Art of Power

“Hollywood at the highest level,” Franklin Leonard says, “is the least diverse business sector in American business.” When Leonard first created The Black List, he wanted to find the best screenplays never produced. And he did, shining a bright light on the writers of soon-to-be award-winning movies like Juno, Argo and The King’s Speech. Now he wants to flip Hollywood’s recruitment plan, bypassing the nepotism to scout talent from every corner of the country. He sits down with Art of Power’s Aarti Shahani to discuss how his nerdy beginnings in Georgia set the precedent for his career as a revered film executive. He explains how creating the first Black List broke an unwritten Hollywood rule, what Hollywood can learn from the NBA about actually finding the best talent, and the power of imagery in dismantling racism and asserting personhood. And when he is faced with unspoken discrimination, Leonard explains how he copes with rejection.

In this week’s episode of Art of Power, host Aarti Shahani sits down with Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Mo.), a former Black Lives Matter activist who lost two elections before finally winning Missouri’s 1st congressional seat in 2020. Rep. Bush tells Shahani about her early exposure to politics (12:36), the adversities she endured in her early life — including eviction, homelessness and rape (19:12), the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson that pushed her to seek public office (4:00), and why she didn’t quit after two lopsided electoral defeats (32:45).

In this week’s episode of Art of Power, host Aarti Shahani sits down with Indra Nooyi, who became the first woman and immigrant to head a Fortune 50 company when she was named CEO of PepsiCo in 2006. Nooyi and host Aarti Shahani discuss her unusual family – where the men pushed her to be more ambitious. Aarti asks Nooyi how she manages to stay so light-hearted when people cut her down at work. (It’s something she does over and over again.) Her answer? It’s not what Aarti expected. Indra Nooyi’s book, My Life In Full, has a provocative passage. Describing the times she’s been invited into rooms with the most influential people on the planet, she writes: “The titans of industry, politics and economics, talked about advancing the world through finance, technology, and flying to Mars. Family – the actual messy, delightful, difficult and treasured core of how most of us live – was fringe. This disconnect has profound consequences…In a prosperous marketplace, we need all women to have the choice to work in paid jobs outside the home and for our social and economic infrastructure to entirely support that choice.” (emphasis added) Aarti dissects that call to action with her. It sounds like the call of a feminist or labor leader. Nooyi posits her argument is simple economics. “If you think like an economist, not a feminist, then you say you want the best resources available, which means that men and women, the best talent, have to be in the service of the economy,” Nooyi says. “And that requires some social support. … If you don’t provide them a support structure, and then lament about the great resignation, it’s crazy.”

In this week’s episode of Art of Power, host Aarti Shahani sits down with the woman who helped build Ukraine’s fledgling democracy. Daria Kaleniuk is the executive director of Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Action Center. She has spent a decade building sweeping anti-corruption infrastructure, much to Russia’s chagrin. As Vladimir Putin invades her home, you may have seen her calling out U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a recent press conference that went viral. In our conversation, Kaleniuk questions the value of her life’s work: “We are being executed by Russia for fighting corruption and building rule of law,” she tells Shahani. “Those allies which helped us…are betraying us. They are not providing means to protect our democracy.” To understand the war in Ukraine, you need to understand her story: where she grew up, the uprising that shaped her, and the threat that she poses to Vladimir Putin. We discuss her early childhood in the post–Soviet state (1:43), her protest work during the Maidan Revolution (7:00), Putin’s recent speech that cited the organizations she helped create as a pretext for his invasion (27:37), and her call to action for Western governments (32:02). Editor’s note: This interview was recorded on Monday, March 7, 2022. It provides vital context for understanding Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but does not reflect the latest developments on the ground.

Jameela Jamil has been revered and despised as the internet’s loudest anti-fat-shaming activist, a social media Candyman out to get the diet industry. But whatever the public opinion, she couldn’t care less. In this week’s episode of Art of Power, host Aarti Shahani sits down with the premiere social media activist of a generation. We discuss her unexpected career launch in the U.K. (1:40), a life-threatening discovery that shook her into upending her life (2:41), her unfiltered social media battle with entertainment giants (7:17), her decades-long battle with depression and suicide (18:20), the origin story of her media company, I Weigh (30:09), how her Brown girl identity has shaped her career trajectory (38:51) and her deadly phobia of bees (0:00). “I will die fighting the f***ing diet industry,” she says. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (En Español: 1-888-628-9454; Deaf and Hard of Hearing: 1-800-799-4889) or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

Audrey Tang, world-renowned genius, is also a hacktivist. The software engineer protested Taiwan’s government during the 2014 Sunflower Movement – and then became an insider, as the first nonbinary and openly transgender cabinet member in the world. Tang and host Aarti Shahani talk about Taiwan’s COVID-19 “miracle”; the platform they helped create to democratize Taiwan’s fragile democracy; a rare childhood heart condition and Taoist meditation; and how their personal identity is a metaphor for the way they publicly lead.

America’s air campaign against terrorism in the Middle East was one of the most precise in history, according to military officials and media reports at the time. But award-winning investigative journalist Azmat Khan did not believe what she read in the papers. So, she decided to find the truth for herself. She put her body on the line and crisscrossed war zones to figure out how America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were actually going. We discuss tricks of the trade: how Azmat shook off Iraqi officials who were on her tail, how she distinguished between ISIS fighters and civilians, and how she built relationships with her sources. We meet the most important source in her life, Basim Razzo, an Iraqi man who lost his family in a U.S. drone strike. He was labeled, incorrectly, as a member of ISIS. We also go to a place Azmat does not like to visit (at least not in public): her inner life. Living between war and peace takes a real emotional toll. Supplemental reading: Ghost Students, Ghost Teachers, Ghost Schools, Azmat Khan (July 9, 2015) The Uncounted, Azmat Khan and Anand Gopal (Nov. 16, 2017) Hidden Pentagon Records Reveal Patterns of Failure in Deadly Airstrikes, Azmat Khan (Dec. 18, 2021)