The Business Olympics, 1500m Final … Altman vs Nadella, Barra vs Su, Lütke vs Jun … 4 Laps of strategic ambition and tactical execution … Who will win the gold medal? What can we learn from the world’s best athletes?

June 24, 2025

A year ago I was sitting in the Stade de France, in Paris. The sun blazed hot, and I was in my seat a good two hours before competition began. The crowd buzzed with anticipation. Tonight it was the 1500m final, the blue ribbon athletics events of the Summer Olympics.

As a Brit, I was rooting for Josh Kerr, but he was up against a stacked field – including the Norwegian champion Jakob Ingebrigstsen, and Americans Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse.

But imagine, a year later … and instead of elite athletes taking to the track for the Olympic 1500m final, it’s a different kind of gladiator.

These are eight of the world’s most dynamic business leaders—visionaries, technologists, empire builders—preparing to race not just for gold, but for global influence. Welcome to the Business Olympics, where CEOs and founders test their leadership like athletes test their bodies: through preparation, precision, resilience and heart.

The 1500m is a perfect metaphor. It demands both speed and stamina, tactics and nerve. And in this race, the competitors aren’t running for medals—they’re racing toward the future.

The Line-Up: 8 of the world’s best leaders

The Olympics brings together the best from around the world. Who will take victory on the day, in one race that can define a lifetime?

I’ve been a great admirer of Satya Nadella over the last decade, but Sam Altman seems to be shaking up the world of AI. Australia’s superstar Melanie Perkins is also one of the new generation of leaders. And then there are people like Lei Jun, the magician of Shanghai, the Steve Jobs of today’s technology world.

1. Satya Nadella (Microsoft)
The reigning champion of transformation. Calm, composed, and relentlessly human in his approach, Nadella has turned Microsoft into an innovation powerhouse—balancing cloud, AI, and a growth mindset culture with elegance.

2. Sam Altman (OpenAI)
The bold strategist and startup tactician. Altman runs with wild intensity, combining futurist vision with the pacing of someone who knows every twist in the track. But will he peak too soon?

3. Melanie Perkins (Canva)
Creative and confident, Perkins enters the race with disruptive energy. She doesn’t follow the old rules—she rewrites them, designing intuitive solutions at scale. Underestimate her at your peril.

4. Mary Barra (GM)
A veteran of tough terrain. Barra runs with the steady power of someone who has rebuilt an industrial giant for a post-petrol world. Electrified, resilient, and still accelerating.

5. Tobi Lütke (Shopify)
Quiet and composed, Lütke is a long-distance strategist. He focuses on empowering others—building platforms, not empires. His race is subtle, but don’t mistake that for weakness.

6. Lisa Su (AMD)
Focused, formidable, and fiercely competitive. Su has redefined performance, outpacing competitors with relentless precision. Her strength lies in mastering complexity while staying calm under pressure.

7. Jessica Tan (Ping An)
The hybrid leader—half technologist, half reformer. Tan blends speed with intelligence, innovating within legacy systems. She races with data, AI, and purpose in perfect stride.

8. Lei Jun (Xiaomi)
The master of efficiency and explosive growth. Jun runs light and fast, executing at scale while staying close to consumers. He’s hungry, unpredictable, and ready to break away.

Race Tactics: Innovation vs Endurance

The 1500m isn’t a sprint or a marathon—it’s the most psychological race on the track. These leaders must balance pace with positioning, intuition with preparation. The parallels with business are uncanny.

Early surge: Altman breaks early, pushing the pace with an aggressive move—just like his moonshot approach to AI. But the field doesn’t panic.
Smart control: Nadella and Su hold steady, conserving energy while tracking every move. It’s classic systems thinking: don’t chase, just stay sharp.
Positioning: Perkins slips into third, light on her feet, watching the chaos unfold ahead. She knows when to strike.
Acceleration from the middle: Tan and Jun exchange places, each using a different playbook—Tan with precision, Jun with hustle.
Unexpected move: With 400m to go, Barra powers up. She’s playing the long game, but she knows exactly when to shift gears.

Who’s your money on? It has the endurance, the courage, and the inspiration to step up when it matters most? Altman looks spent. Nadella is relaxed, a slight smile. Su focused. Perkins looks cool.

The Final Lap: Pressure Makes Performance

Now the race hits boiling point. There’s no hiding. This is where leaders show what they’re really made of. Not in earnings reports or speeches—but in resilience, grit, and instinct.

Nadella stays calm, calculating the perfect moment to launch. His stride lengthens.
Su is on his shoulder, surgical and focused, ready to match him move for move.
Perkins finds another gear—creative thinking becomes pure momentum.
Barra grits her teeth, driven by purpose and pressure-tested leadership.
Tan surges too—quietly powerful, elegantly efficient.

Neck and neck. The final drive. The Microsoft leader has created $3 trillion in shareholder value growth over the last 10, so analysts clearly have confidence in his ability to deliver.

The Podium: Who takes the glory?

Gold: Satya Nadella
A masterclass in composed leadership. He wins through timing, empathy, and a relentless ability to align innovation with culture and clarity.

Silver: Lisa Su
Unflinching and technically brilliant. Su doesn’t just race—she engineers a performance. A true operator who has led AMD into the future with grace and grit.

Bronze: Melanie Perkins
Youthful, bold, and unstoppable. Perkins proves that imagination and accessibility can change the game. She earns her medal with elegance and courage.

Close behind:

Jessica Tan – sharp, steady, and incredibly strategic. Her time is coming.
Tobi Lütke – consistent, humble, but perhaps a little too modest in a noisy race.
Mary Barra – the comeback queen, just shy of the medals but hugely respected.
Sam Altman – brilliant but burned too much energy too early.
Lei Jun – fast and fierce, but the final lap exposed his lack of endurance.

What a great race. Maybe the result was not such a surprise. Nadella, has after all, created over $3 trillion of value growth during his 10 years as CEO of Microsoft. His focus on growth mindset, of relentless innovation, and bringing the tech business back to global leadership is admired universally. I know he can play cricket, I’m not sure how far he can run?

So what can business leaders learn from Olympic athletes?

Of course, business leaders typically have different physical talents to the world’s top Olympic athletes. But maybe, in their pursuit of high performance, to be the best in the world, they share some common traits:

Discipline fuels creativity: Athletes don’t just train for fun—they train to win. High-performance leaders create space for innovation by mastering fundamentals.
It’s a team sport: Behind every elite athlete is a team—coaches, trainers, analysts. Behind every great CEO is a culture, a board, and a customer community.
You can’t peak every day: Smart leaders know when to push and when to recover. Resilience comes not from always going full pace, but knowing when to hold back.
Success is a long race: In the 1500m, as in business, it’s not about one burst of brilliance. It’s about knowing the track, adapting mid-race, and executing at the right moment.
Character is the final advantage: Champions are forged in adversity. The winners here didn’t just have good strategies—they had courage, humility, and the will to lead others.

This was one race. But the track is always open. New competitors rise. Technologies shift. Conditions change. The leaders who train, evolve, and inspire will always be in contention. Because in the end, high performance is not just about being the fastest—it’s about knowing why you’re running, and bringing others with you.

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