TheBridge profile: Cory Siskind
Name: Cory Siskind
Current city: Washington, D.C.
Current job: CEO, Base Operations
Past job: Graduate student at MPA/MBA at Harvard Kennedy School and MIT; Senior Consultant at Booz & Company
Q. Favorite spot for a coffee meeting? Eaton Hotel Cafe in DC
Q. Describe how a skill you learned in a previous job helped you in your current job. Consulting taught me to fear no problem. First, understand the scope and define success. Then, figure out what resources you need to understand the problem better and define a hypothesis. Then, get to testing it and iterating! End with an educated conclusion and thoughts on implementation. I use this framework all the time.
Q. Job advice in three words? Don't compare yourself (Really it's "Don't compare your insides to someone else's outsides" from Samantha Power's book The Education of an Idealist, but that was too long.)
Q. How are you (or your company, org, nonprofit) currently bridging the gap between innovation and regulation? Base Operations helps companies keep their global workforce safe and connected with our approach to crisis and risk management. Companies have “duty of care” obligations to protect employees when they’re traveling or living in another country. We help companies meet those obligations in order to prevent a crisis with intuitive heat maps, safe routes, and geolocation-based alerts. If a crisis occurs, we help companies issue alerts, manage employee check-ins, and execute emergency plans.
Beyond merely ticking the compliance box, Base Operations drives employee adoption and retention and facilitates business continuity in an unpredictable, global, business environment.
Q. What can innovators learn from policymakers? Innovators can learn to slow down, be thoughtful, do their research, and consider multiple stakeholders.
Q. What can policymakers learn from innovators? Policymakers can learn to apply an iterative approach and conduct experiments.
Q. Favorite book/podcast/long-form article you recommend? Harvard Business Review’s Women at Work and Zero to IPO.
Also, fiction! It’s so important to keep your creative brain firing, even if most of your tasks are analytical.
Q. Living person you admire? Cecile Richards.
Q. Morning routine? I drink a green smoothie and listen to news podcasts while I walk 1.5 miles to my office.
Q. If you had to live in another city, which would it be? “Had to?” Get to! I lived in Mexico City for nearly four years, and living abroad was an incredible learning experience. I’d love to live abroad again, maybe São Paulo, Paris, or Tokyo? Yes please.
Click below to join TheBridge community and, among other resources, receive our bi-weekly updates with featured profiles.