Five Successful Industry Bosses Share Their New Year’s Resolutions for 2018

03 January 2018 -

Do you share the ambitions of these business leaders?

Jermaine Haughton

From embarking on new business challenges to taking on new hobbies, the New Year provides managers with a great opportunity to improve their personal and work lives. Insights reveals the New Year Resolutions from trailblazing business leaders.

1. ‘Take more risks’ – Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel

The vocal driving force behind the transformative diversification of Intel’s products, workforce and culture, tech veteran Brian Krzanich wants to take even bolder risks in 2018.

“The new normal for Intel is that we are going to take more risks," CEO Brian Krzanich wrote in a memo to employees. “The new normal is that we will continue to make bold moves and try new things.” The message continued: “If there's one thing about the future I am 100% sure of, it is the role of data: memory, FPGAs, IOT, AI, autonomous driving... We're just inches away from being a 50/50 company, meaning that half our revenue comes from the PC and half from new growth markets."

Krzanich has already led the leading computer hardware giant’s two biggest acquisitions in history - FPGA chip manufacturer Altera in 2015 for $16.7 billion (£12.3bn) and Israeli computer vision company Mobileye in 2017 for $15.3 billion (£11.29bn).

2. ‘Be agile’ – Leah Kennedy, head of global insight, BT

Increased focus on machine learning, automation and cyber security solutions are expected across most industries in 2018 and BT’s data insights lead Leah Kennedy has prioritised the use of data more effectively and rapidly to meet customer needs.  

In an interview with research-live, she explained: “[We should] be more agile. We can’t afford to spend months delivering the answers to big business questions anymore – the business and the market moves too quickly. We need to take more advantage of all the great technology out there to deliver quality insights faster and cheaper.”

3. ‘Be socially responsible’ – Jack Dorsey, CEO and Chairman of Twitter and Square

Finding the balance between remaining a platform for freedom of expression for users, increasing ad revenues and dealing with malicious trolls, foreign government propaganda machines and abusive users made 2017 a difficult year for Twitter.

In 2018, the social networking service’s CEO Jack Dorsey has pledged a series of moves to make Twitter a more caring and responsible web community, especially for female users. New rules will include full account reviews and the permanent suspension of accounts identified as the source of tweets featuring non-consensual nudity.

4. ‘Stop procrastinating’ – Kenneth Cole, founder of Kenneth Cole Productions

Between being one of the go-to fashion designers to A-List celebrities, the head of a global fashion chain and a campaigner for social causes, Kenneth Cole is certainly a busy man. However, Cole admitted he feels he could be working more efficiently by avoiding distractions, setting a New Year’s resolution do just that.  Tweeting his goals for 2018, Cole posted: “My 1st #NewYearsResolution is to stop procrastinating… eventually.”

5. ‘Focus on work/life balance’ – Jennifer Hawkins, founder and CEO of Cozi by Jennifer Hawkins and Jbronze

The supermodel-turned-serial-entrepreneur has vowed to focus on her family life during the New Year.

The former Miss Universe (2004) told Australia’s the Daily Telegraph: “I already started my New year’s resolution in November 2017, which is to see my family at least once a week. That is what I really want to do, see my loved ones once a week instead of once a month. And I feel good for it. It is pretty simple but it works.”