Real Talk with Tia & Jill

On this episode of Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders cofounders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber are getting into something that most food companies know is true but rarely say in a budget meeting. Your culture might not be broken. It might just be costing you far more than you realize. And you would never know it until you did the math. We are bringing in a special guest, Craig Stevenson, who has seen th...

You love what you do. You love the people around you. But the organization? Some days, it feels like it is actively working against you. The endless hours. The feeling of juggling fifty things while finishing none of them. The "Sunday dread" that starts creeping in around 4pm. The "I just need to shut work off" feeling that follows you into evenings you were supposed to have for yourself. This epi...

In this episode of Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders co-founders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber sit down with someone we have worked with and genuinely love. Taylor Clarke founded Amborella Organics, a seed-bearing lollipop company she and her husband built from an idea into a nationally recognized food brand with their own commercial kitchen and real retail presence. And along the way, she had to figur...

Every food leader has something they know they need to do. Develop themselves. Build their team. Fix their culture. And most of them have been meaning to do it for a while. In this episode of Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders co-founders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber get direct about the real cost of waiting: not just the dollars, but the compounding effects. The people who leave. The culture that calc...

World Food Safety Day is June 7. But the conversation about what food safety leadership actually requires does not start on a single day. It starts when food safety professionals honestly ask themselves: Am I just the expert in the room, or am I actually leading? Reagan Brashers is a food safety microbiologist with a PhD from Texas Tech, a fourth-generation agriculturist, and someone who has spent...

May is Small Business Month. And here's a number worth sitting with: small businesses were responsible for 88.9% of all private-sector job growth from 2023 to 2024. In food, those small businesses are also navigating something that doesn't come with a manual: food safety. Without a dedicated team. Without a compliance budget. Without anyone who's done it before sitting across the table. On this ep...

When you've been inside an organization long enough, you stop seeing what's actually there. The workarounds become normal. The silence becomes expected. The gap between what the culture says it values and what actually happens on the floor becomes invisible — until someone from the outside walks in and names it. On this episode of Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders co-founders Tia Glave and Jill Stu...

Most leaders aren't getting the feedback that would actually help them grow. Not because their teams don't have it, but because the culture, the dynamic, or the leader's own behavior has made it unsafe or pointless to give. Catalyst Food Leaders cofounders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber get personal in this week's Real Talk episode about the blind spots in their own leadership — the moments they couldn...

SQF Edition 10 was released on March 1st. Audits begin in February 2027. The change that most food companies aren't prepared for isn't technical — it's cultural. For the first time, food safety culture is a scored, auditable element. Auditors will assess whether your leaders are actively modeling and sustaining it. Not just whether the procedures are documented. On this episode of Real Talk, Catal...

What if the thing holding your leadership back isn't a skill gap — it's a blind spot you can't see on your own? That's the conversation Catalyst Food Leaders cofounders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber are having on this episode of Real Talk. We're joined by Laurence Harvey — facilitator, coach, and former UK police officer who has spent 32 years helping leaders uncover the unconscious bias quietly...

Most companies say leadership development matters. But in many organizations, it’s treated like a side project instead of a system. A strong technical expert gets promoted. Suddenly, they’re leading people, navigating conflict, and shaping culture. And they’re expected to figure it out. In this episode of Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders cofounders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber unpack 4 reasons leader...

Food companies operate in one of the most complex environments in the world. Recalls. Audits. Supply disruptions. Customer pressure. It’s no surprise leaders often feel stuck responding to the next fire. But what if the real issue isn’t reactive leaders — it’s leadership systems that keep organizations trapped in reaction? Next week on Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders co-founders Tia Glave and Jil...

Leadership doesn’t look the same everywhere. And it definitely doesn’t look the same to every generation. On this episode of Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders cofounders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber are joined by Grace Adofoli for a conversation on: Leading Across Generations and Continents As teams become more globally connected and more multi-generational, leadership expectations don’t always align....

Re-orgs are everywhere right now. New boxes. New lines. New titles. And yet… the same frustrations, inefficiencies, and leadership challenges keep showing up. On this episode of Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders cofounders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber are unpacking Why Fixing Your Org Chart Isn’t Fixing Your Culture — and why restructuring often becomes a distraction from the leadership gaps that actu...

This week on Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders cofounders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber talk with Candice McGlen, author of Engage Us Now! and our Catalyst Leadership Summit keynote, about how change actually happens inside organizations. This episode is your chance to get to know Candice before the Summit; her journey, her perspective, and why grassroots leadership is resonating so strongly right now....

“Why won’t my team take full ownership?” 😓 It’s a question we hear from leaders all the time. And it’s rarely about motivation. More often, it’s about: • unclear expectations • fuzzy authority • roles that look clear on paper but feel blurry in real life On this episode of Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders cofounders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber talk about the real reason your team won’t take ownersh...

Foreign material events aren’t rare—they’re constant. 👉 72% of food companies report a foreign material issue just in the last quarter 👉 And most leaders agree: that number’s probably low. Foreign material events aren’t rare—they’re constant. 👉 72% of food companies report a foreign material issue just in the last quarter 👉 And most leaders agree: that number’s probably low. On this episode of...

If your brain is fried by 10am… or you're stuck waiting for approval to make the simplest call—you’re not alone. Decision fatigue is real. So is decision powerlessness. This week on Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders cofounders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber are unpacking both: → What constant decision-making is doing to your leadership → Why being shut out of decisions is just as draining → And how to b...

You can’t shift culture if you’re only talking to people who already agree with you. That’s why today’s Real Talk is all about how to build allies—not just audiences. Catalyst co-founder, Tia Glave, and special guests Madison Kidd and  Morrine Omolo,  break down: 🧠 What to do when you're not invited to the right meetings 🔧 How to build influence across departments 🎯 Why understan...

You’re the one flagging risks, building systems, and holding the line on standards. But you don’t have the title. You don’t control the budget. And no one reports to you. Welcome to leading without leverage. On this week's Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders co-founders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber name the reality that leaders in food know all too well: Influence without authority is a full-time job. T...

🧠 Feeling stretched thin? So is your team. But here’s the real problem: Most workload issues aren’t just about how much is on your plate — they’re about not knowing what’s actually on it. 📉 Unclear workload = hidden burnout, dropped balls, and quiet resentment. 👀 Join us next Monday with the amazing Amy Parks, Global Leader at Dole, on Real Talk as we dig into: - Why most leaders underestimate...

🚨 Real Talk Forecast: 2026 is coming fast. Is your leadership ready? On this episode of Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders co-founders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber unpack the biggest shifts every food leader should be watching: ⚡ Belonging as a performance metric ⚡ Coaching as a core competency ⚡ Leadership rhythms that build capacity—not burnout We’re calling the episode: “6 Shifts Food Leaders Ca...

Most professionals dread performance reviews. In fact, at the 2021 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Annual Conference & Expo 2021, "attendees learned that, upon receiving their annual performance review, 18 percent of women reported crying, while 25 percent of men reported doing so." 😓 OUCH! On this episode of Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders' co-founders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber...

Daily stand-ups are one of the most common leadership practices in food. But are they actually doing what you think they’re doing? In this Real Talk, Catalyst Food Leaders co-founders Tia Glave and Jill Stuber explores how this small habit reveals big truths about team culture, clarity, and connection.

If your leadership strategy is “develop the top 10%,” you’re not scaling capacity—you’re concentrating risk. In this episode, Tia Glave and Jill Stuber, ICF-PCC dive into: 🚨 The hidden costs of star-only development ⚠️ Why it drains culture and burns out teams ✅ What it looks like to build a system where everyone grows You don’t build strong cultures by doubling down on the few. You build them b...