The Authority X-Factor Podcast

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Larry Waddell, founder of Prism and Spire, to discuss the critical operational shifts required to move a company past stagnation. Drawing from over a decade of hands-on leadership inside a fast-growing agency and years of navigating diverse small business environments, Larry shares how operational systems must...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Julia Arpag, the founder and CEO of Aligned Recruitment. Julia shares her journey from recruiting international talent across four continents to launching her own specialized agency focused exclusively on tech startups. She discusses how she transitioned from being a corporate recruiter to a strategic partner w...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht welcomes Ryan Chuckel, the founder of Gunpowder, a communications and integrated marketing agency that has driven massive growth for brands ranging from global automotive leaders to enthusiast startups. With over 15 years of experience in the agency world, Ryan has transitioned from a tactical executor to a holistic business...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Karla Santi, CEO and visionary of Blend Interactive, to discuss her trajectory from a 1997 graphic design intern to a powerhouse leader in the tech industry. Karla shares how she navigated the early days of the web as a woman in a predominantly male field and how she eventually built a specialized agency focuse...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with T. Christian Helms, the founder and creative director of Helms Workshop. Christian is the strategic mind behind the branding of household icons like Jack Daniels and Hershey, as well as cult favorites like Austin Beerworks. He shares how his background in journalism and design created a unique analytical and cr...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Ramona Cedeno, Founder and CEO of FiBrick, capital readiness expert, keynote speaker, and author of Simple Choices, Big Rewards in Money, to explore how a young woman from the Dominican Republic who fell in love with accounting at 19 built a 20-year career spanning Bloomberg, Time Inc., and a thriving fractiona...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with John Scott, Tax Partner at Anders and leader of the firm's virtual CFO division for the legal industry, to explore what it looks like to build a personal brand and a thought leadership platform entirely within an organization you have called home for nearly 35 years. John didn't leave his firm to start somethin...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Leah Leaves, founder of Alderaan Enterprise, to explore what happens when a journalist-turned-operations-specialist spends a decade inside marketing and advertising agencies and realizes that creative chaos, not bad strategy, is the thing quietly killing most of them. Leah started her career in technical journa...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Andi Graham, the Founder, CEO, and Managing Partner of Big Sea. With over 25 years of experience in digital strategy and marketing, Andi has evolved from a self-taught freelancer to the leader of a high-impact agency that helps purpose-driven brands and nonprofits move people to action.   Andi’s journey is a ma...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Joel Salomon, a finance and mindful money expert who walked away from managing a $700 million portfolio to help others achieve true financial freedom. Joel shares his transition from the intense world of hedge funds to becoming a prosperity coach who believes that the numbers in your bank account are deeply tied to...

In this debut episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Ben Kalkman, founder and CEO of Rocket Media, to pull back the curtain on a 20-year journey from bootstrapped graphic designer to one of the most recognized names in home services marketing. Ben shares the serendipitous, sometimes accidental decisions that shaped his career: the missed architecture lab cl...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Beth Trejo, CEO of Chatterkick, keynote speaker, podcaster, and multi-year honoree on the Top 50 CEOs for Women list to explore how she built a nationally recognized, fully remote social media agency by staying relentlessly human in an increasingly digital world. Beth's story is one of accidental entrepreneursh...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht reconnects with Lance Robbins, Partner to Executive leadership, Co-founder of KeelHR, and host of the Fractional podcast, to unpack how a self-described "expert generalist" built a portfolio career spanning reforestation, web development agencies, and biotech HR across six countries before launching two businesses of his own....

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Ben Cash, co-founder and CEO of Reason One, a certified B Corp digital agency to explore how a classically trained musician with half a doctorate in trombone ended up leading one of the most specialized and mission-driven agencies in the healthcare and nonprofit digital space. Ben's story is one of deliberate r...

In this episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht sits down with Stephen Pruitt, Principal at Mountain View Group, whose career took him from sweeping studio floors and doing construction work to pay rent, to co-owning a creative consultancy that has led brand communication strategy for Coca-Cola, GE Healthcare, and UPS over the past 18 years. Stephen's story is one of curio...

In this debut episode of The Authority X-Factor Podcast, host Kelly Schuknecht introduces herself, the show, and the idea at the heart of everything, your authority x-factor. Kelly spent years as what she calls "the person behind the person," working in the shadows to build other people's empires, sharpen their messages, and help them become the go-to experts in their fields. It wasn't until she r...