Leeds Business Insights

About Leeds Business Insights

The challenges facing business today are more complex and interconnected than ever before. The Leeds School of Business at CU Boulder offers a cutting-edge perspective of trending topics, along with actionable insights, to help you navigate the evolving world of business. Leeds Business Insights Podcast is a production of Leeds School of Business and is produced by University FM. (https://university.fm/)

Publisher

Leeds School of Business

Category

business · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

9 Feb 2022

Latest episode

30 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

49 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   30 Sept 2026

   S5E6: Spencer Rogers - The Business of Hospitality and ETA

   On this episode of the Leeds Business Insights podcast, host Claire Stewart speaks with Spencer Rogers, hospitality entrepreneur, founder/CEO of Third Place Hospitality, and an alumnus of the Leeds School of Business, about entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) and his career path from product management at Apple to a PTSD-recovery app startup, then full-time hospitality. Spencer explains how bartending alongside his tech career led him to Denver and into bar management, prompting him to pursue an MBA at Leeds to build his finance and marketing skills. Spencer found ETA and the search-fund model at a key time through a class and a mentor, leading him to form Third Place Hospitality in 2024, focused on “third places” that build community amid increased loneliness and blurred work/home life. He describes LOIs, due diligence, and ultimately acquiring the establishment Lady Jane in 2025, as well as lessons in ownership, misconceptions about hospitality, shifts in cocktail culture post-COVID, and why ETA is growing in Colorado due to the “Silver Tsunami” of retiring owners and expanding curriculum and events. Leeds Business Insights Podcast is a production of Leeds School of Business and is produced by University FM. (https://university.fm/) EPISODE QUOTES: Merging industry intuition with MBA education 14:38: My thought and hope, and what I'm betting my career on, is that having that background in hospitality and knowing the space really well, combined with what I learned in the MBA program, a much stronger base in finance, I can find and get myself into deals for bars that perhaps other people in the ETA world wouldn't look at, and perhaps other people who are just purely in the hospitality world wouldn't necessarily have the knowledge to structure those deals. Being an entrepreneur really is how you handle unexpected punches 19:35: Unforeseen things are just always going to happen. You can't foresee everything. Things are going to change. Things are going to shake up. And I think a big part of being an entrepreneur really is how you handle those unexpected punches and how you're able to navigate them, go around them. Sometimes the only way is through them. But it really is just always something different, something new, which is scary and exciting at the same time. Lessons learned through acquisition 20:00: Another thing you really don't understand until you're in it with entrepreneurship through acquisition is once you're done with the search process and you close a deal and you buy a business, you're now responsible for all of your employees and their wellbeing. So overnight, you become the person who makes sure the lights stay on, the paychecks get signed. You make payroll every time you need to, all of that. And that's obviously there's pressure with that, but it's really, really fulfilling knowing that you are able to support people in their careers. SHOW LINKS: Episode Transcript (https://www.colorado.edu/business/news/2026/09/30/leeds-business-insights-podcast-spencer-rogers) Spencer Rogers | LinkedIn Profile (https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencerjrogers/) Spencer Rogers | Lady Jane (https://www.ladyjanedenver.com/our-team) 2026 Rocky Mountain ETA Conference (https://rockymountaineta.com/)

2. 

   26 Aug 2026

   S5E5: Ying Zeng - Ratings, Risk and the Psychology of Choice

   On this episode of the Leeds Business Insights podcast, host Claire Stewart speaks with Ying Zeng, assistant professor of marketing at the Leeds School of Business, to unpack the hidden biases and mental shortcuts that shape consumer decision-making. Ying explains why tasks feel most exhausting near completion—because people track percentage completed rather than total effort—and suggests batching chores to experience this "end drain" only once. She breaks down common online review biases, revealing how price and platform norms distort ratings, and offers practical strategies for making smarter purchases. The conversation also explores AI as an emerging decision shortcut for complex purchases, the hidden appeal of risky products, and why marketers must simplify their messaging for "lazy" consumers. Finally, Ying outlines a framework for distinguishing short-lived fads from lasting market trends. Leeds Business Insights Podcast is a production of Leeds School of Business and is produced by University FM. (https://university.fm/) EPISODE QUOTES: AI as a tool to reduce cognitive burden 10:39: If you're very tired with shopping, you probably want to take shortcuts, and that's just human. One shortcut people take is using branding information, brands. People have brands that they trust, and they don't think about other things like price, like other consumer reviews, like the product specifications. There are other shortcuts people use. For example, simply relying on ratings. That's another shortcut that starts when the reputation system establishes. Now we have another shortcut that we can also customize for our own needs, which is AI. So, if you are someone who cares, who has all these principles when you select a product, AI can be a tool to help you reduce these cognitive burdens. On simplifying consumer decisions 13:21: Do not overestimate how sophisticated your consumers are. Consumers are lazy. Consumers are not that intelligent. I am lazy. I am stupid. I am a consumer. So, for business and for marketers, the key part for us to design a successful product or to design something that consumers love is to help them simplify their decisions. AI as the next trend 20:06: Now I think artificial intelligence is probably the next trend because it has all the features of what we call general-purpose technologies. It has this feature of potentially nurturing new industries, potentially nurturing new ideas, and it has this feature of potentially having this feedback loop of reinforcing itself. SHOW LINKS: Episode Transcript (https://www.colorado.edu/business/news/2026/08/26/leeds-business-insights-podcast-ying-zeng) Ying Zeng | Leeds School of Business Profile (https://www.colorado.edu/business/leeds-directory/faculty/ying-zeng) Ying Zeng | Personal Website (https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=mFQy2B8AAAAJ) Google Scholar Page (https://yingzeng.weebly.com/)

3. 

   29 Jul 2026

   S5E4: Dave Allen - Embracing AI and Student-Led Innovation

   On this episode of the Leeds Business Insights podcast, host Claire Stewart talks with Dave Allen, the CEO of Pure Fishing for Sycamore Partners as well as a Leeds alumnus and Dean’s Advisory Board member. Dave describes his career path from landing his first job with Unilever to leading turnarounds, emphasizing a strategy of cutting invisible costs, reinvesting in brand building and innovation, strengthening culture, and assessing talent. He cites social media as one seismic consumer-products shift, requiring hyper-local, nimble marketing across platforms. Dave also says AI in business has turned out more to drive efficiency than replace jobs and encourages businesses and students to “just start.” He details a CU internship partnership that paired business and engineering students to solve marketing and efficiency use cases, including YouTube optimization and AI storyboarding, generating major view gains and $1.9M savings that the organization used to hire full-time AI staff to continue these trends. Dave and Claire also discuss the outdoors industry and what makes it unique. Leeds Business Insights Podcast is a production of Leeds School of Business and is produced by University FM. (https://university.fm/) EPISODE QUOTES: An advice for people intimidated by AI 08:10: [Claire Stewart] Is there any advice that you might give to businesses that are kind of intimidated by AI, and they don't know how it's going to impact things? 08:17: [Dave Allen] Start. Just start. You know what? Some things will work, some things won't work. You'll find your own rhythm. I think where we started, you know, it was really around efficiency. How do we go and save money? And I think where we've evolved is, you know, to be able to push it more towards growth. So how can we leverage it to be able to be, you know, drive faster innovation, better innovation, and drive more sales across more channels. So, our journey has sort of taken us through efficiency and now into growth, but I think the most important part is just get started. AI is a real gift 07:17: I would encourage people to think about AI as a real gift. So they've grown up with AI in a way that, you know, you and I haven't, right? So they've thought about AI in terms of how they approach everything probably since, even the tail end of high school for the batch of seniors that we have right now. And if you take a look at it, you know, if you're probably over 26 or 27 years old, you might as well be 50, because you really haven't used the tool that often. And so I think their ability to be able to take it, solve problems, but also be able to go and then teach a whole generation of people within an organization how to use it, how to leverage it, will give them a huge competitive advantage in the marketplace. Why CU graduates stands out 16:07: Part of the beauty of CU, I think, is not only the in-class experience, but it's all the other things that CU and Boulder has to offer. And so I think that, you know, I find a lot of those students are really high on the EQ side, and that's a huge differentiator and really important, for people in terms of how far they can go in their career. SHOW LINKS: Episode Transcript (https://leeds.ly/dave-allen) Dave Allen | Leeds School of Business Profile (https://www.colorado.edu/business/leeds-directory/dave-allen) Talent Meets Technology: How Students Solved a Problem for a Global Brand | Article (https://www.colorado.edu/business/news/2026/01/16/talent-meets-technology)

Who has been a guest on Leeds Business Insights

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Richard Wobbekind
• Brian Lewandowski
• Jeremiah Contreras
• Scott Sternberg
• Ryan Heckman

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.8 / 5

6 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 31 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

50

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

32

Contact Leeds Business Insights

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Shows with a similar audience

• 

  Marketplace

• 

  Freakonomics Radio

• 

  The Daily

• 

  Good Hang with Amy Poehler

Questions about Leeds Business Insights