But just as he began making inroads rebuilding trust with the airline’s many unions, a major heart attack landed him in the hospital. He returned to work only to face a proxy battle.
However, his earlier listening tour paid dividends. When facing the activist investors, the head of the pilot’s union, speaking for all of the unions, sent a letter announcing that the unions were standing behind Munoz.
“All of a sudden the unions that I had engaged with for a short time period, that listen, learn and lead concept, was where we’d come from.” He kept control of the company, and ultimately was able to lead the airline through the pandemic.
Details of this time are highlighted in his upcoming book, “Turnaround Time: Uniting an Airline and its Employees in the Friendly Skies.”
Leadership Panels
The rest of the day’s programming offered a number of breakout room discussions on various topics of interest to alumni, including:
· Leading Your Business Through a Changing Landscape.
· Case Studies: Real World DEI Strategies with Impact.
· Web3 – What Leaders Need to Know Ab out the Next Iteration of the Internet.
Fireside Chat: The Business of College Athletics
· From Start to Finish: The Entrepreneurship Journey.
· How do you Lead in a Category That is not yet Defined?
· Doing Good by Doing Well: How Businesses can Extend their Impact beyond their Bottom Line.
“One of my biggest takeaways that I heard from the keynote to all my breakout sessions was the importance of creating enough psychological safety before starting conversations,” said Paul Duke Lee MPA ’19. “Leaders can listen, prioritize, and then create actionable items - make big problems smaller and into smaller, achievable task.”
Echoing Dean Garrett’s emphasis on lifelong learning, he said, “The event reminded me how proud I am to be in the Trojan Family.”