Navigating Forward

In this episode of the Navigating Forward podcast, Nora Willgren, a leader at Launch Consulting's management consulting studio, and Pete Salvo, Senior Director and Global Studio Leader for Software Engineering, discuss the evolving landscape of remote work. They delve into the challenges, benefits, and best practices of remote and hybrid work environments. The conversation touches on the impa...

In this podcast, Kevin Scott from Launch Consulting and Chris Echelmeier from Microsoft discuss the transformative impact of AI, specifically Microsoft Copilot, on the workplace and employee experience. Kevin introduces the conversation, highlighting impressive statistics about Copilot's productivity benefits. Chris elaborates on the rapid adoption of AI, explaining how tools like Copilot all...

Speakers: Harrison Bishop (EVP of Recruiting, Launch Consulting Group) Jennifer Tran (Senior Recruiter, Planet Technology) Description: In this episode, Harrison Bishop, EVP of Recruiting at Launch Consulting Group, introduces the topic of modern recruiting with a focus on balancing technology and relationships. He is joined by Jennifer Tran, a Senior Recruiter at Planet Technology, one of the com...

Guest: Rich Wood, Tech & Culture Writer, and Employee Experience (EX) Expert, 3Seven In this episode, Melanie Roberson dives deep into the crucial topic of employee experience (EX) with Rich Wood. They explore what EX truly means, debunk common myths, and discuss why investing in a holistic employee experience is more critical than ever for organizational success. From understanding the compre...

In this episode of "Navigating Forward," Kevin McCall is joined by Dr. Kalyan Basu to discuss generative AI and its future impact. Kevin and Kaylan cover the challenges in model training, the potential of synthetic data, and how businesses can prepare for the changing landscape of AI. Dr. Basu, with his extensive experience from academia to Microsoft and as a technical advisor, provides...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Melanie Roberson and Kevin McCall from Launch Consulting walk through ten of the top misperceptions or myths about AI. From bias and hallucinations to data readiness and cost, they chat about some of the top concerns as organizations think about delving into AI projects. Plus, they discuss some of the top questions Kevin hears from friends and business leader...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee from Launch Consulting sits down with Jamie Fiore Higgins, author and ex-Goldman Sachs Managing Director. They discuss how company culture — and the differences between the version espoused by leadership and the actual version that employees experience — can impact both employee engagement and innovation. They touch on how having a vision isn't...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Launch Consulting's Kevin McCall, Managing Director of AI, and Melanie Roberson, Director of Organizational Effectiveness, talk about the 5 Ds of AI: dull, dirty, dangerous, difficult, and double-time. The 5 Ds framework is a way of thinking about the type of tasks where AI can complement and augment human capabilities at work. With examples of each of t...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee sits down with Shantha Mohan, who is an author, mentor, and Executive in Residence at Carnegie Mellon University. They chat about the challenges that people can face when making the jump from a technical individual contributor role to technical leadership. Shantha shares stories of her own career path from an individual role to eventually leading te...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee chats with Lynda Grindstaff, VP of Engineering at McAfee, and Creighton Adams, Senior Director of Cybersecurity at Launch Consulting. In the cybersecurity realm, they discuss personal cybersecurity posture, how to stay aware of what's important for your own situation, and how personal posture can impact enterprise security when working from hom...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee sits down with Mita Mallick, Head of Inclusion, Equity and Impact at Carta and also the author of "Reimagine Inclusion: Debunking 13 Myths to Transform Your Workplace." Also joining Lisa is Melanie Roberson, Director of Organizational Effectiveness at Launch Consulting.  The trio discusses how inclusivity issues can impact employee engagem...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee from Launch Consulting chats with author, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Aaron Hurst. In a wide-ranging conversation, they touch on topics from scaling innovation in the nonprofit sector, to the differences in how AI is perceived globally, and to the importance of lifelong learning for both today's leaders and the next generation of leaders....

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee, Managing Director of Data & AI at Launch Consulting, sits down with Russ Whitman, Chief Strategy Officer for The Planet Group to discuss the AI imperative. They discuss  what makes this AI moment different from other technological advancements that have come before and why it just might be the largest change management challenge in our lifetime...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Mike Halstead and Creighton Adams from Launch Consulting share highlights from the special Cybersecurity series. From trends and predictions to the benefits and potential challenges of AI and machine learning, and from best practices to getting the basics nailed down, listen in for tidbits from the season. Then be sure to check out the full episodes with Matt...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Mike Halstead and Creighton Adams from Launch Consulting host Bruce Hembree, Field CTO for the Cortex division of Palo Alto Networks, in a wide-ranging discussion about cyber hygiene. They highlight how thoughtful automation and quality machine learning can enhance scalability of security efforts and allow engineers to spend time on creative pursuits that can...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Mike Halstead and Morganna Hodge from Launch Consulting are joined by Clement King, a risk management and compliance executive with extensive experience in the financial services industry, to discuss the compliance and regulatory aspects of cybersecurity. The trio chat about best practices, how they keep up with changes in the global regulatory environment, t...

In this episode of Navigating Forward, Mike Halstead and Roshan Soni from Launch Consulting speak with Jiong Liu, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Wiz, about cloud security. They cover recent trends in cloud threats and attack patterns, along with the increasingly complex nature of the attacks and the challenges of just keeping up with all of the data, tools, and environments that exist wit...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee, Managing Director of Data & AI at Launch Consulting, welcomes Rupal Hollenbeck, President of Check Point Software for a discussion about AI and cybersecurity. They delve into both the challenges and opportunities that generative AI brings to cybersecurity, including that bad actors can now use tools like ChatGPT to compose more convincing phish...

In this episode of Navigating Forward, Mike Halstead and J.R. Reed from Launch Consulting sit down with Mike Bochniarz, head of Third Party Risk Assessment at Cross River Bank, to talk about third-party and supply chain risk. Topics include the necessity of carefully identifying risks upfront, as well as ongoing lifecycle monitoring — and how tools and automation may help some organizations with t...

In this episode of Navigating Forward, Creighton Adams, Kurt Alaybeyoglu, and Liz Gerson from Launch Consulting get together to discuss bridging the gap between business stakeholders and engineers. As Director of Cybersecurity, Director of Compliance, and Account Executive, they each bring a unique perspective to the challenges of a cybersecurity project — and where they all agree is that desirabl...

On this episode of Navigating Forward: the Cybersecurity series, Mike Halstead and Vidhya Sriram from Launch Consulting chat with Rami Zreikat, Chief Security Architect of xTerraLink, and Trinh Ngo, Director of IT Regulatory & Controls Assurance at an insurance company. They discuss best practices for measuring cyber risks and why it's important for organizations to understand their vulne...

Matthew Rosenquist, CISO at Eclipz, joins Mike Halstead and Creighton Adams from Launch Consulting to talk about current trends in cybersecurity, plus predictions for the future — from AI to quantum computing to government-funded malware.  Security teams are under increased pressure with budgets decreasing and risks increasing as new and powerful technologies are weaponized by bad actors who tend...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Mike Halstead and Creighton Adams from Launch Consulting kick off the Cybersecurity series with a sneak peek of what’s in store for the upcoming eight episodes — each focused on a different facet of today’s evolving cybersecurity environment.  After introducing themselves, they’ll delve into why Navigating Forward is doing a deep dive into cybersecurity right...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee chats with Bettina Lippisch, VP of Privacy & Data Governance at Omeda. With a background that includes stints on marketing and product teams in addition to operations, Bettina is passionate about connecting teams and helping them understand each other’s language. Also joining in the conversation is Doug Kachelmuss, Director of Data Architecture...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee chats with Blake Kuhre, Co-Founder and CEO of SWIM. With a background that includes stints at Disney, Meet Group, and ByteDance, Blake has a passion for pursuing the next frontier in tech and entertainment. SWIM is a Web3 company with a new product currently in stealth mode, but Blake gives some hints about their direction in his wide-ranging discus...