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 2564: So Foolish

purposed worKING No Comments

“This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.”

Last Thursday night brought us the news of the passing of an industrial legend; founder of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher.  All of the obituaries detailed his crazy and foolish antics that he did as a CEO; dressing up as Elvis, welcoming passengers with jokes and always making sure that with any contest for employees that he would be there in his most silly of ways to present the award.  Consequently, his employees loved him.  From that, his customers loved him and from that, his shareholders loved him.  I mean really loved him as he would receive long standing ovations at shareholder meetings. He was also self-deprecating as a CEO saying once, “Because I am unable to perform competently any meaningful function at Southwest, our employees let me be CEO”.  This was Herb Kelleher, a man willing to be a fool to be a leader everyone wanted to follow.

Paul said let me be a fool for Christ and he wrote that the foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans.  You see, what others might see as foolish, we know better.  What God has in store for us today is indeed His foolishness, but what we know is just wisdom and strength that comes from the place of us subordinating ourselves to God.  A guest on our Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast said recently, “If God chooses me, I will not embarrass Him”  I love that as if we are walking towards His will, we don’t need to worry about being embarrassing to God or anyone else, as He will use us for His glory and nothing will be foolish within His eyes.

Reference: 1 Corinthians 1:25 (New Living Translation)