Navigating Forward

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee is joined by best-selling author and former Silicon Valley CEO, Hilary DeCesare. Now, as the founder and CEO of The ReLaunch Co., Hilary helps women and businesses transform with her 3HQ framework. Featured in her book RELAUNCH! Spark Your Heart to Ignite Your Life , the framework focuses on the heart, the head, and the higher self.  Hilary and Lisa...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee chats with David Smith and Brad Johnson, co-authors of Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace and Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women . These former naval officers are dedicated to helping men become better allies, colleagues, and mentors for women — which in turn helps men become better and more inclusive...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee speaks with Wendy Turner-Willams, former Chief Data Officer at Tableau. With over 20 years of experience in data, Wendy is an Advisory Board Member for several organizations, including the University of Washington Information School. She also recently joined Carnegie Mellon University as an Adjunct Professor in their Tepper School of Business Chief...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee chats with Harrison Tang, the CEO and cofounder of Spokeo. Along with his college roommates, Harrison started Spokeo in his parents' basement in 2006. From those early days in the basement with parents as investors, the people search engine has now grown to serve 20 million people per month and half a million searches per day.  Lisa and Harriso...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, Lisa Thee chats with author and speaker Julia Nicholson. Formerly the CEO of the Motion Picture Industry Pension & Health Plans, Julia now has her own consulting business and is a keynote speaker on the topics of resilience, adversity, and grit. Having overcome and prospered after facing adversity and unwanted change, she now shares her message through he...

On this episode, Lisa Thee talks with author and executive coach Amii Barnard-Bahn. In additon to her work with Fortune 500 executives, Amii is also a guest lecturer at Stanford University and UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. A regular contributor to Harvard Business Review and Fast Company, she is also the creator of The Promotability Index® and author of the companion PI Guidebook.  L...

On this episode, Lisa Thee talks with Ed Soo Hoo, an executive coach who is also the Worldwide CTO Global Accounts at Lenovo and an Industry Fellow at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at UC Berkeley. Ed helps drive innovation and transformation with his customers, and he does it through a unique lens that comes from his wealth of experiences in what he calls his blue collar, white co...

Teichert Construction is a heavy civil construction giant that has been building California for 135 years. Clearly, they know the formula for success—investing in their people, in tech, and, more and more, in data. They recently launched a first-of-its-kind virtual assistant called InQuarry that draws from decades of job information to create a "network of knowledge" that helps them bid...

Are you the type of person who loves sampler platters, Cliff's Notes, and productivity hacks? Well, today is your lucky day! Feast your ears on this highlights episode of Navigating Forward with Lisa Thee, where we look back at the most thought-provoking and data-centric episodes, featuring: 1. Sadie St. Lawrence, Founder and CEO of Women In Data. 2. Dr. Micahel Blum, Founding CEO of Beekeepe...

Irakli Beridze is the Head of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at UNICRI, United Nations​. Beridze advises governments and international organizations on numerous issues related to international security, scientific and technological developments, emerging technologies, innovation and disruptive potential of new technologies, with a particular emphasis on the issue on crime prev...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, host Lisa Thee sits down with Greg Merrill, Senior Director for Digital Transformation at Nike. Greg shares his background and professional journey as an entrepreneur, co-founding companies like Green Source Energy, Austin Rubber Company, and Austin Footwear Company.  Greg and Lisa  discuss the importance of authenticity in the workplace, and the role of empa...

Lisa Thee talks with Mike Amato on the challenges of realigning company culture, setting goals beyond the bottom line, and motivating the rapidly evolving workforce to achieve positive outcomes. Mike Amato's career in the corporate world includes a roles as Division President of Washington Mutual Bank, leader of Barclay's global retail, and board member for multiple banks in Europe. Mike...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, host Lisa Thee sits down with Dr. Michael Blum, Chief Digital Transformation Officer at the UCSF Center for Digital Healthcare Innovation, and Founding CEO of BeekeeperAI. Lisa and Dr. Blum discuss the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning in healthcare to enhance our health and improve patient outcomes. Dr. Blum also shares how his medica...

Launch Consulting guest hosts Sandra Niehaus and Neil Crist sit down with Chris Enslin, President of Eyefinity, and Charlie Biegel, Chief Operations Officer of Eyefinity on this episode: Forging the Future in Customer Experience.  Eyefinity is a proven leader in the eye care industry. But the eye care industry, like much of healthcare, is built on outdated tech. Eyefinity set out to reimagine the...

On this week's episode, Lisa Thee sits down with Sadie St. Lawrence, the founder and CEO of Women in Data. As a Coursera instructor, Sadie has trained over 300,000 people in data science, and she has led multiple analytic transformations in corporate America and beyond. Listen as Lisa and Sadie St. Lawrence discuss Sadie's unique path to leadership in the field of data science, the futur...

Matthew Rosenquist is an industry-recognized pragmatic, passionate, and innovative CISO and strategic security expert with 30 years of experience. On this episode, Matthew talks about cybersecurity and the challenges it comes with. In addition, Matthew highlights the fast moving cryptocurrency market along with the pros and cons of this new digital currency. Matthew shares some personal stories wh...

On this episode of Navigating Forward, we sit down with Launch's Director of Data Engineering & Data Science, Sree Pillai. Sree has been acknowledged for his work in Computer Science and received awards for the implementation of Oracle technologies around the world. Sree takes pride in making the invisible, visible and solving complex problems in a creative fashion. Listen closely for adv...

On today’s episode Mark Hadland, Founder/CEO of Level11 (now part of Launch Consulting's Apex Experiences group) sits down and talks about his success as an entrepreneur, along with the importance of risk taking an innovation. The Seattle native comes from a corporate background and started on the entrepreneurial path later into his career. Throughout the episode, Mark highlights how Disney a...

Robert has spent the last 20 years working on industry leading software platforms. Building the culture around them, driving adoption across 100-1000 team organizations, and delivered on the promise of business agility. In his journey, he wasn't afraid to tear apart monoliths, consolidate repetitive systems, fully automate developer workflows, and migrate many things to many clouds. If theres...

Paul is the the Director and co-founder of the Cal Poly Digital Transformation Hub, leading a public/private digital innovation team focused on initiatives for moving public sector organizations into the future. He works with leading industry partners to develop new, technology-oriented programs to promote digital transformation while providing enhanced "learn by doing" experiences for s...

Kyle brings 20 years of solution development, data architecture, and IT consulting experience to the Launch Consulting Technical Leadership Team with a focus on Data and Analytics. With a background in Data Modeling and Data Platform design/development. Kyle has spent the last several years working with Cloud Data Platform and Analytics technologies. He brings expertise in Agile and Scrum Methodol...

Lydia Henshaw is passionate about building self-confidence and resiliency in girls. Pre-teen and teen years are a time for girls to discover who they are. These years are full of possibilities, but also come with challenges often faced for the very first time that can falsely define a girls limitations. This is why Lydia founded Moxie Girl - an accessible, action-oriented online platform combined...

At 22, Mary started with a Fortune 1000 Payroll/HR company at just $13/hour in an admin role, but quickly acquired the skills and training required to advance into mid-market sales. She rapidly found success by listening to clients and always solving their needs; putting their agenda before her own. Even when Mary's sales approach was the direct inverse of corporate, she knew in her heart wha...

Courtney Gregoire serves as Chief Digital Safety Officer and Assistant General Counsel for Microsoft Corporation. In this role, Courtney is responsible for Microsoft’s company-wide digital safety strategy to reduce harm from illegal and harmful content online through technology, policy, and partnerships. From 2015-2019, Courtney led Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit work to combat cybercrime against...

Katie is Chief of Staff at Spectrum Labs. Spectrum Labs is a technology company, platform, and community whose mission is to make the Internet a safer and more valuable place for all. She works closely with the engineering team to build products that enable customers to reach their trust & safety goals. ABOUT THE PODCAST At the crossroads of uncertainty & opportunity, how do you Navigate F...