Leading the Way Podcast: Christopher Brown, CEO, National Fatherhood Initiative & Special Guest, Tim Brown

In this special Father’s Day edition of Leading the Way, we talk to two highly influential leaders and father figures. Our guest this week is Christopher Brown, CEO of the National Fatherhood Initiative, an important and meaningful organization that strives to make an impact on father absence. And, we have a special guest appearance from Tim Brown, the first wide receiver to ever win the Heisman Trophy, member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, recipient of the Father of the Year Award in Texas, and author of Making of a Man.  

Chris shares the reasons for father-absenteeism and the five characteristics of what makes an effective father--you’ll be amazed at the similarities between those and that of the soft skills of great leaders as Jay Jamrog verifies in the program’s Insight Segment. Additionally, we discuss the organization's dynamic programs, learn about their interesting non-profit business model that has led to a successful customer experience, and how they continue to grow and evolve as an agile organization.  

Key Soundbites  

• On leadership – “When you help your father employees to be better dads, research shows they are more effective in their roles, they’re more likely to advance in their careers, and they’re more likely to advance faster in their careers than dads who aren’t involved. It’s all about leadership; when you learn how to be a better leader in the home, you learn how to be a better leader in the corporate world.”  
• On creativity and innovation – “Just like any company discovers that there’s a need that a product can solve, and a pain point that it can address… we recognize that there was a dearth of these resources available. So, we started to create those.”
• On research - “From decades and decades of data on the consequences of father absence and the benefits of father involvement, one of the things that we shifted from in our evolution was a focus, almost exclusively, on the consequences of father absence to rapidly raising awareness about the importance of dads and what happens when a father is in the home.”
• On family culture – “When you look at almost any outcome for children in terms of their well-being, when children grow up in a father-absent home, they are more likely to suffer from a range of social, emotional and physical ills, and also, financial ills.”
• On customer focus - “We’re very focused on consumer feedback to help us understand, one, are our products being used in a way that we intended, but also, are they using them in novel ways, innovative ways that we never thought of so that we can then share (that information) with others to increase the value proposition around that particular product?”  

About Leading the Way  

Leading the Way is a weekly radio show and podcast series that highlights influential business leaders and leading people practices from i4cp. Co-hosted by Emmy Award-winning television anchor and radio host, Scott Murray, and i4cp’s Angel Carlton, the show features interviews with respected business leaders from the world of business, sports, entertainment, healthcare and philanthropy.  

The show airs live every Sunday at 4 pm CT on KLIF 570 in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, the global audience is invited to listen live on www.klif.com   and the weekly podcast debuts on iTunes and the i4cp website the following week.