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 2930: The First Quarter

“If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small.”

At the end of 2020 we saw a flurry of IPOs.  The Stock Market was welcoming so the Tech companies in particular, took advantage of the opportunity.  That said, just because we can doesn’t mean we always should.  Airbnb and Doordash were darling listings.  Their first quarters were not good and they now face the scrutiny of Wall Street that doesn’t care about their potential, but instead now needs results to justify their current price.  It’s an uphill battle that they and many others will now face.  Did we get caught up in the exuberance or will this all work out?  We won’t know for a while, but for now, we will watch to see how they handle the first quarter pressures.

Wow, we have our own first quarter right in front of us at all times.  In Proverbs we see that it is obvious – when under pressure, if we fail, our strength is clearly not enough. When the pressure is turned on and we are okay or we rise above it, then we are doing something right.  So, we can look at pressure as a good time to check and see what we need to be doing differently to ensure that we are strong and ready for what comes next. It’s like having our own First Quarter with us at all times.

Reference: Proverbs 24:10 (New Living Translation)