The Company of Dads Podcast

Interview with Katherine Goldstein / Community Leader, Care Fellow HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Not to be cute, but how much does America care about care? We talk about it. We stress about it. We know we need it. But what steps can we take to bring about action? Katherine knows from researching and writing "A Playbook to Transform How America Cares" Listen to what she learned and we can do. -...

Interview with Jason Abrams / Dad of Two on His Company's Leave HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Amtrak offers paid parental leave to mothers and fathers. Jason Abrams has taken his full allotment of leave twice now - a rarity among men. His exit from and return to work were seamless. It required some planning. Listen to lessons for other men undecided on taking parental leave. --- Get our free newsle...

Interview with Barney Banks / Tik Tok's IAmMrBanks, Diaper Dude HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Barney Banks' fatherhood fame started humbly: he was trying to entertain his son while changing his diaper. He showed the video to his mother-in-law who suggested he post it to Tik Tok. It resonated - to the tune of millions of views. What's happened in the year since shows what we fathers are cr...

Interview with Nate Thompson and Alex Schwartz / Fathers and Workplace Thinkers HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN People want to work differently. We know this. So why are some companies so behind in adaptaing - not to mention those companies putting a stake in the ground for return to office? Nate and Alex, both dads, had traditional office-based careers pre-pandemic. But after work shut down they began to...

Interview with Anna McKay / Back-to-Work Expert for Parents HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Parents pause their careers all the time. They do it to devote all their time to their families. But at some point, they may want to return. If they're an attorney or accountant, there's a path. For others, though, it's challenging. As the founder of Parents Pivot, Anna has tips for Lead Parents who...

Behind The Scenes Of The Company of Dads HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN This is our holiday episode and we’re sitting down with The Company of Dads itself – the people who make this possible: Helder, Emily, Terry and Skip. We talk about the best fatherhood moment in the past year and why so much has changed. --- Get our free newsletter covering all things fatherhood delivered straight to your inbox: http...

Interview with Kristen Shockley / Our First Guest, Professor at Auburn / Work-Life Expert HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Welcome to our 100th Podcast! To celebrate, we're talking to Kristen Shockley, our first guest almost two years ago. We talked back then about her research during the pandemic and what led to harmony at home. (Spoiler: people who only worked and weren't involved with caregivi...

Interview with Kurt and Trent Long / Father-Son Entreprenuers HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Kurt and Trent Long, father-son founders of a company called BUNKR that digitally encrypts your passwords and documents, have lessons for other families looking to work together and build a business. Kurt is a serially successful entrepreneur whose family and friends have always been around his businesses. He rec...

Interview with Nick Bloom / Hybrid Work Expert, Stanford Economist HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN The Five Day Office Week is Dead - so says Nick Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University and an expert on work-from-home practices. Yet some CEOs keep fighting a losing battle to bring it back. There is no evidence, Bloom says, that this will lead to anything good - and lots of research showing t...

Interview with Brad Harrington / Boston College Center for Work and Family HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Many companies still focus on working moms with their outreach and employee resource groups for parents. But research from Boston College's Center for Work and Family shows that doing only that is missing the mark. Not only are fathers taking paternity leave that companies have offered them, bot...

Interview with Michael Perry / Creator of An App To Organize Families HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Michael Perry was living the tech founder's dream. He'd sold an app he created to Shopify, where he had a senior role. Then he and his wife started to have children, and the juggle became a struggle. It gave Michael an idea: What if he created an app to help families organize, delegate and commu...

Interview with Jason Frishman / Narrative Therapist, Founder of JourneyMen HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Can fathers journey through life with responsibility, meaning, intention and partnership? That's Jason Frishman's goal: A therapist based in Vermont, he wants to help men create and sustain authentic relationships with one another and live a more meaningful life. He wants to help them becom...

Interview with Michael Frerichs / Illinois Treasurer, Father of Three HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Michael Frerichs was elected state treasurer in 2014 and has been reelected twice. For all that time he lived in a farming town in southern Illinois where he grew up. When he met his second wife, she was working for Kellogg in Chicago. They commuted, so she could be close to work and he could be with his...

Interview with Jeff Wickersham / Warrior Dad, Fatherhood Coach HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Sometimes unexpected bad outcomes lead to great personal growth. A decade ago, Jeff Wickersham was let go from his job at American Express. It was his livelihood; it was some part of his identity as a provider. But he turned that loss into a moment to connect more deeply with his sons and wife and that spawned t...

Interview with Blessing Adesiyan / Workplace Challenger, Founder of MH WorkLife HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Blessing Adesiyan is at the forefront of changing how workplaces think about care for workers. A chemical engineer by training who held senior roles at companies like BASF, Dupont, and Cargill, Blessing shared some thoughts about being a working mother and invited people on social media for coff...

Interview with Ryan Carters / Pro Cricketeer, Dad Coach HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN At 18, Ryan Carters was a professional cricket player in Australia. He was a father in his early 20s. In his late 20s, after graduating from Harvard, he became a consultant for McKinsey, one of the top management consulting firms in the world. Good life. What didn't fit, though, was how fathers were expected to wo...

Interview with Jimmy May / Navy Seal, Father of Three HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Jimmy May is highly regarded in the world of Navy Seals, one of the most elite fighting groups in the world. For 22 years, he was often deployed 300 days a year. But in a job with no work-life balance, he rarely saw his children and got divorced twice. Since retiring he's making up for lost time, with an intensity t...

Interview with Mita Mallick / DEI Expert, Leading Voice for Change HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Mita Mallick is challenging the lazy statements company leaders have made about diversity policies and laying out a plan to make workplaces more inclusive and to build stronger, better working teams. And when it comes to policies around care, she wants to invite men in to be part of the solution. Listen to h...

Interview with Terry Smith / Author of See You Later HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN After going through his second divorce, Terry Smith got full custody of his daughter. Watching her come to terms with what happened pained him. So Smith, an artist, wrote a book, See You Later, with her to help children and parents talk about divorce in a better way. With 18 percent of fathers in the U.S. being divorced,...

Interview with the Authors of Raising A Kid Who Can HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN A psychiatrist, a psychologist and a child therapist all walk into a parenting group, and... it's a good set-up for a joke, but it's the feeling you might get listening to Catherine McCarthy, Heather Tedesco and Jennifer Weaver, three experts and friends, who wrote a book about creating independent kids - and les...

Interview with Deanne Aussem / Wellbeing Leader At PWC HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Creating a wellbeing platform for a large, multinational company like PwC, the professional services firm, has been a decade in the making. But it positioned the company well in the post-Covid shift to how, where and when we're working. The company's Parenting Inclusion Network offers equal benefits for mother...

Interview with J.R. Havlan / Emmy Award Winner & First Time Camp Worker HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN J.R. Havlan got an offer he couldn't refuse: come work as the communications director at sleepaway camp. The eight-time Emmy Award-winning writer might seem a tad overqualified for the job but he jumped at the chance: he'd be around his two kids and fully focused on one job - a rarity in a...

Interview with Doug Patton / Inventor and Dad HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Doug Patton is an inventor with over 200 products to his name, ranging from a biomedical device used worldwide for eye surgery to an electric candle sold by Disney. But he’s always been an involved father, to his daughter Heather and his son Sean. When she was a baby and a restless sleeper, he would get up early with her and ske...

Interview with Jennifer Wallace / Author and Advocate for Adolescents HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN It's all or nothing. Harvard or bust. A's may not be enough. This is achievement culture and it's hurting kids. Jennifer Wallace, author of “Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic--and What We Can Do About It”, has a plan to help adolescents and their well-meaning but intense...

Interview with Chris Michalak / Healthcare CEO and Lead Dad HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN In one year, Chris Michalak lost his marriage, his job and his dog. He became a single Lead Dad with custody of his sons. He kept it secret at work - it was a different time. Fifteen years later, he became CEO of VIrgin Pulse, a healthcare company, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. His personal experience year...