Conversations on Careers and Professional Life

Archit Gupta went from never having written a line of code to building AI tools that grade hundreds of student cases and a Socratic AI tutor for a graduate class — in one year.  Archit is graduated from Foster's MSBA (Master of Science in Business Analytics) in June, and served on the committee that planned Foster's first AI Spark Day. Before Foster, he worked in M&A at KPMG, founded a consumer fi...

First-year Foster MBA  (Class of '27) Tejash Bagri explains how he turned a stalled application into an interview by building a go-to-market prototype before reaching out — and what that says about standing out when every candidate has the same AI tools. A practical case study for anyone in a competitive recruiting process. Tejash was part of the core organizing team for Foster's inaugural AI Spar...

AI Ready: Ahmad Ghabboun Ahmad Ghabboun built a Demo Day–winning AI product during his MSIS program — after arriving with no plans to work in AI at all. He breaks down how his mindset shifted, how his design background made him a stronger prompter, and how to build AI fluency that actually holds up in interviews. Useful for students and early-career professionals trying to get AI-ready without fak...

Hannah Hoffmaster went from a self-described two-out-of-seven in technical skill to building multi-agent AI tools in a single year at Foster. This episode is for anyone — technical or not — trying to understand what genuine AI fluency looks like and how to build it. Hannah Hoffmaster is a student completing the one-year MSIS program at the University of Washington Foster School of Business. She ca...

On this episode, I speak wtih Léonard Boussioux — Assistant Professor, Foster School of Business; Adjunct, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, UW. PhD, MIT (machine learning & operations research). Co-founder of Universal AI . "Professor Leo," as his students call him, is a leader in AI education, research, experimentation, and adoption. He and I are on the Foster AI Taskforce,...

Nathan Fitzgerald didn't come up through tech. He spent years as a lobbyist, moved into marketing, got laid off in 2024, and treated that moment as a forcing function: how do I build a skill set that doesn't become obsolete? That question led him to Foster's MSIS program — and to a clear-eyed view of what AI can and can't do. In this conversation, Nathan talks about what it actually looks like to...

Anshula Singh came into Foster's MBA program with five years of software engineering experience — building products at Salesforce and ServiceNow, working with machine learning, helping train early LLMs from the inside. She wasn't new to AI. She was already watching it closely. In her second winter quarter, she took Software Entrepreneurship — a course where students pitch ideas on day two, form te...

Two questions are on every student's mind right now: How will AI affect the job I'm trying to get? And how do I show up actually ready to use it? AI Ready   — a miniseries from Conversations on Careers and Professional Life -- will feature students from Foster's MBA and graduate programs talking honestly about how they're learning to work with AI. In the classroom. In recruiting. In the work they'...

Ted Jordan spent 24 years at Microsoft as a global program and account manager before becoming a consultant, professional speaker, and guest lecturer at UW Foster School of Business. His talk — From Outsider to Ally — reframes how we think about networking: less about tactics, more about making the other person feel seen. In this conversation, Ted shares the specific approaches he used to build re...

Layoffs are back in the headlines. Job postings are down. Hiring cycles are longer. What does that mean for MBA students and other professionals navigating today's market? In this episode, I speak with Steve Jaffe , author of The Layoff Journey: From Dismissal to Discovery . Drawing on his experience of four layoffs across a 25-year marketing career, Steve maps job loss—and prolonged job search—to...

In this episode I break down the difference between  slide decks and slide docs —and talk about designing intentionally for each. Many presentation problems don't stem from weak ideas or poor analysis. They come from using the wrong artifact for the job. Slides overloaded with text are often treated as presentations when they're really documents meant to be read. The result? Confused audiences, lo...

Data doesn't persuade. Insight does. In this episode, I break down what effective data visualization really means—and why most charts fail to do their job. This isn't about making slides look prettier. It's about helping your audience think clearly, decide faster, and trust your analysis. Drawing on lessons from Edward Tufte's work and Good Charts by Scott Berinato, Gregory explains how to move fr...

The Glance Test is a simple but powerful rule for slide design: if your audience can't understand the point of a slide within a few seconds, the slide isn't doing its job. In this episode, I explain why slides that demand too much reading or decoding cause audiences to stop listening—and how the Glance Test helps protect attention during live presentations. You'll learn how strong, message-driven...

Many presentations fall apart not because the ideas are weak, but because the slides are doing too much at once. When a single slide contains multiple messages, charts, or competing points, the audience stops listening and starts decoding. In this episode, I explain why the "one idea per slide" principle is so effective—and why it's one of the fastest ways to improve clarity in presentations. You'...

Foster Alumni Share What They Listen For When They  Interview Job Candidates Every fall and winter, MBA students gear up for behavioral interviews with an understandable mix of anticipation and anxiety. We spend hours coaching them on frameworks, stories, and delivery. But nothing beats hearing directly from the people on the other side of the table. On this e ncore episode of  Conversations on Ca...

In this episode of Conversations on Careers & Professional Life , we go inside the Autumn Quarter Integrated Case Competition at the Foster School of Business—a one-week sprint where MBA teams analyze an acquisition case, submit a written recommendation, and deliver a 25-minute presentation to faculty, alumni, and industry judges. I speak with three students from finalist teams: Nat Fernandes (Cla...

On this episode I share a principle that shows up again and again in great communication but is often overlooked by professionals: you have to earn attention before you earn understanding. Too many presentations, meetings, and messages begin with dense context, background, or data. But audiences don't start in "information-processing mode." They start in attention mode — scanning for relevance. If...

Structure isn't a formatting exercise. It's the foundation of every clear, persuasive communication. Whether you're giving a presentation, writing an email, or leading a meeting, structure is the difference between an idea that gets ignored and an idea that creates action. In the latest episode of Conversations on Careers and Professional Life, we explore why structure matters so profoundly — and...

On this episode, I cover the ABCs of professional communication, just as I teach them to my MBA students. One of the simplest ways to elevate your professional communication—whether you're writing an email, pitching a strategy, or presenting to senior leaders—is to filter your message through three words: Active, Brief, and Clear . They sound basic, almost obvious. But in practice, they create a p...

Logos, Ethos, Pathos: The Ancient Keys to Modern Persuasion In this episode of Conversations on Communication , I explore three timeless principles that sit at the heart of all persuasive communication: Logos, Ethos, and Pathos . They come from Aristotle, but their power is as relevant today in an MBA classroom, a boardroom, or a client meeting as it was in ancient Athens. When you learn to apply...

In this episode of  Conversations on Careers and Professional Life , I explire one of the most powerful frameworks for structuring clear, persuasive business communication: the Minto Pyramid Principle . The framework, created by Barbara Minto at McKinsey, is a simple but transformative way to organize ideas. Think of your communication as a pyramid: At the top is your main point — your recommendat...

The AIM Framework: The Compass for Every Communication" Welcome to Conversations on Careers and Professional Life , on this series, I'm going to turn lessons from my MBA course, Professional Communication into practical insights you can use every day. I'm Gregory Heller, and today we're diving into one of the simplest—but most powerful—tools in communication, professional or otherwise: the AIM Fra...

On this episode, I talk about something that comes up  all the time in my coaching sessions with MBA students—and that's networking . I've talked about it before on the podcast on episode 1202 "Reframe the way you think about networking and asking for help" I'll drop a link in the show notes.   I encourage you to go back and give that one a listen.   As generative AI has proliferated on both sides...

On this episode, I speak with Lorraine Rise, career coach, founder and CEO of Career UpRising and host of the Career UpRising podcast. With a background in federal recruiting, Lorraine has spent a decade empowering mid- and late-career professionals through career pivots and values-driven job searches. We explore: Redefining Networking Learn how shifting from transactional outreach to authentic re...

It's May, and for many of you, that means graduation. Whether you're finishing your MBA or completing another academic journey, this is a moment filled with possibility—and uncertainty. Especially in today's job market, it's natural to feel some anxiety about what comes next. To support you in your job search, I want to point you to a few episodes from the back catalog that offer practical tools a...