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 2538: Bold Moves – Part 8: The Big Give

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“If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.”

Fast Company Magazine recently ran an article about 10 CEO moves that changed business. We can learn from each of them.

When last we posted together, we explored the Big Reveal tactics of Steve Jobs.  Well, in 1997, one of the fathers of cable television networks, and founder of CNN made a bold move and a big give.  No one had ever made a donation to anything that was the size of what Ted Turner did when we donated $1B to the United Nations. Yes, $1B!  I guess that doesn’t seem like as much now when we hear of many Billionaires contributing money to multiple charities, but this was 1997 and giving away $1B was unheard of. What Ted Turner did led the way for Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to create the Giving Pledge, which commits them and others who sign the pledge to give away half of their wealth while they are living. Ted Turner blazed the way to set an example for the rest.

The Bible say much about giving of our financial resources, but the Big Give was obviously modeled by how Jesus gave everything of His life, just for us.  So, our big give doesn’t come in the form of how much money we contribute to causes, it comes from how much of ourselves are we willing to give to Him and to others in His name? We are the continuation of His Big Give.  When we think of it that way, then we are sure to be following Him in just the way He wants.

Reference:  Matthew 10:39 (New Living Translation)