The Leadership Exchange

In this episode of the Leadership Exchange, Rob Ocel and Elliott Fouts sit down with Dorren Schmitt to unpack what it actually takes to lead AI transformation inside a large organization. Drawing from Allen Media Group’s early adoption journey, Dorren shares how her team approached generative AI long before most enterprises had clear strategies in place and why successful adoption depends far more...

Tracy Lee sits down with seasoned CIO and AI executive Trude Van Horn, SVP & CIO at Cien.ai to unpack what it really takes for organizations to navigate the shift into AI-driven work. Drawing from decades of experience across industries, Trude shares why business leaders can’t afford to sit on the sidelines and how getting hands-on with AI is now a leadership responsibility, not just a technic...

Tracy Lee sits down with Søren Bramer Schmidt and Will Madden from Prisma to unpack what’s changed with the launch of Prisma 7 and where they’re headed next. They talk about why Prisma is intentionally moving away from Rust and doubling down on TypeScript, how that simplifies the ORM’s architecture, speeds up community contributions, and makes features like better Cloudflare support and Prisma Pos...

Southwest Airlines Managing Director of Technology Priya Narayan joins Tracy Lee to unpack what it takes to lead engineering in a highly regulated, zero downtime environment. Priya traces her path from engineer to leader, balancing safety, union timelines, and customer experience while shipping change at scale. She breaks down mobile first product strategy for pilots and flight attendants, how Sou...

In this episode of Leadership Exchange, Danny Thompson talks with Rossella Vital, VP of Engineering at Sprout Social. They map the shift from building single models to designing intelligent systems with agents, evaluation loops, and strong data governance. The conversation covers how roles are changing for data scientists, analysts, engineers, and product managers, what enablement looks like insid...

In this episode of Leadership Exchange, Tracy Lee welcomes Tom Occhino, Chief Product Officer at Vercel and former leader of the React team at Meta. Tom shares the story of React’s early days, how incremental adoption and escape hatches gave it an edge, and why simplifying concepts was always more important than adding new features. He reflects on building a culture of humility and openness in ope...

In this episode of the Leadership Exchange podcast, Tracy Lee sits down with Rich Walker, CEO of Quick, to explore the intersection of entrepreneurship, AI, and modern software development. Rich shares his unconventional journey from a finance graduate and self-taught coder to leading an enterprise SaaS company, highlighting how he leveraged AI agents like Claude to build a fully functional, enter...

On this episode of the Leadership Exchange , Rob Ocel talks with Ivan Burazin , co-founder and CEO of Daytona. Ivan shares how his company is building “computers for agents,” what he’s learned from years of developer tooling and event organizing, and why trust, context, and long-term relationships matter more than chasing star résumés. They also dig into cultural differences in engineering talent...

In this episode of Leadership Exchange , host Rob Ocel speaks with Alfredo Lopez, VP of Engineering at Hearst, about what it really takes for leaders to guide their organizations through AI adoption. Alfredo shares insights from more than a decade at Hearst on how engineering leadership has evolved, from balancing startup urgency with long term stability to knowing when not to solve problems with...

In this episode of The Leadership Exchange, Tracy Lee sits down with Sam Bhagwat, co-founder of GatsbyJS and now co-founder and CEO of Mastra AI. Sam shares his journey from building one of the most popular React frameworks to leading an open-source TypeScript framework for AI agents. The conversation explores lessons learned from scaling Gatsby, why intuition and pattern recognition matter in lea...

Tracy Lee sits down with Charlie Cichetti, a leader in green building and workforce upskilling, to unpack what it really takes to run high-performing, healthy, and profitable buildings. Charlie shares lessons from years helping companies pursue LEED and WELL certifications, navigate decarbonization, and turn sustainability goals into measurable ROI.They get into practical playbooks for retrofits v...

In this episode of the Leadership Exchange podcast, Tracy Lee sits down with Tanya Faddoul, VP of Strategy for Cisco’s Digital Resilience business. The two reflect on Tanya’s nonlinear journey from media sales to leadership roles at Amazon, DocuSign, and now Cisco. Tanya shares how she brings the voice of the customer into product strategy and how she’s navigating the fast-changing world of cybers...

In this episode of the Leadership Exchange podcast, Tracy Lee sits down with Atlanta-based investor, coach, and creator Von Wright for an honest conversation about purpose, transformation, and building a better future for yourself both personally and professionally. Von shares his journey from corporate success to finding deeper meaning in the “second half of life”, how personal challenges sparked...

In this episode of Leadership Exchange , Rob Ocel sits down with John Aron, founder and CEO of Aronetics, to talk about authenticity in leadership, business, and government contracting. They explore what it takes to build trust and credibility as a small player in a space dominated by massive public and private institutions. John shares how staying grounded and transparent has helped him win trust...

In this episode of Leadership Exchange, Tracy Lee speaks with Karyn Mullins, a Fractional CTO, about how engineers can increase their impact by becoming more business-savvy. They unpack what it really means to “stay close to the money,” how understanding a company’s business model unlocks stronger engineering decisions, and why engineers should be involved early in strategic planning. Karyn shares...

How should business leaders approach AI?In this episode of Leadership Exchange, Rob Ocel sits down with Dr. Priya Sarathy to unpack what it really takes for organizations to adopt AI successfully. Priya shares insights from her executive workshop and upcoming book The AI Leadership Compass, emphasizing the critical role of leadership in making AI initiatives impactful and sustainable. They discuss...

Tracy Lee talks with Felicia Schwartz about how to scale AI the right way. They cover what actually works beyond the hype, how to pick the right use cases, and why getting buy-in from your team matters more than fancy models. Felicia shares her six-step framework for real AI adoption and lessons from companies that got it right and wrong. Keypoints from this episode: - Scaling AI starts with busin...

In this episode of the Leadership Exchange, Danny Thompson sits down with Dr. Stephanie Adams, Director of Intellectual Property and Grants at Micron Biomedical, to explore how Micron’s groundbreaking microneedle patch is redefining drug delivery. Stephanie shares how this painless, self-administered technology—already making waves in global vaccine distribution—could transform access to healthcar...

In this episode of the Leadership Exchange podcast, Tracy Lee talks with Maria Thacker-Goethe, President and CEO of Georgia Life Sciences, to discuss the future of life sciences in Georgia and beyond. They talk about the growth of the local biotech and medtech ecosystem, the critical need for stronger innovation pipelines, and how collaborations between tech and life sciences are reshaping the ind...

In this episode of The Leadership Exchange, Rob Ocel sits down with Shawn Wang—better known as Swyx—to explore how AI is reshaping the software industry from the inside out. Swyx shares his journey from parsing Bloomberg chat logs as a trader to co-founding the AI Engineer Summit and helping define the emerging discipline of AI engineering. He draws parallels to previous waves like frontend and De...

In this episode of The Leadership Exchange, Danny Thompson sits down with Mike Davey, VP of Product at Raptor Maps, to explore the impact of AI on product design, team efficiency, and the renewable energy sector. Mike shares lessons from working across fintech, adtech, and now clean tech—highlighting how AI can drive data efficiency without compromising quality. They unpack the human side of leade...

In this episode, Tracy Lee sits down with Trip Barnes from Insperity to talk about the winding paths of leadership, startup life, and personal growth. Together, Tracy and Trip unpack what it means to build something that lasts—whether that’s a business, a family, or a mini cheesecake company started from a random party conversation. They explore the tension between hustle and burnout, how to recog...

In this episode of Leadership Exchange, Rob Ocel is joined by Eric Poon, Head of IT at Shoppa’s Toyota Material Handling, for a fascinating conversation on the future of industry, the evolving role of humans in automation, and the ethical responsibilities of computing. Eric shares his journey from Peloton and PepsiCo to leading IT at a company with bold ambitions to double in size in five years. H...

In this episode of Leadership Exchange, Tracy Lee chats with healthcare IT leader and WIT board member Monique Weeks about how AI is reshaping healthcare—and what that means for patients, professionals, and the future of work. They talk about the fear of AI replacing jobs, the need for human oversight, and how documentation tools can improve the patient experience. Monique also shares why she took...

Join Tracy Lee, CEO of This Dot Labs, in this episode of Leadership Exchange as she sits down with Nachi Desai, a technology leader who has held CTO roles at Beckett Collectibles, Nothing Bundt Cakes, and Oriental Trading Company. In this conversation, Tracy and Nachi explore the challenges of transitioning from engineering to leadership and the importance of understanding the business side of tec...