The Woman Protecting us from Weapons of Mass Destruction

The Sydcast

Episode Summary:

Wendin Smith wanted Russia to stop polluting its largest lake and ended up becoming one of America’s leading thinkers on weapons of mass destruction. Her vantage point at the Department of Defense and now in consulting gives her access and insight to some of the most intractable challenges we face, from biological weapons to global cybercrime. In this episode of The Sydcast, an inside look and master class you wish you didn’t need.

Sydney Finkelstein

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Wendin D. Smith

Wendin D. Smith, PhD, currently serves as a Managing Director at Deloitte Consulting, LLP. Her professional background is in Russian and security studies, focused on countering weapons of mass destruction and environmental security. Prior to transitioning to Deloitte, she had the honor of serving as the Senior Advisor to the Commanding General of the U.S. Special Operations Command, supporting the Command in its capacity as the DoD’s Coordinating Authority for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD). Previously, she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for CWMD, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (DASD/CWMD). Across her career, she has led strategic initiatives in defense and national security at various smaller and larger firms, as well as inside and outside of government. On the entrepreneurial side, she has founded and operated two woman-owned consultancies, and has served overseas in various capacities in Moscow, Russia. Fluent in Russian and conversational in German, she is also proud to serve on various Boards, and - pending the season – is a competitive rower and nordic skier (xc, “skate” skiing). She enjoys spending as much time as possible outdoors, usually with her active, nature-loving 5-year-old daughter.

Insights from this Episode

• How Wendin’s sense of purpose to protect the Baikal Lake from the Soviets was a crucial point to define her career.
• How Wendin became interested in weapons of mass destruction and global security.
• Strategies Wendin used to combine the security field with the environment and the challenges she faced by doing so.
• The crucial role she played in a treaty that controlled biological weapons production globally.
• How an exchange experience in Russia as a Native American, helped her to understand the logic of the geopolitical problems between the Russian and United States better.
• The difficulties countries face due to cyberterrorism because they are borderless.

Quotes from the Show:

• “Through the end of the late 80’s there had been a lot of changes in the leadership of the Communist Party and in the 1991 time frame the transition went from being the Soviet Union under Gorbachev to then Russia as the Russian federation” - Wendin D. Smith [13:45]
• “At what point can there be a norm around what acts you do or don’t do as an expert in your field and the ethics that come with that”- Wendin D. Smith [26:34]
• “With nuclear weapons we have mutual assured destruction” - Sydney Finkelstein [26:50]
• “Even if we could rapidly develop a policy, and rapid in that space would be a year or two which would be extraordinary, by the time we’ve developed that policy the technology would have evolved at a pace that the technology will likely not be entirely relevant ” - Wendin D. Smith [27:42]
• “[About United States culture] We are all about capitalism, and the market, and driving forward, so our mindset is much more driven to a path that puts us more vulnerable [to cyberterrorism] - Wendin D. Smith [30:18]
• “When you have a single leader with that much power, it is much easier to turn and change and do things as a country than in our system where consensus rules” - Wendin D. Smith [42:07]
• “[About understanding Russia and their objectives] You can’t find yourself to resolution if you don’t understand whether it is an adversary or a partner and what their views are”- Wendin D. Smith [54:16]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

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Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

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Wendin D. Smith

LinkedIn: Wendin D. Smith

Website: https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/dr-wendin-smith/

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This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.