Roy Gori started with a paycheck, not a plan. The son of an Australian coal miner, he joined Citibank at 17 straight out of high school, simply looking for any role that paid. Over the next four decades, he rose from bank reconciliations to the helm of global insurer Manulife, driven by a philosophy that leadership is a race against an hourglass.
His tenure at Manulife offers a blueprint for high-stakes transformation, suggesting that a leader’s most powerful tool is the ability to act as the organization’s "metronome"—setting a relentless pace of urgency while tying compensation to behavioral culture rather than just profits.
Gori’s strategy, he explained at an event hosted by Columbia Business School’s Silfen Leadership Speaker Series, was rooted in "endpoint thinking." To dismantle organizational inertia, he set a fixed seven-year horizon for his CEO role, viewing every passing day as one grain of sand less to achieve his objectives.
However, his most meaningful lesson was a radical overhaul of performance metrics. Gori realized that rewarding rainmakers who delivered results through toxic, combative behaviors was a liability. He introduced a 360-degree evaluation system where "how" results were achieved carried equal weight to "what" was delivered. High performers with poor behavioral ratings saw their compensation docked; consistent offenders were fired.
Today, Gori applies this philosophy to AI, urging leaders to skip 5% incremental tweaks and instead target "30% bogeys" that reimagine work from scratch.
For Gori, the ultimate competitive advantage isn't the technology, but a culture disciplined enough to use it to rewire the business entirely.
