How Equitable Confronted Its Inertia After 160 Years in Business

In 2019, Equitable’s CEO, Mark Pearson, set out to change how the 163-year-old financial services firm gets work done. He wanted the firm to speed up decision-making and empower employees through a flatter hierarchy, agile teams, and more opportunities to lead. Most divisions thrived under the new model. Others clung to old habits. Several years in, the effort sheds light on core questions: What does true cultural change look like? What makes it last? And how do leaders bring skeptics along? Harvard Business School Professor Das Narayandas joins Pearson and COO Jeff Hurd to discuss the case “New WOW at Equitable: A New Way of Working.”

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How Equitable Confronted Its Inertia After 160 Years in Business is an episode from Cold Call by HBR Presents / Brian Kenny.

This episode is 34:42 long.

This episode was published on Jan 6, 2026.

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