater China and Asia.

After starting his career with Yamada in Japan and Hutchison Whampoa under celebrated decabillionaire Li Ka-shing in Hong Kong, Joseph held executive leadership roles in global telecommunications ventures, including the satellite pioneer Iridium during one of the industry's most ambitious periods of expansion. He was a co-founder and President of Taiwan Mobile, helping build one of Taiwan's most important telecommunications companies and leading it through its IPO. He later co-founded and led Taiwan Fixed Network, again guiding the company through a successful public offering; and then successfully sold a Taiwan-based cable provider, Kbro, then repeated this with a leading broadcaster, Eastern Broadcasting Corp. Subsequently he has sat on many Boards and maintains both philanthropic and investment activities to-date.

But titles and transactions tell only part of the story: Joseph's greatest contribution may be his ability to bring coherence to complex systems under pressure.

Throughout his career, he repeatedly found himself at the intersection of competing interests: entrepreneurs with bold visions; investors demanding results; governments protecting public

interests; boards navigating governance challenges; and operators responsible for execution.

Many leaders choose sides. Joseph developed a different approach - he became a bridge.

Continuously, he has demonstrated an unusual ability to understand multiple perspectives simultaneously, helping diverse stakeholders move toward a common future without sacrificing trust along the way. Under his leadership, complex organizations were not simply restructured or optimized; they were aligned.

Those who have worked with him often remark on another quality that is increasingly rare in modern leadership: He never seems to lose his center. While others become reactive under pressure, Joseph remains calm. While others become attached to positions, he remains focused on outcomes. While others amplify conflict, he quietly creates the conditions for resolution.

In many ways, he serves a role that every complex system desperately needs, but doesn't always recognize: the person who helps disparate parts function as a coherent whole.

His commitment to stewardship extends beyond business. Through his Fulin Culture and Arts Foundation, educational institutions, healthcare organizations, and community service, he has continued to invest in the long-term flourishing of the communities he serves.

In an age increasingly defined by polarization, accelerating change, and competing interests, Joseph reminds us that leadership is not merely the ability to make decisions - it is the ability to create coherence. And that is a primary attribute of Joseph Fan.

“We do not fully understand what is happening. Let's proceed accordingly.”

Kim Rivera

Steward of Trust

Some people bring intelligence into a room, but Kim Rivera brings calm - and a distinct sense of safety.

Over the course of her 30 year career which has led her to such roles as Chief Legal and Business Officer, OneTrust; Board Director, Thomson Reuters; former Special Advisor to the CEO and President, Strategy and Business Management, HP Inc., Kim has found herself at the center of situations where the stakes were extraordinarily high. Boardrooms mid-crisis. Mergers valued in the billions. CEO transitions. Strategic decisions affecting tens of thousands of people and the futures of companies navigating some of the most complex terrain in modern business.

As President at HP Inc. - a $55 billion enterprise - she sat at the intersection of strategy, governance, law and organizational leadership during one of the most consequential transformations in Silicon Valley history. At DaVita, she helped navigate a $4.7 billion merger while managing the legal, operational, and deeply human risks that come with a business that touches human health every single day. As Chief Legal and Business Officer at OneTrust, she guided the company's legal, cybersecurity, privacy, people, and business functions through dramatic and extensive change - rapid growth, multiple executive transitions, a founder transition and the early emergence of AI governance as an enterprise imperative that no organization had yet fully mapped.

These are not roles that reward the performative - they reward the person who can stay grounded when the ground itself is moving.

What struck me about Kim - and what I kept returning to as our conversation unfolded - is that she remained fully herself inside all of it.

The foundation of Kim’s training that led to Harvard Law School, Forbes recognition, and board seats, as with everyone, were experiences in her childhood. As a young woman growing up between Paraguay and Puerto Rico, she inherited many of the expectations

that women of her generation were often given: Stay close. Stay safe. Stay within the boundaries of what is expected - Kim chose an entirely different path that broke those expectations.

As a teen, she left for the United States in pursuit of a bigger future, bringing her younger sister with her. It was a decision that required courage, responsibility, and a willingness to walk into uncertainty.

That willingness would become a recurring theme throughout her life. The remarkable thing about Kim's career is not simply that she succeeded - many people succeed in tough situations - it's the way people describe her after working with her. Over and over, the same themes appear.

Trusted. Steady. Thoughtful. Clear. The person you want in the room when things become complicated.

As our conversation unfolded, I found myself thinking less about legal expertise and more about something else - trust. How is it built? How is it maintained? Why do some people create confidence while others create anxiety?

Kim seems to understand something that many leaders miss. When uncertainty rises, people pay less attention to what you know and more attention to how you show up. Can you stay grounded? Can you hold complexity without spreading fear? Can you make difficult decisions without becoming reactive? These are profoundly human capabilities. And they become more valuable as the world grows more complex.

One of the themes that runs through Kim's story is the refusal to be defined by limitations that others placed upon her. She did not accept a narrow vision of what her future could be. She did not accept the idea that leadership belonged to someone else. Nor did she allow success to separate her from her humanity.

Many people become harder as they rise - Kim became more compassionate. More curious. More interested in helping others navigate difficult terrain.

That commitment extends well beyond the organizations she has led. As Chair of the Board for the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity, she is guiding one of the legal profession's most influential institutions through one of the most tumultuous moments any organization dedicated to belonging and inclusion has ever faced - navigating cultural and political headwinds that have tested the resolve of even the most committed leaders. As Vice Chair of the American Leadership Forum - a non-profit dedicated to breaking down silos between business, government, and the non-profit sector to foster transformational dialogue, bridge social divides, and build equitable communities - she carries a vision of leadership that reaches far beyond any single organization or industry.

This conviction runs through everything Kim does: that we have a responsibility to leave our professions and our communities better than we found them.

Today she also serves on the Thomson Reuters board and advises organizations building at the frontier of AI governance - work that sits at the precise intersection of trust, technology, and institutional accountability that defines the challenge of this moment. Yet what I remember most from our conversations is something much simpler - Kim helps people feel safer in uncertainty.

As artificial intelligence accelerates and organizations wrestle with change at a pace that has no historical precedent, we often focus on strategy, systems, and technology. Those things are important. But beneath all of them sits a more fundamental question. Who do people trust when the ground starts moving? For many organizations and many leaders, Kim Rivera has spent a lifetime answering that question.

And in the years ahead, trust may become one of the most valuable forms of stewardship we have.

As Kim demonstrates daily, trust changes what people believe is possible. Transformation is what happens when they begin acting on that belief together.

Trust gives us the courage to begin. Transformation asks us to keep going.

It is one thing to imagine a different future. It is another to help thousands of people move toward it together, with hope, resilience, and a shared sense of healing and purpose. Susan J. Schmitt Winchester has spent much of her career doing exactly that.

Susan J. Schmitt Winchester

Steward of Healing

Susan J. Schmitt Winchester is a healer of human hearts who came to her calling through an extraordinary journey of human resources leadership in some of America’s most respected corporations. She is an executive coach, consultant, keynote speaker, teacher, and trainer, and co-author with Martha I. Finney of Healing at Work. Her profound experience in corporate leadership helped give rise to Healing at Work®, the framework she now uses to help leaders and organizations put these ideas into practice.

Susan came to this work through three decades in some of the most demanding rooms in corporate life. She served as Chief Human Resources Officer at Applied Materials and Rockwell Automation for more than sixteen years across the two companies, within a corporate career spanning more than thirty-six years. She is also a Fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources, its highest honor.

But the through-line of her career has never been policy or process - it has been people, and in particular the quiet, unexamined forces that shape how capable people behave under pressure.

Susan’s premise is grounded, not mystical. Drawing on neuroplasticity, positive psychology, and the research on adverse childhood experiences, she begins from a simple observation: most of us carry patterns formed early in life into the workplace, where they run quietly beneath our professional competence until something triggers them. The leader who cannot delegate, the executive who hears feedback as attack, the team that avoids hard conversations, these are rarely failures of skill. They are old survival strategies, learned long ago, still firing in the present. And because a leader’s behavior rarely stops with the leader, those patterns can ripple outward through teams, relationships, and eventually the larger organization.

What makes her work hopeful is that the brain remains capable of change. The charged, reactive moments at work, what she calls Bumper Car Moments®, are not problems to be managed away. They are the precise entry points where awareness becomes possible and old patterns can begin to loosen their grip. Her practice rests on the two capacities she considers the most critical requirements for future leaders: self-awareness and self- regulation. Not the elimination of our reactions, but the ability to notice them, understand where they come from, and choose a different response.

Susan is interested in human and community growth, not in fixing people. The aim is not a smaller, more cautious self, but a more whole, more present, and more joyful one. At its core, her purpose is to teach self- acceptance to create a more joyful world, beginning in the place where adults spend the majority of their waking lives: at work.

Susan’s work begins with the patterns we carry into work and the possibility of healing them there. Cristina Monteiro’s stewardship begins with another kind of movement: helping people and organizations navigate significant transformation.

Cristina Monteiro

Steward of Transformation

Over the course of her career, Cristina has repeatedly found herself inside organizations undergoing profound change. New strategies; new markets; new leaders; new technologies; and new expectations.

The kind of environment where transformation is no longer a project - it's a way of life.

What I appreciate about Cristina is that she seems to understand something many organizations forget: change does not happen because a slide deck says it should - it happens when human beings decide to move. That sounds obvious - yet many transformation efforts fail precisely because they focus on systems while neglecting people.

Cristina has spent much of her career working at the intersection of those two worlds - the strategic world and the human world.

The more I learned about her work, the more I noticed a recurring pattern. Repeatedly, she was invited into situations where organizations needed to evolve - meaningfully, rather than incrementally.

And again and again she approached those challenges with a combination that is surprisingly rare: Clarity; humanity; and courage.

She is deeply caring, and at the same time, she is also willing to challenge people. Those qualities do not always appear together. Many leaders choose one or the other - but Cristina somehow manages both.

One reason may be that she understands transformation at a human level. People don’t resist change because they are irrational - they resist because change often brings uncertainty.

Will I belong?

Will I succeed?

Will I matter?

Will I still have a place here?

Beneath many organizational challenges sit remarkably human questions. Cristina never seems to lose sight of that.

As our world enters a period of accelerating technological change, her perspective feels increasingly important.

Artificial intelligence is transforming industries at extraordinary speed. New capabilities emerge almost weekly. Entire organizations are being asked to rethink how they operate.

Yet the hardest challenges remain surprisingly familiar.

How do we build trust? How do we create alignment? How do we help people grow? How do we move forward without leaving people behind? Those are transformation questions - and they are also deeply human questions.

Another theme that runs through Cristina's work is inclusion - as a source of strength, rather than slogan. She understands that organizations become more resilient when they can integrate different perspectives, different experiences, and different ways of seeing the world.

Adaptability comes from diversity of thought; and adaptability may be one of the most important capabilities of the decades ahead.

When I think about Cristina, I find myself returning to a simple idea: transformation is ultimately an act of belief.

A belief that people can grow; that organizations can evolve; and that the future does not need to be a continuation of the past.

Cristina has spent much of her life helping people turn that belief into reality. Neither through force, nor through slogans. But through the patient, difficult, deeply human work of helping people move forward together.

And in a world where change is accelerating everywhere, that may be one of the most valuable forms of stewardship we have: Courage.