I’m a Professor of Practice, global strategy and innovation executive, and co-author of the upcoming book “The Kansal Clunker: The Car that Rebuilt Us”, which comes out in December 2025, a memoir written with my son, Neil Kansal. I’ve spent most of my career in leadership roles across Fortune 500 companies, advising organizations on how to navigate transformation at the crossroads of technology, healthcare, and human behavior.
In the summer of 2020, during the height of the pandemic, I began a personal journey that I never saw coming. My teenage son wanted to learn how to drive a manual car. We didn’t have one, but we found a beat-up 1998 Acura Integra, bought it for $5,000, and decided to rebuild it together. What started as a simple DIY project turned into a life-changing experience. As we worked on that car, we ended up rebuilding parts of ourselves too.
That journey reshaped how I think about leadership, growth, and what it takes to move forward during uncertain times. Now, I connect the narrative of that journey with the real-world challenges of leading teams and show C-suite executives how the principles behind personal transformation can be applied to organizational leadership in the face of disruption.
And today, the greatest disruption many leaders are grappling with is artificial intelligence. AI can optimize processes, scale output, and predict outcomes with astonishing speed. But what it cannot do is provide purpose, empathy, or moral judgment. The Integra project taught me this: while technology is a powerful partner, the human role is to create meaning in the midst of change. Leaders must go beyond efficiency and ask, what uniquely human value am I bringing when the algorithm has done its part?
This talk (which I will co-present with Neil) is about what we learned on that road trip: how fixing something broken, whether it’s a car, a business, or a relationship, begins with a courageous choice to step into the unknown and grow from there. I believe the way we respond when life falls apart tells us more about who we are as leaders than any title or strategy ever could.
Our talk is rooted in a personal story that began with an old clunker, a teenage dream, and a shared desire to do something meaningful during a time when the world felt stuck. Over the course of a year, my son and I faced all kinds of setbacks and learned unexpected lessons while rebuilding that car and preparing for a 5,000-mile road trip. What we learned along the way changed how I see leadership. You don’t have to have a grand plan to initiate transformation. You don’t have to know exactly how or when things will fall into place. As a leader, you just have to take the leap, build the skills as you go, stay relentlessly committed through the hard parts, and lead your team with empathy.
