The Executive Appeal with Alex D. Tremble

Servant leadership gets misread as self-sacrifice, and that misread is costing you and your team. This episode breaks down where the idea goes wrong, what it actually looks like in practice, and two concrete steps you can take today to stop carrying work that belongs to someone else. What you will take away from this episode: - Absorbing every problem, taking every call, and saying yes when you me...

If you run a company and your team keeps stalling on decisions no matter how much you coach ownership, this episode of The Executive Appeal shows you which broken link is actually causing the drag and what to do about it this week. - Why slow decisions almost never come from a lack of proactivity, and what is really behind the stall - The TP3 chain: trust, proactivity, and productivity, and why be...

If you're a CEO or senior executive and your best people have stopped telling you what they really think, this episode of The Executive Appeal shows you exactly what is driving that silence and two concrete steps to reverse it before your next meeting. - Why saying "push back on me" means nothing if your reaction tells a different story - What your team is actually watching for, and it is not your...

The Executive Appeal, Episode 239 Most leaders do not have a decision problem. They have a movement problem. A decision already made but never acted on costs the organization every single day, quietly, with no bill attached and no one calling it out. What you will hear in this episode: - To decide comes from the Latin roots meaning "to cut off." If other options are still alive in your head, you h...

In this solo episode, Alex D. Tremble, CEO of GPS Leadership Solutions, walks through a coaching call with a senior executive who said she had no time for the big work. By the end, she had two hours a week she did not have before. The problem: "I don't have time" is a true statement sitting on top of a ranking decision leaders never realize they made. Requests from people get protected. Your own p...

A near miss on the highway turned into one of the clearest leadership lessons Alex D. Tremble has had all year, and it did not come from a boardroom. Alex walks through a real road rage incident and unpacks what it reveals about trust, judgment, and the cost of reacting instead of responding. The same dynamics that played out on that highway show up constantly in multi-location businesses: snap ju...

Your team is capable, but decisions still find their way back to your desk, and the fix usually comes down to two things: trust and follow-up. In this episode, Joe Brooks, President of Acme Truck Brake & Supply, and Martin Redilla, Education Manager at HDA Truck Pride, break down how a multi-location parts and service business builds a leadership bench that actually owns its problems instead o...

Most leaders try to fix slow execution by improving what's already there. Claus Jensen says that's the trap. Small tweaks to an old system just make you a little better at being slow. Claus Jensen is Chief Information Officer at The University of Texas at Austin's Dell Medical School, where he leads technology and innovation strategy across a large, multi-site academic health system. On this episo...

Your leadership bench can be full of smart, capable people and still move slower than it should, not because anyone's dropping the ball, but because they're all speaking slightly different versions of the same language. Fix that gap, and execution speed compounds fast. Chris Condon is Founder and CEO of Aircon, the decision layer for air freight. They help freight forwarders structure the evidence...

Your leadership bench just doubled in size, so why does alignment feel harder to hold onto, not easier? Dianna Fioravanti is President of Kuehne+Nagel Canada, the first woman to hold the role, and author of Flip the Switch. Leading a matrix organization with 15 VPs across business units, she has seen firsthand how alignment breaks down as a leadership bench grows: priorities compete, messages get...

If your leadership bench can execute but can't decide, you don't have leaders yet, you have very reliable followers. This episode features Brice Ravussin, Vice President of Customer Care and Aftermarket at Demers Ambulances. Brice has led multi-site, multi-country customer support teams built out of company acquisitions, turning former competitors into one aligned organization focused on a single...

Most CEOs don't run out of good ideas as they grow, they run out of leaders ready to carry them. The real ceiling on your expansion isn't demand or capital, it's how many people you trust to make the call without you. Brian Bruckner is President of Bruckner Truck and Equipment, a multi-location Mack and Volvo dealer with more than 45 locations across 10 states and over a thousand employees. He's s...

If you're not hearing the truth from your leadership bench until something's already broken, this episode is for you. Alex D. Tremble sits down with Mark Phillips, Vice President of Operations at Sharkey Transportation, Inc., a multi-entity trucking company running multiple shops, drop lots, and equipment lines. Mark walks through how he rebuilt trust with a newly assembled leadership team fast en...

Two years and a significant investment into a technology decision, Simon Kaye recognized it was the wrong call and walked away, even as his own vendor questioned how he could abandon that much sunk cost. That willingness to admit a mistake and act on it is central to how Jaguar Freight has operated for over 33 years without every decision escalating back to Simon's desk. Simon Kaye is the founder...

You can't be in every branch, every day. So when something goes unresolved, your people fill that silence themselves, and it isn't always with the truth. Matt Schroeder is President of Truck Equipment, Inc., a heavy-duty parts, repair, and equipment upfitting company with five locations across Wisconsin and Michigan, recently named 2025 Distributor of the Year at Heavy Truck Aftermarket Week. In t...

If you're running a multi-location, operations-heavy business in the eight-figure range and you still can't name three people who could step into a critical leadership role tomorrow, this episode is for you. Alex D. Tremble sits down with Jamila Cowan, NA Public Sector Programs & Partnerships Strategy Lead at Dell Technologies, where she has spent nearly two decades in senior leadership roles...

If your team is talented on paper but problems still roll up to you before they get handled, this episode is for you. Andrea Piering is the co-owner and president of Sun State Builders, one of Arizona's longest-running design-build general contractors. She started as a college intern, spent 25+ years working nearly every role in the company, and took the helm as president in 2024. She knows what i...

If your leadership team is always busy but never quite focused on the right things and you're still the one who has to sort out which initiatives actually matter, this episode is for you. Teresa Duran , Chief Information Officer at Tree Top Inc., is an award-winning technology executive with over two decades of experience leading large-scale transformations across multiple industries, including bi...

If you're running a multi-location, operations-heavy company and you're still the person every major decision runs through, this episode is a direct conversation about why that's happening and what it actually takes to change it. Anthony Apa, President of Mark-It Express LLC and a third-generation operator in transportation and logistics, built a portfolio spanning asset-based trucking, freight br...

What happens when the CEO becomes the operational bottleneck, even with a strong team in place? In this episode of The Executive Appeal, Scott Lovell shares how he transitioned from HR manager to President/CEO of SmithCo Side Dump Trailers and learned one of the hardest lessons for growing operations-heavy companies: if every major decision still depends on the CEO, growth eventually slows down. W...

In this episode of The Executive Appeal, Siri and Alex D. Tremble unpack what leadership really looks like when teams are moving fast, change is constant, and the pressure to adapt never stops. Sirisha “Siri” Swahari is Vice President and PMSO Sector Leader for US Global Technology Operations at CGI, where she leads global infrastructure operations, oversees multi-million-dollar portfolios, and he...

Michael Wright, Vice President of Strategic Growth at JANUS Research Group, has spent 25+ years helping organizations evolve from activity-driven execution to outcome-based performance in high-stakes environments. In this episode, he and Alex D. Tremble break down a challenge most leaders of a multi-location, operations-heavy business doing roughly eight figures in revenue face: your team is busy—...

If you’re a CEO of a multi-location, operations-heavy business doing roughly eight figures in revenue, you’ve likely felt this: you have solid managers but they still hesitate, filter information, or wait for you before making a move. In this episode of Executive Appeal podcast , Alex sits down with Janis Middleton, Chief Inclusion Officer at 22Squared and founder of First, Not Only Network. With...

If you’re a CEO of a multi-location, operations-heavy business doing roughly eight figures in revenue, you already know this: growth doesn’t break your business, misalignment and low trust do. In this episode, Alex sits down with Ryan Changcoco, Principal at CCG and The Marketing Ronin, GP at Anchorage Pointe Ventures, and CEO of a fast-growing pediatric behavioral health organization expanding ac...

If you’re leading a $10M–$25M, multi-location, operations-heavy business, you’ve likely felt it: revenue slows down unless you step in and push. In this episode, Alex D. Tremble sits down with Lara Shackelford , CEO of Hawksmoor.ai , where she architects AI-driven go-to-market systems for enterprise and mid-market companies. With deep experience across Oracle, Microsoft, and high-growth environmen...