The Company of Dads Podcast

Interview with Travis Parry / Efficiency Expert and Lead Dad HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Work too much? Struggle allocating time to home, work, your community, yourself? This was Travis Parry, a father of seven, who had a revelation when his father passed away suddenly. He wanted to find a better way to do things. So he founded the Make Time Institute and now consults with business owners on how to re...

Interview with Eve Rodsky / Fair Play Advocate, Bestselling Author HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Eve Rodsky is changing the way working couples coexist. Starting with her bestselling book "Fair Play: A Game Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much To Do and More Life to Live," Eve is helping couples find a better way to divide up the tasks of life, of parenting, of the house, of the chores...

Interview with Brian Anderson and John Badalament / Change Makers HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Fathering Together is a nonprofit that works to make fathers agents of positive change. One of its missions is to give dads the tools to try to be the best fathers they can be. Their mission is supported with research and data that shows that more involved fathers benefit the whole family. Listen to what any...

Interview with Roman Gaida / Business Leader Setting An Example HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Lead Dads need examples at work. They need to see senior leaders being Full Parents at Work - not Event Dads who leave early for a game or a performance. Roman Gaida came to understand this when his sons were born five years ago. He runs Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Mitsubishi Electric - some 160 empl...

Interview with Colin Haupt / Widowed Lead Dad Of Three HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Colin Haupt was always a Lead Dad. When his children were young and he was a rising HR executive, he was the one to leave work when his kids needed him. His wife's job in financial services didn't have that flexibity. It continued when he joined a start-up insurance company that was growing quickly but had a C...

Interview with Stew Friedman / Director of The Wharton Work/Life Integration Project HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN When his first child was born, Stew Friedman, then a young professor, started researching how companies could think differently about their employees' work and home lives. His colleagues thought he was sabotaging a promising career. Instead, Ford Motor Company hired him and that stint...

Interview with Bill Masters / Legendary Sitcom Writer and Creator, Lead Dad HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Bill Masters is a comedy-writing legend. He parlayed stand-up into writing for "Seinfeld". He created "Caroline in the City" and "Raising Dad". His wife Gail Berman is a legend in her own right, having run Paramount Pictures and Fox Broadcasting's entertainment div...

Interview With Sue Groner / The Parenting Mentor HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN All the myriad questions that parents have about their children can be boiled down into one, single issue: expectations, says Sue Groner, aka The Parenting Mentor. Coming out of The Wharton School, Groner didn't imagine that her career would take her into a world of coaching parents to manage - or in corporate speak, rig...

Interview With Drew Soleyn / Dad Coach and Founder of Connected Dads HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Before coaching Dads, Drew Soleyn was a sports coach turned corporate coach. Coaching executives was important but what if the the then-father of three could connect more deeply with Dads? What if he could coach them to learn to lead themselves, and through that to become better fathers and men? His change...

Interview with Jimmy Gomez (& his infant son) / America's Most Famous Lead Dad HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Congressman Jimmy Gomez, who represents Los Angeles in the House of Representatives, put his 4-month-old son Hodge into a baby sling and voted with him for Speaker of the House - again and again. What began as a proud father moment at the start of the week of voting became a family neces...

Interview With Rob Taylor / Corporate Dad Trainer HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Companies are starting to give men paternity leave at work. It's a start. But there's still a macho culture that can make taking that leave difficult. That same culture can also quiet men who want be open about being caring, engaged fathers - while also being workers. As Rob Taylor says, "They don't teach...

Interview With Trevor Kempner / Assistant District Attorney, Lead Dad HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Trevor Kempner, assistant district attorney, a cappella singer, thirtysomething Lead Dad, is a fascinating study of human complexity. He went to Yale where he studied theater and then onto Stanford Law School where after graduating he became a business litigator. It didn’t take, and he moved to the San Fr...

Interview with Deborah Porter / Working Parent Coach HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Deborah Porter is an influential voice on parenting. She runs Porter Systems and is a consultant to organizations and businesses to provide support beyond parental leave for working parents. At a time when working parents are trying to negotiate how and when to ask for a different way of working, she has some concrete adv...

Paul Sullivan Talks About What He Learned as a First-Time Founder and What The Company of Dads Has Planned HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN We launched The Company of Dads in February, and our Paul Sullivan has told the story of how he came up with the idea many times. Now, for the first, he reflects on what went right and wrong in the first year, what still bothers him (and what still makes him smile), an...

Highlights from Kirstin Shockley, Jamie Ladge, Kenneth Braswell, Dana Suskind, Jay Lauf & Jeff Forte HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Welcome to The Company of Dads year-end review. The majority of our podcasts focused on Lead Dads and their stories. But we also sought out experts on all sorts of things that relate to men as fathers, husbands, earners, and people. There were academics who studied pande...

Highlights from Mike McKee, Tony Maws, JR Havlan, Tino Ricci and Max Rivera HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Welcome to The Company of Dads Christmas highlights from five podcasts this year – Mike McGee, husband of famous golfer Annika Sorenstam; Tony Maws, award-winning Boston chef; JR Havlan, Emmy Award winning comedy writer; Tino Ricci, my childhood best friend and a long-timne Home Depot employee; and...

Interview with David Newson / Chief Marketing Officer, Working Parent Advocate HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN David Newson has risen to the upper echelons of the marketing world. He’s a leader in his field. As a husband and a father, he does something so simple but important for other Lead Dads in the corporate world. He blocks out two hours each morning to get his son ready for school – and he keeps it...

Interview with Michael Beacham / Co-Founder of Money Savvy Generation HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Inflation may be tough on the family budget but it’s a remarkable time to talk to your kids about money. Take the grocery bill and show your kids how much basic necessities cost today versus last year, says Michael Beacham, president of Money Savvy Generation – a financial education firm for children foun...

Interview with Eric Arthrell / Researcher on The Changing Desires for Fathers At Work HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Eric Arthrell, a long-time management consultant, was the lead author on Deloitte’s “ The Design of Everyday Men Report ” – a look at how top-performing fathers want to work differently and what the best companies have done to retain and support them. Key finding: inclusive work cultures d...

Interview with Mark Tamhane / International broadcast Journalist with Kids 4 to 24 HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Mark Tamhane is a father of six in Melbourne, Australia. His children are 24, 21, 18, 7, 5, and 4. Australia had one the world's strictest lockdown policies during Covid and that time taught him perspective. Trained as a journalist, Mark worked in radio, tv and print, in Australia and in...

Interview with Ian Dinwiddy / Corporate Coach and Founder of Inspiring Dads HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Businesses are starting to emphasize parental leave for fathers as well as mothers. No complaints there – as long as the corporate culture makes men feel that taking leave won’t be a penalty. But what many companies are not doing is helping fathers (and mothers) reenter the workforce and thrive in a...

Interview with Marvin Avilez who Spent 7 Years Securing Fatherhood Rights HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Marvin Avilez’s story to be a father to his daughter continues. The former counter-intel Marine turned technologist became a father in 2015 in New York City – when the mother of his child was in the United Kingdom. After talking his way into the country in 2020, he was fortunate to have an attorney wh...

Interview with Marvin Avilez who Spent 7 Years Securing Fatherhood Rights HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Marvin Avilez has one of the most captivating stories about becoming a Lead Dad I’ve ever heard. A former counter-intel Marine turned technologist, Marvin became a father in 2015 in New York. His daughter's mother, who lived in London at that point, wanted to control all aspects of his involvemen...

Interview with Dan Kadlec / Early Remote Worker and 1990s Lead Dad HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN Dan Kadlec was a Lead Dad when silence about his role was the way to maintain his ability to work remotely and parent his children as his wife’s career became more demanding. That was the 1990s when working from home was a euphemism for slacking off. But after discussions with his wife, they realized his job...

Interview with Michael Cohen / Employment lawyer, Philly sports fan, Lead Dad HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN When Michael Cohen’s first daughter was born, some 20 years ago, he was afraid to take paternity leave. Not super shocking in the early 2000s – unless you know that Coach Mike, as his daughters and their friends call him, is an employment lawyer who helps companies craft their workplace policies –...