The HX Collective

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with Colleen Affeldt, Vice Chair at Corient Wealth Management and a lifelong student of why people do what they do. Colleen's path is unusual: fifteen years running her own consulting practice with a parallel foot in academia, then years embedded inside an operating company after joining a Dallas firm, once a consulting client, that was later acquired by Corien...

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with Matt Kocanda, office managing partner for the Chicago office of Corient and, by Deb's own description, her collaborator in crime for more than ten years. The subject is one most people would rather not discuss at all: sales. Matt did not arrive here by choice. He spent an earlier stretch of his career actively running away from it, and left a firm specific...

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with Heather Heaton, a writer, an unconventional pastor, and Deb's friend and fellow resident of a town of fewer than eight thousand people. The subject is hospitality, but not the version involving hors d'oeuvres and hot dishes. Heather's argument, formed in seminary while she questioned and unlearned a great deal about the role of women in the church, is that...

In this episode, Deb Knupp welcomes back Jay Stark, partner and wealth advisor at Sutton Wealth Planning of CI Assante Wealth Management, for a second conversation. The first introduced the HX Collective community to Jay as a father of two daughters, and he shares that it gave his family a chance to reminisce and deepened those relationships. This time the subject is generosity, and specifically w...

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with Roy Sexton, Chief Marketing Officer at Vedder and one of legal marketing's most visible advocates for showing up authentically, for a conversation that, as Deb puts it, feels like it started before they even hit record. Roy has spent more than 25 years in marketing leadership, including nearly 15 years in legal marketing at some of the industry's most prom...

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with Eric Schoonveld, Partner and Co-Founder of The Peak Law Group and a nearly two-decade friend and client, for a conversation about what it actually costs to treat culture as a real priority instead of a talking point. Eric has spent 35 years defending hospitals, physicians, and healthcare systems in catastrophic injury cases across more than a dozen states,...

In this episode, Deb Knupp welcomes back Libby Baney Burstein, a partner at Faegre Drinker where she has practiced for nearly twenty years in public policy across the pharmacy and FDA space, working to keep unsafe products away from the people they would harm. Libby has been on The HX Collective before, through the lenses of work, relationships, and self, and this time the subject is the disruptio...

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with Beth Sherman, a seven time Emmy award winning comedy writer turned keynote speaker and the creator of Audience-First Communication. After thirty years writing for the Late Show with David Letterman, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Ellen, and the Academy Awards, Beth now teaches lawyers, executives, and professional speakers a single discipline she learned...

In this episode, Deb Knupp reconnects with returning HX Ally Ali Schroer, MSW, LCSW, C-PD, founder of Mental Scope Consulting and Schroer Counseling and Consulting, for a conversation that reframes one of the most familiar words in modern leadership: intentionality. Ali coaches high performers through both the reactive side of wellbeing (crisis, burnout, AI-era anxiety) and the proactive side (the...

In this episode, Deb Knupp welcomes back Rick Wellock and Amy Wellock Staggs of The Wellock Group for a second, more personal conversation. While their first appearance focused on leadership development and human flourishing, this episode turns inward, to the story of a father and daughter building a business together, and what it takes to navigate succession with intention, honesty, and love. Ric...

In this episode, Deb Knupp welcomes back one of the HX Collective's most beloved returning guests, Bob Craig, a 40-year technologist and 25-year CIO who has spent the last three years on a deliberate journey of self-discovery. Bob brings a rare combination of hard-won technical credibility and deep personal reflection, and the conversation that unfolds is one of the most thought-provoking the...

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with longtime friend and legal marketing leader Laura Gutierrez, Director of Referral Partnerships at JD Supra, for an unflinching conversation about what it really means to flourish. Laura has spent two decades building a career around writing and connection in the legal industry, but it's her life outside the job title that gives this conversation its weight:...

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with Joanna Meyer, founder and executive director of Women, Work, and Calling at the Denver Institute for Faith and Work and author of the book Women, Work, and Calling. Through a rich, deeply personal conversation, Joanna reframes calling not as a destination to hunt for but as a through line woven through every season of work and life. Drawing on 12 years at...

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with friend and Faegre Drinker partner Sean Metherell for an unplanned, deeply personal conversation that began professionally and turned into a Mother's Day tribute. Recorded on the eve of the holiday and just past the one-year anniversary of his mother's passing, Sean and Deb discover they share more than a working relationship. They are both navigating life...

In this conversation, Deb and Suzanne Massel explore networking not as a transactional exercise, but as a deeply human practice rooted in connection, curiosity, and community. What emerges throughout the discussion is a quiet but important reframe: the relationships that shape our lives and careers are rarely built through performance or self-promotion, but through genuine interest, thoughtful con...

In this conversation, Deb and Andrew Cohn explore leadership not as a performance exercise, but as a deeply human practice rooted in reflection, intentionality, and presence. What emerges throughout the discussion is a quiet but meaningful reframe: flourishing at work and in life rarely comes from controlling more, achieving more, or optimizing more. Instead, it often begins with the willingness t...

In this episode, Deb sits down with Dr. Mikah Sellers, founder and CEO of Veteran Brands, to explore a question that quietly sits underneath nearly every conversation about the future of work: what happens to humanity when machines begin to outpace us? The discussion lands at the intersection where most leadership dialogues stall. We celebrate the speed, scale, and ingenuity of artificial intellig...

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with longtime mentor and HX Ally Dean Carter, a four-time CHRO turned first-time CEO and co-author of Employee Experience Design: How to Co-create Work Where People and Organizations Thrive. Dean reframes employee experience as something far more cellular than perks and ping pong tables. It is the lived, daily reality of every person doing the work, and it can...

In this episode, Deb sits down with Cat Miller, founder of This Way Up , to talk about what it really takes to make mental health feel accessible, without watering it down or turning it into a buzzword.  Deb’s conversation with Cat sits at the exact intersection where so many “wellness” conversations fall apart: we say we care about mental health, but we still treat it like a private failing rathe...

In this episode, Deb sits down with Nahel Gandhi, founder of Parinamas, to talk about what the AI era is really asking of us, not as technologists, but as humans. Deb comes into the conversation naming what many people quietly feel: that this moment in technology is moving fast, and that the speed alone can make it feel intimidating. Nahel meets that fear without dismissing it, and gently turns th...

In this episode, Deb sits down with Liz Repking, founder of Cyber Safety Consulting, to examine what really happens when our digital lives go unchecked. Rather than framing online safety as a technical issue, Liz brings it back to something more human; how distraction, algorithms, and anonymity quietly shape our relationships, our mental health, and our sense of stability. What unfolds is less abo...

In this episode, Deb sits down with clinical psychologist Dr. Sharon P. Khurana to explore a question that feels almost contradictory at first glance: what if suffering is not the opposite of flourishing, but one of its entry points? Drawing from nearly thirty years in the field of trauma and grief, Sharon invites us to reconsider the experiences we would rather avoid and to see them as signals fr...

In this episode, Deb Knupp sits down with Megan O’Malley, a two-decades-deep friend and one of the most respected plaintiff-side employment attorneys in Chicago, to talk about justice, kindness, and the kind of character that actually holds up under pressure. The conversation lands at an intersection most of us feel but rarely name. We say we value human dignity, yet we live inside systems that ro...

In this episode, Deb sits down with Shay Moinuddin, aesthetic nurse and clinic director at The Few Institute, to explore a subject that often lives in whispers: beauty. Not beauty as spectacle or excess, but beauty as it relates to identity, confidence, and the deeply human desire to feel at home in one’s own skin. The conversation unfolds at the precise intersection where many wellness dialogues...

In this episode, Deb sits down with Jen Marr, CEO of Showing Up and author of Lifting Up: The Transforming Power of Supportive Leadership , to talk about what it really takes to lead people well when life is messy, work is relentless, and uncertainty is no longer the exception. Deb’s conversation with Jen sits at the exact intersection where modern leadership tends to fall apart: we say we value e...