Stories tell us who we are and help us understand others. They also suggest who we can be, if we overcome the ongoing divides in this country. In this podcast episode, Professor Brian Lowery sits down with American journalist and publishing executive Dana Canedy, dubbed by the New York Times as “one of the most powerful Black women in the literary world” who is “poised to alter the culture and the divisions she leads and shape the landscape.”

In this conversation, Lowery and Canedy touch on the difference between living a story and telling a story authentically. Canedy shares her goals of giving publishing contracts to voices often unheard, always aiming, she says, “to engage people in conversations that enrich our understanding of one another, foster real communications” and eventually lead to policy change.

This is Leadership for Society: The Podcast, a series of conversations hosted by Brian Lowery, senior associate dean for academic affairs at Stanford GSB, that focuses on the most pressing issues of today. In this season of the podcast, Lowery explores the role of race in society, how race interacts with structures of power, and how systemic racism manifests itself in day-to-day business and policy decisions.

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