Alex Budak is a leading voice on leadership, change, and impact, featured in in some of the world’s top platforms, publications, and 50+ podcasts.

  • Understanding ESG Funds

    “ESG funds represent an opportunity to align your investments with your personal beliefs, practice social responsibility, good governance and sustainability, and put your money where your mouth is,” says Alex Budak.

  • Millennial Boss Moaning Gen Z Staff Are 'a Massive Headache' Sparks Debate

    Alex Budak, a faculty member at UC Berkeley Haas who teaches leadership to Gen Z students and is the author of Becoming a Changemaker, told Newsweek: "The Gen Z students that I teach give me so much hope for the future. I appreciate how clear they are on their personal values, and how they actively look for organizations that match these values."

  • Alex Budak and StartSomeGood

    Having a great idea but no funding led Alex Budak to set up a social enterprise to help others in the same position

  • LIVE! IN THE BAY

    Author of ‘Becoming a Changemaker’

  • MBA Programs Must Adapt to Navigate American Culture Wars

    “We need to train MBA students not just to be leaders, but to become changemakers,” said Alex Budak.

  • How I Learned To Step Back And Give My Team Real Power

    “Companies where leaders don’t empower their teams are like merry-go-rounds: plenty of movement, but stuck in place.”

  • How empathy in changemaking can transform institutions

    Berkeley News recently spoke with Budak about the importance of having empathy as a changemaker, and why Berkeley is becoming a leader in the field of changemaking.

  • Author Interview: Alex Budak

    “I couldn’t wait to talk to Alex about happiness, habits, and leadership.”

  • Radically Inclusive Changemaking and Its Limits

    What, exactly, is a changemaker? What sort of leadership defines it? And is this work about leading change or enabling it?

    This essay addresses some of these questions by taking as a case in point the publication of Alex Budak's new book: Becoming a Changemaker.

  • 6 hot IT leadership trends — and 6 going cold

    Alex Budak, Berkeley Haas School of Business faculty and author of Becoming a Changemaker, agrees with Deloitte’s Shaikh that using your formal authority to get things done is out.

  • Covid-19 changed work forever. It may also redefine middle management.

    "Middle management is ready for a rebrand,” said Alex Budak, faculty member at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. “Middle managers who thrive in this new world will spend a bit less time on process and procedures, and more time on human-centered leadership.”

  • Is 'Kind Productivity' the Future of Work?

    Alex Budak, a faculty member at UC Berkeley Haas who teaches leadership to Gen Z students says that members of Gen Z are “comfortable questioning the status quo…especially around work norms.”

  • Changemakers are shaking up the status quo of doing business

    Expert in leadership and change Professor Alex Budak of Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and author of Becoming a Changemaker, defines a changemaker as someone who leads positive change from wherever they are.

    “My definition is radically inclusive, and while it absolutely includes and often is anchored in areas of positive change beyond social and environmental, it also provides room for many other areas of impact, including artistic and technological,” he says.

  • Small classes with a mighty impact

    Budak, author of the 2022 book Becoming a Changemaker, said he believes that anyone choosing to commit their professional lives to the field of public health is already well on their way to becoming a changemaker.

    “Leadership is a lens for creating positive change, whether within one’s career, community, team or organizations,” he said. “I hope students will leave with clarity on what their leadership can make possible.”

  • Under-control vs. in-control leadership: From micro-manager to micro-leader

    One of the biggest mistakes I see leaders make, is overvaluing being “in control” and undervaluing being “under control.”

  • 2023 Most Disruptive Business School Startups, Scribble AI, U.C.-Berkeley (Haas)

    What business professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? “Lecturer Alex Budak’s unique framework for change-making, especially in the context of the lean startup methodology, was helpful for us to maintain a disciplined customer mindset – always ensuring we understand the core problems that customers are facing.”

Podcasts

I’m a huge podcast fan, so it’s been an honor and a joy to join some of my very favorite podcasts as a guest — and to discover some new favorites, too, all while making some wonderful new friends with these inspiring hosts! Here’s a playlist of appearances: