The Bending Steel Podcast: Conversations with Leaders Shaping the Future with Dr. Antonio Oftelie

In this season-closing episode of The Bending Steel Podcast , Dr. Antonio Oftelie is joined by colleague Lauren Hirshon to reflect on the leadership lessons that defined 2025 and to celebrate a year of learning alongside leaders from across sectors. Drawing on insights from The Public Safety Summit , The Human Services Summit , The Supply Chain & Operations Reinvention Summit , and The Kresge...

In a time marked by relentless volatility, rising uncertainty, and a sense of “perma-crisis,” leaders are searching for ways to stay steady, clear-headed, and connected to what truly matters. Today’s challenges demand not just sharper strategic thinking, but also deeper emotional grounding. It’s not just the mind, but the heart that has to lead. In this episode, Harvard Business School professor a...

Artificial intelligence is moving rapidly from promise to practice — no longer just a potential tool, but a true partner in how organizations operate. Supply chains, once considered back-office cost centers, are now at the forefront of strategy, resilience, and growth. Together, AI and supply chain reinvention are reshaping how companies adapt to disruption, make smarter investments, and prepare t...

In this episode, we explore what it takes to launch and sustain a high-stakes transformation inside a global company with our guest: Tamer Abuaita, Global Chief Supply Chain Officer and President of Industrial at Stanley Black & Decker. Tamer shares his experience leading a team of more than 33,000 employees on spearheading one of the most ambitious supply chain overhauls in the company’s hist...

In this episode, we sit down with Mayor Tim Keller to explore how Albuquerque became a national leader in public safety transformation. Confronted with a federal consent decree over police misconduct and the urgent calls for change following the 2020 social justice movement, Keller and his team launched the Albuquerque Community Safety (ACS) department — a first-of-its-kind initiative that sends t...

In this special kickoff episode of Bending Steel , host Dr. Antonio Oftelie flips the script and becomes the guest. Interviewed by longtime collaborator Lauren Hirshon — Director of Learning and Development at Leadership for a Networked World at Harvard — the two explore the vision behind the podcast and why now is the time for bold ideas in the public and social sectors. Together, they reflect on...

Leading a ground-up transformation is hard. Coming into an organization and doing it as an outsider is even harder. The challenge of forging relationships, understanding the community, and fostering a change in culture and mission is difficult enough when the stakeholders know you. That challenge when you’re a newcomer? Monumental. Yet that’s exactly where this episode’s guest found herself. In th...

Breakthrough outcomes often need a catalyst – a way to see not only challenges on the horizon, but also solutions that will make the world better. A case in point is the “Live Well San Diego” initiative in San Diego County California, which helped officials respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in novel ways and created a platform to improve equity and health in the future.  In this episode, we’ll lear...

Evolving an organization is easier said than done. The noise and distraction of a highly changeable and uncertain environment can make it a challenge to get much done at all, let alone stay focused on what matters or create new ways of doing things. As a leader, how can you harness this moment to drive positive change? How do you bring everyone—employees, customers, partners—along on that growth j...

Growth is one thing. Purposeful growth another. Can the two be linked? And what does it take to move not only an established firm but also its people to embrace the required change?  One thing is certain – it’s not easy. Can we learn how to approach purposeful growth by applying lessons learned from a top innovator? In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Adobe CFO John Murphy discuss...

The world is constantly changing and at a rapidly accelerating rate.  And a breakthrough technological transformation can quickly propel an organization into the future expanding its growth and financial capital exponentially.  How does a company continuously balance the need to drive innovation while at the same time managing the risk? How does a leader of an organization create the culture neces...

A major pivot in any organization takes time and unwavering commitment.  And it takes adaptive leadership to create an environment that can start and sustain transformation. In this podcast episode, Kirsten Lodal, founder and former CEO of LIFT shares leadership insights on the organization’s transformational journey.  Kirsten started LIFT, a national nonprofit organization that works to break the...

To effectively build capacity for future challenges and opportunities, leaders must often seek out new ways to co-create solutions through partnerships with other organizations, coalitions, and network-building. This form of collaboration is a keystone of Catalyst Miami, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to build social and economic mobility for individuals and families in Miami-Dade Count...

Leaders often need to shape their mission while balancing the demands of stakeholders, building a team that embodies this mission and ensuring the outcomes they seek remain in focus.   For over 20 years, the mission of Joe Jones, Founder and CEO of the Center for Urban Families (CFUF), has been to invest in the whole family. His overarching goal has been to lift up and empower fathers and to ensur...

Organizational transformation is a tall order in today’s turbulent world. In policing, it’s even more challenging. Yet, there are powerful examples of progress that show how leaders can create an environment for innovation and guide people and stakeholders through to successful transformation. In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Scott Thomson, former police chief of Camden, New Je...