Author Archives: Rusty Rueff

About Rusty Rueff

Rusty Rueff, author of purposed worKING. Rusty Rueff is the former Chairman Emeritus of The GRAMMY Foundation in Los Angeles. He most recently completed the successful 16 month leadership role as Coordinating National Co-Chair for Technology for Obama (T4O) for the reelection of President Obama and ten-years of Board service and President of the Board of Trustees of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Corporately, most recently Rueff was the Chief Executive Officer at SNOCAP, Inc. until the acquisition of the company by imeem, Inc. in April 2008. Before joining SNOCAP in 2005, he was Executive Vice President of Human Resources at Electronic Arts (EA) from 1998 until 2005. He was also with the PepsiCo companies for more than ten years, with the Pratt & Whitney division of United Technologies for two years, and in commercial radio as an on-air personality for six years. Rusty holds an M.S. in counseling and a B.A. in radio and television from Purdue University. In 2003 he was named a distinguished Purdue alumnus, and he and his wife, Patti, are the named benefactors of Purdue’s Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Visual and Performing Arts. He is a corporate director of Glassdoor.com and runcoach. He is the co-founder and Executive Committee Member of T4A.org, serves on the Founding Circle of The Centrist Project and a founding Board Member of The GRAMMY Music Education Coalition. He is also the co-author of the book Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business. Rusty and his wife, Patti, reside in Hillsborough, CA and Charlestown, R.I.

day 2012: Bellwethers

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“He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken.”

We’ve now passed the marking of the beginning of the Christmas Season.  That day for many is the day after Thanksgiving or Black Friday. What was very interesting after this Black Friday was the number of analysts and reporters who are now saying that Black Friday is no longer a “Bellwether” for what the holiday retail season will bring.  A few days later, the International Monetary Fund, expanded their benchmark and bellwether currencies to include the Chinese Renminbi  (or Yuan). These two changes, within the same week, are a good reminder that the bellwethers that we have always counted on, don’t come with any guarantee that they will be the same in the future.  We have to be adaptable to be ready for what we always expected to change or disappear right in front of us and sometimes for that to occur when we don’t expect it to ever happen.

With all the uncertainty in the world, we are always looking for those touchstones, those bellwethers of what we can look to, trust and extrapolate for what portends for the future.  But, when we consider the amount of change happening all around us, and the speeding up of the world, it can feel harder to find those constants that we so desire and need.  This is when we can always fallback on The bellwether (actually even more than the bellwether – The shepherd, the touchstone, The cornerstone of God’s promises.  I know, it seems to get harder and harder to find anything we can trust and hold onto.  But, that is when we can look to the hopeful One and hang onto His Word that we can count on to never be shaken.

Reference: Psalm 62:2 (New Living Translation)