"What Motherhood Taught Me About Becoming a Better Leader" -Margery Kraus, Founder & Executive Chairman, APCO.

Margery Kraus is the Founder and Executive Chairman of APCO Worldwide, a company she started in 1984 as a small subsidiary of a Washington, D.C. law firm and built into a global consultancy with roughly 1,200 people across 35 locations.

Her story, though, starts much earlier. The child of immigrants whose family fled Nazi Europe, passed through Cuba and eventually rebuilt their lives in America, Margery grew up around resilience, risk and starting again.

We talk about how that shaped the entrepreneur she became, why she refused to listen when people told her “you can’t do that,” and what it was really like building a global company while raising a family.

We also get into the 2004 management buyout that helped make APCO one of the world’s largest majority women-owned consulting firms, how you step back from leading a company you built without really letting go, and what four decades advising some of the world’s most influential leaders have taught her about who thrives under pressure and who doesn’t.

Recorded in Dalian, China, during the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions, we also look at the world right now: China’s place in the global economy, shifting trade relationships and what the rest of the world may be getting wrong about this moment.

And then there’s AI. Margery says it’s the thing that keeps her up at night. For someone who has built a career and a business around human trust, judgment and relationships, I wanted to know why.

A fascinating conversation with someone who has spent more than 40 years building, adapting and refusing to stand still.

Special thanks to the World Economic Forum for bringing us together in Dalian.