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 1923: Footnotes

“The master said, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant….”

A few weeks ago in Business Week, they profiled the CEO and Chairman of KeyCorp, one of the top banks in the U.S.  In the story of how she got to where she is, Business Week highlighted that currently, Beth Mooney is the only female CEO of a large bank.  Her quote about this was, “I’m the first and currently only female CEO of a top U.S. bank.  I hope that when I retire it’s a footnote, not a headline.”  Ms. Mooney hopes that things will change by the time she retires and that there will be many female CEOs.  I was struck by her humility.  In sports sometimes we will hear those who have earned accolades and records hope that others will surpass them, but we don’t hear it often enough.  Having the humility to be the top, or the first and then do all you can to be sure that someone else replaces your position is the true sign of humble leadership.

All that we will do today only matters if we hear at our death, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”  The rest will not matter.  So, all that we focus on today should be about ensuring that only God’s footnote is the one that counts.

Reference:  Matthew 25:23