Leadership Launchpad

Our guest today is Kristi Oliva, Learning Program Manager at Amazon.. Kristi, like many in the L&D field, started as a teacher in formal education. She made the move over to corporate learning and development and is now a Program Manager at Amazon. Since many people in the talent development space come from education, I wanted to sit down and chat with her about how she made that transition an...

Keri is the Director of Talent Development at Mission Cloud. We talked to her a few weeks ago about how they launch learning initiatives faster at Mission. After that discussion, she stuck around a bit to talk about her career journey and how she approaches improvement in her own life.

Today I am talking to Russel Sweep, Content Development Manager for Goodwill Industries International. Russell made the move from higher education into corporate instructional design and has had to work with teams on merging learning theory with the practical realities of instructional design. That merger is always a big topic in our industry which is why I wanted to have him on today.

Today I am talking to Garima Gupta, the Founder and CEO of the award-winning Learning design firm Artha Learning. Garima brings over 18 years of diverse experience to the field of Learning & Development and is passionate about the intersection of technology and education. Currently, she is doing some amazing work integrating ChatGPT into Storyline courses which more people need to know about....

Today I am talking to David Rudd. David is a communication advisor to private and public sector leaders. He co-owns Rudd Resources with his wife, Kimberley. The firm centers equity in its services, which are aimed at uplifting and informing audiences, especially those in underrepresented or underserved groups. After the recent Supreme Court decisions on Affirmative Action, I was really excited to...

Today I am talking to Sean Adams, the Head of Sales and Partnership at Iorad. As I have been focusing on growing my business, I have had to learn a lot about sales. More and more, I am finding that learning teams could learn a lot from sales teams about how to get buy-in on learning initiatives. So that is what I want to talk to Sean about today. Want more tips on effective training? Sign-up for o...

Today I am talking to Keri Barnett-Howell, the Director of Talent Development at Mission Cloud where she leads employee growth initiatives and strategies to help every Mission team member achieve their professional goals. She has created training and development programs for all career levels, with a particular focus on early career and career transitions. With her experience building the talent t...

Today I am talking to Stephanie Bertmer, the Head of Learning and Development at Pinterest. Steph is an expert at dealing with change, change of leadership, change of direction, she has seen it all. Since change is something we all deal with, I thought it would be great to have Steph on to discuss how she deals with change, especially when leading an L&D team. If you are looking for regular tr...

Today I am talking to Destery Hildenbrand, a XR Solutions Architect at Intellezy. I recently met Destery at a planning event for ATD’s Tech Knowledge conference where I heard him talking about Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. As a huge fan of the potential for these technologies in training, I thought now would be a great time to learn more. Are you trying to get more impact out of your empl...

Today I am talking to Ashley Chang, Learning Operations Manager at Pinterest. I knew Ashley when she was the Learning & Technology Manager at Virgin Orbit, a role she took on after being a Stress Engineer at Boeing. Not sure what a Stress Engineer is? Truthfully, I am not sure either, which is exactly why I wanted to have this discussion. Today, she is going to share some of the engineering le...

Today I am talking to Sarah Carroll, a seasoned L&D professional who brings over a decade of experience cultivated in 3 countries. Throughout her career, Sarah has continuously found herself in the building out stages of both organizations and teams. As such, she has gained valuable insights into how to optimize and scale procedures in order to best deliver impactful learning experiences. Toda...

Today we are talking to Zach Ledford, owner of ELJUN LLC, a Veteran Owned Small Business that focuses on creating data integration solutions that bolster productivity, reduce cost, and decrease risk. Incorrect people data is the biggest challenge I have faced when implementing learning strategies, so I wanted to have him on to discuss. Want more tips on effective training? Sign-up for our weekly n...

Today we are talking to Loren Sanders, who is the author of the book Empathy Is Not a Weakness and a long time Learning and Development professional. In L&D, we talk a lot about developing others, but not so much about developing ourselves. I know Loren has a lot to say on this topic so I wanted to have her on. Want more tips on effective training? Sign-up for our weekly newsletter Making Bett...

Today we are talking to Brian Morrison, Senior Director of Learning & Development at Heart. Over the last 10+ years, Brian has scaled the learning teams of companies you have probably heard of like livingsocial, Ziprecruiter, and Bambee HR. Living in Long Beach with his wife, daughter and two dogs, he is always trying to keep the good vibes flowing. Let’s get started. Want more tips on effecti...

Welcome to Making Better, a podcast from Better Every Day Studios devoted to helping small learning teams have a big impact. Today we are talking with MJ Hurley, Executive Trainer at Hurley Write. One of the biggest barriers to effective training is a lack of documentation for what we are trying to train. Documentation happens to be MJs speciality so that is what we are going to talk about.

Welcome to Making Better, a podcast from Better Every Day Studios devoted to helping small learning teams have a big impact. Today we are talking with Joe Legatz, a Talent Development Leader with over 25 years of experience managing effective training programs in a variety of industries. I recently chatted with Joe about the importance of building strong stakeholder relationships, so I wanted to h...

One of the hardest training challenges is bringing training to a distributed team. These are workers who are not just spread out, but often don't have easy access to a computer. Our guest today has a lot of experience with this challenge. Today, we are talking to Liz Cichowski, L&D Manager at PIRCH. Liz has been in learning and development since it was called training and that training was...

Success leaves clues and if you want to succeed, you need to follow them. I spent 7 years working for two different billionaires and I learned a ton about what success looks like. So I wanted to share them with you today. Want more tips on effective training? Sign-up for our weekly newsletter Making Better: https://makingbetter.beehiiv.com/subscribe Visit us at https://www.bettereverydaystudios.co...

Lots of people start working for themselves. Only a small portion of those go on to build an actual business. Nicole Papaioannou Lugara, PhD is one of those people. This is real talk about what it takes to make that transition. Need help with employee training in your organization? We can help. Visit us at https://www.bettereverydaystudios.com

Companies typically look for top performers when they are in need of trainers. This is a BAD idea. This episode will break down the key differences between what makes a top performer vs a top trainer so that you can tell the difference and hire the right person for the job.

Podcasting is the fastest growing media in the world, but most companies aren't taking full advantage. JP Gooderham is the founder and CEO of Storyboard, a company that is helping organizations use podcasts to spread information internally, to their own members. We talk about why podcasting is an important medium and what you need to get started.

Every good training or learning program has to start with a foundation of knowledge. This is the documentation that tells you the proper processes and procedures you need to learn. Though this sounds simple, it is often a very difficult and overlooked step of the training process. This week we talk with Nicole Papaioannou Lugara from Your Instructional Designer about knowledge management and how c...

If you are just getting started with employee development at your company, there are some common pitfalls you are likely to encounter. Planning ahead is the key to solving them. In this episode, we will go through the six most common challenges that companies face as they get started in employee development, as well as the solutions to surmount them.

Presentation skills are a critical differentiator when it comes to your career. But how do you improve? This episode will dive into three key techniques you can use to give engaging and memorable presentations. You have to go beyond simply speaking clearly and start delivering the right information in the right way.

Every organization wants to improve manager training and it can seem like a huge task. However, there are some simple things you can do to start making your manager training better TODAY. Here are three tips anyone can use to start moving forward.