The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR

Nichole Viviani, Chief People, Culture and Change Officer at Global Payments, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about why culture makes or breaks M&A, how Global Payments aligned 27,000 people through “goals before roles,” and why leaders need to over-communicate through uncertainty. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Intuit QuickBooks Workforce at QuickBooks.com/workfor...

Courtney Kolar, Chief People Officer at Neighborly, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about how she helped build an HR function from a three-person team into a 40-person people organization, the People Services 2020 roadmap that created the foundation for scale, and why every company should operate as if it needs to be IPO ready. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Cloverleaf...

Sunaina Lobo, Chief People Officer at Omnissa, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why the HR-IT partnership is becoming critical in the AI era, how Omnissa is approaching AI transformation with a small but mighty team, and what it takes to build an AI-first culture while maintaining trust and engagement. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Intuit QuickBooks Payroll at Qui...

Patricia Frost, Chief People and Places Officer at Seagate, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about her military-to-CPO journey, how Seagate built Talent Link to unlock internal mobility, and what it looks like to democratize AI across a global workforce. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Cloverleaf at cloverleaf.me/mpl 🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/mpl 🔗 Explo...

Kate Railton, Chief People Officer at Mejuri, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about how Mejuri transitioned from e-commerce into retail, why they've decided to flatten the organization, and the business review cadences and operating model that allow them to move faster. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/mpl MPL Links: 🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build...

Daniel moderated a live panel at Running Remote 2026 with Carmen Amara (Yelp), Brandon Sammut (Zapier), and Vinícius Coelho (Time Doctor) to discuss how AI is reshaping leadership, management, and career growth. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Intuit QuickBooks Payroll at QuickBooks.com/workforce 🔗 Learn more about Cloverleaf at cloverleaf.me/mpl 🔗 Explore the 2026 ​Deloitte Human Capi...

Ray'n Terry, Chief People Officer at MOO, joined us on The Modern People Leader to discuss why AI should create more space for humanity at work instead of simply increasing productivity.  We talked about balancing business performance with employee wellbeing, rethinking performance management in an AI-powered world, and why leaders must intentionally help people reclaim time, creativity, and c...

Amy Reichanadter, Chief People Officer at Databricks, joined us on The Modern People Leader to discuss her upskilling journey throughout her career, creating consumer-grade employee experiences, and leading through rapid technological change.  ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Cloverleaf at cloverleaf.me/mpl ----   (07:28) Long-Term Career Growth and the Value of Staying Power (10:35) Why...

Cameron Price, Head of People & Talent at Medium, joined us on The Modern People Leader to discuss how people teams can lead AI change management through trust, curiosity, and human-centered design.  We talked about AI fluency, balancing innovation with authenticity, measuring employee sentiment around AI adoption, and why humans-first leadership matters more than ever. ----   Sponsor Links:...

Nir Leibovich, Product Executive at QuickBooks Workforce, joined us on The Modern People Leader to discuss why HR and finance teams struggle when data lives in silos and how unified systems create better business decisions.  Downloadable PDF with top takeaways: https://modernpeopleleader.kit.com/episode306 ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Book a conversation with Compete at compete.com/mpl 🔗 Learn more a...

Amy Schwartz, Chief People Officer at Wiz, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about why HR alone can't create a high-performance culture, why relationships and influence matter more than HR systems, and why "picking up the trash" - a leadership philosophy she picked up working in casinos - has stuck with her ever since. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Cloverl...

Laura Tomaino, Chief People Officer at Glooko, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why “People-First” leadership feels harder in 2026 and what it actually looks like to live up to that today. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Cloverleaf at cloverleaf.me/mpl 🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/mpl MPL Links: 🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build . ----   (08:51) Building HR f...

Jevan Lenox, Chief People Officer at Writer, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about why AI adoption alone is not enough, how companies can use “directed innovation” to drive real business outcomes with AI, and what high performance looks like in the AI era. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Cloverleaf at cloverleaf.me/mpl 🔗 Explore the 2026 ​Deloitte Human Capital Trends...

Kirsten Moorefield, Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder at Cloverleaf, Sarika Lamont, CPO at Vidyard, and Sarah Royer, Sr. Manager of People Ops at Nirvana Insurance, joined us on The Modern People Leader for a live discussion on AI coaching.  We talked about what AI coaching actually means today, building these tools in-house versus buying, and why career growth will never be a perfect checkl...

Cara Brennan Allamano (Founder of PeopleTech Partners and former Chief People Officer at Lattice) and Jevan Lenox (Chief People Officer at Writer) joined Stephen at Fix Healthcare Live. They talked about the growing pressure on HR leaders and why modern people leaders need to rethink how they operate in a rapidly changing world. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Explore the 2026 ​Deloitte Human Capital Tre...

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, Co-Founder and CEO of Wellthy, and Stephan Dolling, AVP of Global Benefits & Well-being at Merck, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about the rising pressures facing working families and what companies can do to support their employees that are caregivers. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/mpl 🔗 Learn more about Intuit Quick...

Jessica Zwaan, VP People Strategy & Operations at Leapsome and author of Built For People , joined us for another MPL Build AMA.  This time we talked about how to redesign your People team if you're running your team like a product team, why metrics like internal promotion retention matter more than traditional HR KPIs, and more. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Explore the 2026 ​Deloitte Human Ca...

Amin Palizban, Co-Founder & CEO of TopicFlow, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why managers are at a breaking point, how AI is transforming performance management, and what it takes to build AI-native people products that actually support managers in real time. ----   Get the AI for Performance Management Toolkit: https://modernpeopleleader.kit.com/aiforperformance Sponso...

In this live episode of The Modern People Leader recorded in Toronto, the crew reflects on the evolving role of HR leaders amid rising AI pressure, shifting expectations, and increasing emotional load. They unpack real-time challenges around strategy clarity, leadership trust, and how people teams must adapt to stay effective in a rapidly changing world. Our guests for this episode: - Kate Railton...

James Seechurn, Author of ‘What Pay Costs’ and ‘Nothing Left to Take Away’, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why traditional “pay for performance” systems often fail—both because individual performance is hard to measure in knowledge work and because incentives don’t actually drive better outcomes. We also explored a new definition of performance centered on innovation, and h...

Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about why workplace dread is increasing in today’s environment, what Claude has learned from Gen Z employees, and how leaders can leave their “heart print” on the people they work with. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Cloverleaf at cloverleaf.me/mpl 🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/m...

Zachary Parris, who’s re-imagining talent development for the AI era at Google, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about how AI is turning HR leaders into builders, why product thinking is replacing traditional HR programs, and how anyone can now create impactful tools without a technical background.  ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Book a conversation with Compete at compete.com/mpl 🔗 Le...

Deborah Yount, CHRO at Sutter Health, joined us on The Modern People Leader to share her journey from finance to leading HR at one of the largest healthcare systems in the U.S. We discussed how Sutter reduced turnover by nearly 40%, built a culture of leadership accountability, and scaled employee experience and development across 60,000+ employees. ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Learn more about Tilt a...

Eva Majercsik (Chief People Officer) and Trevor Schulze (CIO) at Genesys joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about how AI is reshaping how humans and machines work together, why CIO and CPO partnerships are more important than ever, and how to lead a human-centered AI transformation across the organization.  ----   Sponsor Links: 🔗 Book a conversation with Compete at compete.com/mpl...

Amit Rapaport, Co-Founder & CEO of Compete, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why most HR metrics don’t matter to your CEO, how to think like a CEO when looking at workforce data, and more. ----   Downloadable PDF with top takeaways: https://modernpeopleleader.kit.com/5-hr-rules Sponsor Links: 🔗 Book a conversation with Compete at compete.com/mpl MPL Links: 🔗 Go sign up...