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 1895: Boundless Potential

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“Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.”

I was fortunate to work very early in my career under the ultimate leadership of PepsiCo Chairman/CEO Wayne Calloway.  I presented to him a couple of times and once had a chance to ride next to him in van for about half an hour and talk about leadership, most of the time him asking me questions and him listening.  He made me feel very important. Our CIO at that time was Charlie Feld, who has recently written a book on Wayne’s leadership principles and the affect he had on the growth of PepsiCo.  Charlie quotes Wayne with this, “A company dedicated to innovation has boundless potential.”  I wasn’t there when Wayne made that comment during a speech, but I remember him using the word innovation as a cornerstone of the PepsiCo growth strategy.  Today, we bounce that word around as a ball that all can throw and catch, but back then, innovation wasn’t a household word, it was something hard that took real work, real creativity, real commitment and real talent.  And it still does, although technology seems to remove much of the friction for us today.  Regardless, the outcome is the same…boundless potential.  But, as Wayne said it takes “dedication” to innovation and that is where most of us fall short.  When it does get hard, we back away from the investment, time, and/or staffing. And when we do, we romance the status-quo and leash our potential of growth and improvement.

God gives us unfailing love and faithfulness, which created us with boundless potential.  We were the ones that messed it up and since then we’ve been searching for things like mission and purpose.  When Jesus came to the earth He brought new hope and potential and He proved himself the great innovator as he shifted mores, views, opinions and ultimately actions and reactions.  He drew huge crowds and at the same time welcomed children to his knee.  And, he took 600+ commandments and boiled them down to two, which released all of us to love.  And even more, He stands at the door even today waiting for us to open it to Him to maximize all of our potential for His Kingdom. So, let’s consider today what we are doing to let our potential be released?

Reference: Psalm 36:5 (New Living Translation)