The Sovereign Career Hub

Before you touch the technology, you have to answer one question. Why would I use this? Not as a policy. Not as a business case. As a person. That is the question Erica Farmer , this week’s guest, puts at the centre of every AI transformation conversation she has. And it is the question most organisations skip entirely. Erica is founder of QuantumRise, a keynote speaker and futurist on people-firs...

The agent is not the starting point. The data is. That is what every business rushing toward AI implementation is missing. And it is costing them more than they realise. Jonny Winn is AI Strategy Director at The One Point, a Yorkshire-based managed service provider working with SMBs, enterprise and public sector organisations. He came to this role through fifteen years in creative production, a bu...

Show Notes: Ep 08 – L&D's Four Enablers with Jo Cook Jo Cook Editor, Training Journal Director, Lightbulb Moment Training Journal: trainingjournal.com Jo's author page: trainingjournal.com/author/jocook Lightbulb Moment: lightbulbmoment.info LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jocooklightbulb Mentioned in this episode TJ L&D Influence Report 2026 Introduces the Readiness Enablers Index and highlights practi...

Thank you to my guest Andrew Jacobs Andrew is a learning strategist and organisational impact advisor, and founder of Llarn Learning . He is a Fellow of the Learning Performance Institute (FLPI). His work focuses on shifting organisations away from training delivery and towards capability, performance and measurable impact. His experience spans private and public sector organisations, from financi...

Most HR functions are genuinely busy. But busy is not the same as valuable, and pace is not the same as impact. The case for HR investment keeps not landing. Not because boards don’t care about people, but because HR keeps making that case in HR language to people who think in commercial language. Wellbeing. Culture. Engagement. These things matter enormously. They are not the conversation the CFO...

Nebel Crowhurst is a Fractional Chief People Officer and strategic people leader who helps organisations build workplaces where people, culture and performance thrive. She partners with CEOs and leadership teams to design people strategies that unlock potential, strengthen culture and accelerate growth, particularly during moments of transformation and scale. Her experience spans global brands and...

Most AI rollouts don’t fail because of the technology. They quietly run into trouble in the gap between what leaders assume is in place and what their people actually have waiting for them in the room. Licences that aren’t quite right. Permissions that were never updated. A SharePoint nobody’s tended to in years. A workforce that’s already using AI in ways nobody officially knows about. This week...

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In this episode (Ep 05), Carolyn is joined by Valerie Merrill , a London-based learning and development specialist, consultant and trainer with over 35 years’ experience across IT training , business transformation and leadership development. As Director of Merrill Consultants Ltd, she works with organisations to design and deliver bespoke learning interventions across Microsoft technologies , cha...

This week’s episode with transformation consultant and founder of People Efficient , Kate Maddison-Greenwell , explores what AI adoption really looks like inside organisations, beyond the headlines and into the operational realities teams are navigating every day. As part of this week’s theme, I’ll be zooming in on just one thread from that conversation: where organisations actually need to start,...

In this short audio, we’re focusing on a single moment that’s becoming more common in our work -deciding whether AI should be involved in a task at all, and if so, how far. The companion resource introduces a simple way to approach that decision. It starts from the idea that AI doesn’t remove decisions - it shifts them, and that most of us are still developing the judgement to know where AI is hel...

The Sovereign Career Hub is all about humans at work in the Age of AI. This podcast and its companion resources can be found at https://substack.com/@thesovereigncareerhub Your Host is Carolyn Shepherd, AI 100 UK Leader, HR Most Influential Thinker #12, LinkedIn AI Tutor (25K learners) published author and creator of Jobscaping (TM). Carolyn works from her rural home in the Lincolnshire Wolds wher...

In this short audio, I introduce the ‘Confidence Booster Guide’ and share a tried and tested way to use AI at work without feeling overwhelmed - and if you like that, join me for this event on June 10th because whether you are diagnosed neurodiverse or not you can easily rid yourself of AI overwhelm and take control of your career here . Thanks to Fay Wallis for the inspiration and thank you, for...

This week’s episode with the popular leadership coach, Fay Wallis covers a wide range of ground, from HR practice and coaching to marketing workflows and the realities of AI adoption across teams. As part of this week’s theme, I’ll be deliberately zooming in on just one thread from that conversation: how confidence with AI actually begins. So be sure to come back for the article, the resource, and...

📝 Show Notes A small moment from this week where AI didn’t respond as expected - and what it revealed about intent. In this short solo audio, I share a real interaction with MS Copilot that didn’t go to plan, and use it to explore a simple idea: 👉 before using AI, choose the verb that names your 'intent'. This episode is a companion to the Power Verbs Cheat Sheet , designed to be used alongside...

Episode 1 Sharon Green is a professional HR interim, coach and consultant - and one of the quieter connectors in the independent HR world. She founded Chiara Consultancy after a career spanning senior people, project and management roles across the NHS, the not‑for‑profit sector, and international law firms. Alongside her client work, she runs a thriving peer community for independent people profe...