A SEAT at THE TABLE: Helping business leaders grow their influence

You have a good job.  You like the other people on your team.  Even your boss is pretty good - or maybe you are the boss.  But some how at the end of day you always feel drained.  It’s not that you’ve been working particularly hard, either.  Sometimes even in the middle of the day you feel like you have no energy.  That’s how Chloe Thomas felt when she was running her successful marketing agency. ...

Host Jane Singer sits down with the inspirational Kenz Soliman, a successful business owner and mentor who has achieved legendary status through her remarkable journey. In this captivating conversation, Kenz shares valuable insights on being mentally strong, embracing personal growth, and overcoming self-doubt in the pursuit of success.   Kenz emphasizes the importance of being open to criticism,...

In this episode of "A Seat at The Table," host Jane Singer welcomes guest Jonathan Porter, the founder and CEO of PorterLogic, a low code application platform specializing in supply chain technology. The episode focuses on achieving end-to-end visibility in the supply chain and utilizing data integration, scenario analysis, and customized solutions.   Jonathan discusses the digitization...

Bruce Lee built his legend around his expertise in martial arts and his massive success in motion pictures. However few see him as a mindset or business thought leader. Turns out, there’s a lot of we can learn from Bruce Lee.  This episode of A Seat at The Table features host Jane Singer and guest Thomas Lee discussing what every business can learn from Bruce Lee. Thomas Lee's new book titled...

Considering how fast wages are rising these days, many CFOs would love to be able to predict the future of pay. Unlike other inputs, salaries and wages seem hard to track and even more difficult to forecast that got one man thinking.  Meet Cary Sparrow, a former US naval officer and founder and CEO of greenwich.hr, where he helps HR professionals and consulting firms predict the future of pay. He&...

Running a successful e-commerce business continues to get more complicated - and more costly.    The old days when a web strategy was little more than a simple online shop have morphed into a complex, hyper competitive business model. Today, surging costs and few barriers to competitors have raised the stakes for e-commerce businesses.   That’s requiring new tools and new skills. Meet Matt Putra i...

We often talk about brands on this show, but so far we’ve never talked about manufacturing brands. In fact, until this guest came on A Seat at The Table, I hadn’t given it much thought. Turns out, I was overlooking a huge marketing opportunity - and it seems that a lot of businesses are too! Today Jim Huebner joins us on a Seat at The Table to discuss what manufacturers need to now know about bran...

Almost every business leader is discussing what role AI will play in their company.   For manufacturers, AI is considered to be foundational to the move towards Industry 4.0.   However most manufacturers are not quite sure how to specifically apply AI to their operations.   How to go from theory to practical application.   Meet Bryan DeBois, director of Industrial AI at RoviSys, one of the largest...

Manufacturing is getting modernised as companies look to boost process efficiencies, create more resilient supply chains - and of course reduce costs. Elon Musk redefined manufacturing through Tesla and SpaceX, where he leaned into new technologies to make his processes faster and better. The manufacturing sector is now starting to look to startups and SaaS solutions. Meet  Renan Devillieres, CEO...

The value of establishing a strong brand is indisputable.  Even in tough times companies with power brands - or even just strong brand recognition within one sector - outperform the market.   Established brands are also better positioned to ride the economic peaks and troughs that often crush near competitors. While understanding why we need to invest in brand building is easy, figuring how to do...

The game for online sellers has gotten a lot more competitive.   The free money that was funding start ups and the subsidies that drove massive pandemic-era online shopping are off. The soaring costs of reverse logistics - in fact all logistics, as well as customer acquisition - is on! It’s definitely gotten a lot hotter in the e-commerce arena - and retailers are now a lot more worried about gett...

After being heralded as the next digital hotspot, the Metaverse plummeted out of favor - in tandem with the fate of its parent company, Meta.  Brands that were tripping over each other to grab a space in this new space suddenly started to make a hasty exit. The post-covid world was retuning to stores, people wanted experiences - in real life - and were making the internet a part of their lives rat...

It’s gotten to the point where most digital native brands are looking to physical stores to grow their business. To maximise our e-commerce marketing, we need to first identify which metrics we should be measuring.  And it turns out that many of the traditional metrics are not the best indicators of how well your business is doing. Meet Valentin Radu, founder of Omniconvert and a specialist in inc...

The pandemic put supply chains in the spotlight.  Companies doubled down on identifying weak links and looking for solutions to ensure greater resilience in the future. Most people believe the solution - or at least the foundational part of it - is greater automation and digitisation.  But what if we are misunderstanding the problem? Or maybe just need to look at it from a different perspective? C...

A big part of winning at retail is understanding what motivates consumers to buy. It’s a topic that has gotten increasingly complex now that retail spans so many different channels. One man has made it his life’s work to go deep and get inside the mind of the consumer. Meet Paco Underhill, founder and former CEO of Envirosell, a behavioural research and consulting firm that tests prototype stores,...

Digitising product development and design is the way forward - both from a cost cutting and speed to market point of view.  However certain aspects of digitising more complex products such as apparel and home textiles are still difficult to do - creating a sticking point for taking this from concept to wide spread implementation. One of those challenges is being able to digitise fabric swatches so...

Sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands. That’s exactly what Dawn Strachan did. With her primary school aged daughter and son  facing learning challenges - and unable to muster support for them from her local school system, Dawn realised that she would need to find her own solution. So she leaned into her university training in early learning development and education and creat...

Anyone who has a professional position - whether they are senior executive, a C-suite boss or an entrepreneur - knows that they need to have a presence on LinkedIn. For most (including myself) that typically ends up being some version of their resume or CV - and not necessarily one that is up to date or particularly compelling.  However, with companies increasingly using LinkedIn as one of their r...

Managing global supply chains has become one of the most challenging, risk intensive aspects of  just about any business. While the logistics crisis that rocked the past three years has now normalised, geopolitical issues are escalating, key retail markets are uncertain - at best - and then there’s the increasing pressure to meet more stringent demands for transparency. Oh, and let’s not forget ab...

E-commerce is an essential retail channel, but the costs associated with selling online have become daunting. From soaring warehousing and last mile delivery costs to high volumes of returns, it can get to the point where the more you sell, the more money you lose. One cost that has gotten out of control is customer acquisition cost or CAC. Those pay-per-click ads that drive traffic also take a bi...

Leadership is a big topic these days.  From staff retention to getting better performance from teams, there is a lot of pressure on leadership to be be better leaders. Probably one of the best of the places to look for role models and best practices in leadership is to the people who manage professional sports teams. The stakes are high - and so is the pressure.  After all, sports is really all ab...

On the one hand, there’s a low barrier to entry so any size company can participate.  On the other hand, it has become increasingly complex, time consuming - what worked yesterday could very well not be effective tomorrow. Mastering digital marketing has become a must for most businesses.  Thus learning what’s working - and what’s not - is  critical in order to develop the right strategy for your...

Typically marketing and sales  are handled by a company’s  marketing and sales team - who, not surprisingly, approach the task using the standard marketing and sales tools. But what if we could uncover hidden opportunities or boost our success rate by taking an entirely different approach?  Our guest today will be talking about why we might want to solve marketing and sales challenges like an engi...

For anyone who travels frequent flyer or loyalty programs as they are called play an outsized role in our airline choices. While most don’t want to admit it, the lure of a free flight or an upgrade is almost irresistible.  While most of us are active participants in loyalty programs, few of us really understand why they say are so beneficial - to the airlines. What you you find out might surprise...

Today most leaders are so focused on survival that don’t even dare to dream of being able to win praise from their employees or truly find a way to consistently manage both their time and their energy. However this might not be as out of reach as it seems and our guest today will be showing us how. Take we have Herdis Pala Palsdottir joining us. Herdis is co-founder of Opus Futura and a frequent l...