Leading Women in Tech Podcast

There's a room you're not yet in. Maybe it's a literal room — the board meeting, the investor briefing, the conversation at the level above yours where decisions get made that shape your organization and your career. Maybe it's more of a concept — the level of credibility where people seek out your perspective rather than just your report. Where you're consulted, not just informed. Becoming a trus...

Michelle Darcy-Clarke didn't have a five-year plan. She took a job by accident, made deliberate lateral moves when everyone expected upward ones, stepped back to be an individual contributor, and eventually became a Chief Experience Officer — without really aiming for it. In this episode, Michelle joins Toni for one of the most honest and energizing conversations about non-linear leadership career...

You know something is wrong with your team. Maybe it's the missed deadlines that have become the norm. The low energy in meetings. The friction nobody's naming. The high performer who's gone quiet. Or just a general flatness — a team that's functional but nowhere near what you know it could be. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, Toni Collis gives you the honest, practical framework for turn...

Burnout isn't a personal failure. It's a clinical condition with three specific characteristics — and understanding exactly what it is may be the first step toward actually recovering from it. Sheetal Ajmani, physician turned speaker, coach, and consultant, joins Toni for a conversation that reframes burnout and self-care from the ground up. Sheetal practiced pediatrics for over 16 years and exper...

When everything is shifting — a restructure, a board crisis, a project on the edge of collapse, or just the relentless uncertainty of leading a team through sustained change — the expectation is that you hold it together. You stay steady. You have the answers. But nobody tells you how. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, Toni Collis builds out the adaptive leadership toolkit every senior lea...

What does it actually take to become an industry leader when you never planned to be one? Charli Rogers, Chief Customer Officer at Botify, joins Toni for a conversation that covers the full arc of her leadership journey — from an accidental start in tech to leading customer success teams of 150-200 people across multiple continents, to taking her first CCO seat at a company sitting right at the in...

Are you brilliant at your job — but starting to wonder if this is really it? One of the most common and least-talked-about challenges facing senior women in tech is the moment when something needs to change, but you don't know exactly what, and the fear of getting it wrong is keeping you exactly where you are. This is not a "how to find a new job" episode. It is an episode about how to think clear...

What if the brain that made you feel like you never quite fit — the one that means you always carry 5 jobs even though technically you only have one,  the brain that got bored the moment something stopped being challenging, and that saw the whole system when everyone else wanted you to stay in your lane — turned out to be exactly what the AI era needs? That's not a hypothetical. That's Noe Ramos....

Three hundred episodes. Approaching 1500 women coached across corporate tech, startups, and academia. And a long list of things I used to believe that I no longer do. Episode 300 of Leading Women in Tech is different from any episode I've made before. This is not a tips episode. It is not a framework. It is my honest account of what seven years of conversations and nearly 1500 coaching relationshi...

Let's talk about building a positive workplace culture. What does it take to build a workplace where people truly own their work — not just show up for it? Anusha Iyer, Founder and CEO of Corsha, joins Toni to share the unfiltered journey from software engineer to CTO to CEO — and the leadership philosophy that underpins everything she's built along the way. Corsha secures machine-to-machine commu...

Do you communicate with clarity when the stakes are high — or does your voice go quiet at exactly the moment it matters most? In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, I break down one of the most underrated leadership skills for women in tech: communicating with clarity under pressure. Not when things are calm and you've had time to prepare — but when someone challenges you in front of the leader...

If your organization is running AI pilots that aren't moving the needle, waiting for the right moment to commit, or treating AI as a technology problem for IT to solve — this episode is the reset you need. Charlene Li, NYT bestselling author and one of the world's leading voices on disruptive leadership, joins Toni for her second appearance on Leading Women in Tech. When she was last on the show i...

Office politics. Just reading those words probably made you want to click away — and that reaction is exactly why this episode exists.   If you're a high-achieving woman in tech who has built your career on results, integrity, and doing excellent work, the idea of navigating office politics probably feels like a compromise. Like you'd be becoming someone you don't recognise.   But here's what nobo...

What does it actually take to become a transformational leader in the age of AI? Catherine Wong, Chief Product Officer at Entrata, joins Toni to share the career philosophy, leadership mindset, and honest hard-won lessons that took her from software engineer to CPO — via architecture, M&A, product, and operations. Catherine built her career on range, not a straight line. She calls it the jungle gy...

When someone asks you how you're doing, what do you say?   If you answered "I'm fine" before you'd even finished reading that question — this episode is for you.   Burnout in high-performing women in tech leadership rarely looks like collapse. It looks like going through the motions. Like numbness. Like resentment that arrives out of nowhere and exhaustion that's become so normal you've stopped re...

 You don't need a perfect career plan to succeed in tech. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, I sit down with Sarah Walker, Chief Executive of Cisco UK & Ireland , to talk about women in tech leadership, non-traditional career paths, AI in the workplace, and why backing yourself matters more than ticking every box. Sarah didn't follow a traditional route into tech. She didn't leave school wi...

Executive Leadership for Women: From Tactical to Strategic You've mastered being a leader. But executive leadership for women is not just the next step up. It's a completely different game. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, we unpack why tactical excellence alone won't get you promoted — and what actually signals executive readiness. If you've ever been told: "You're doing great." "Keep go...

In this conversation, Adelina Peltea, CMO at USERCENTRICS shares her unique journey to C-level Leadership for women in tech, emphasizing the importance of understanding one's strengths and the realities of leadership roles. She discusses the significance of communication, empowerment, and the impact of presence in leadership. Adelina also introduces her meditation method, Inner Sanctuary, and expl...

The women in tech promotion gap is real—but it's not random. High-performing women in tech are still being overlooked for leadership roles, even as they deliver exceptional results. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, we dive into the gender bias in tech leadership, the shift in workplace culture, and the strategic moves you need to close the gap—without losing yourself. Why are women in tec...

How fractional leaders get hired isn't random — but it does follow a very different logic than most people expect. If you've been having good conversations, receiving positive signals, and still not seeing those conversations turn into paid work, this episode will help you understand what's really happening on the hiring side. In this episode, we step out of the leader's perspective and into the m...

Fractional leadership positioning is one of the most misunderstood — and most important — parts of building a successful fractional career. In this episode Toni breaks down why so many senior women struggle to gain traction in fractional roles, how positioning differs from full-time leadership, and what it really means to be hired for judgement rather than execution. Here's what you'll learn in th...

If women don't experiment with AI now, we risk hard-coding today's leadership gaps into tomorrow's technology. In this episode I'm joined by Kendra MacDonald , CEO of Canada's Ocean Supercluster, to explore the intersection of women in leadership, AI readiness, representation, and emerging technology. This conversation goes beyond theory. It tackles the real risks and opportunities facing women le...

If performance were enough, more women in tech would already be promoted. They're not. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, Toni Collis breaks down executive presence for women in tech — what it actually means, why being good at your job isn't enough at senior levels, and how leaders are really evaluated when promotion, influence, and trust are on the line. This episode is for high-performing...

If you've ever worried that an unconventional career path in tech leadership might hold you back — that your background isn't "technical enough," linear enough, or traditional enough — this episode will fundamentally challenge that belief. In this conversation, Toni Collis is joined by Lisa Ferrante-Walsh, SVP of Engineering at Native Instruments, whose career journey spans music, computer science...

If the idea of going fractional feels exciting and terrifying at the same time — you're not alone. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech , we explore what fractional leadership really looks like for senior women who want more autonomy, impact, and alignment — without blowing up their careers. This episode is for you if: ◾You're curious about fractional work but worried about legality, stabilit...