HR Leaders

The meeting ends. Everyone nods. Then the real conversation starts without the CEO. For HR leaders, that puts you in a difficult spot. You hear the concerns. You see the friction. But how do you tell someone at the top that their own behaviour might be part of the problem? In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I had an inspiring conversation with Andrea Petrone , The CEO Whisperer and author...

What if the biggest barrier to better work is not a lack of technology, but unclear priorities, inconsistent ways of working and disconnected teams? In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Sandra Ma , Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, and Richard H. , Jr., Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer at Jovial , to explore why better workplaces start with clarity, consistency and c...

What if the strongest workplace culture is not built through expensive perks, but through the everyday systems that make people feel seen, supported and able to grow? In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Laura Lawson , Chief People Officer at United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), to explore how UWM has built an unusually intentional workplace culture for its 9,000 employees in Pon...

What if the biggest mistake companies are making with AI is trying to improve individual tasks instead of redesigning the entire process? In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Bruno Da Sola , Group Chief People Officer at Inetum , to explore what changed when the company moved beyond scattered AI experiments and started redesigning critical end-to-end workflows. For HR leaders...

How Endeavor Health Is Building One Culture Across Four Health Systems In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Dianna Sparacino, MBA, SPHR, Chief People Officer at Endeavor Health , to explore how the organisation is bringing multiple healthcare institutions together as one system while continuing to protect what matters most to its people, patients and communities. For HR leade...

Employee listening only matters if people can see what changed because they spoke up. In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Amy Schultz of DTE Energy to explore how employee listening can become a real operating system for culture and business performance. For HR leaders, the bigger challenge is not collecting more employee data. It is building the leadership accountability, f...

What if burnout is not only about how much you work, but what you believe success requires from you? In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Nabeela Elsayed, MS, ACC , author of Breaking Burnout , to explore why high achievers can become exhausted even when they love their work, have supportive leaders and are succeeding on paper. Her research challenges the idea that burnout ca...

The fastest way to learn AI may be to stop learning about it and start building with it. In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an inspiring conversation with Simon Brown Global Learning & Development Leader, Partner, Talent at EY . He explains why organisations need to move beyond simply teaching people what AI is and create learning experiences that help employees build confide...

What if the future of executive leadership is less about specialisation and more about range? For years, senior leaders have been encouraged to go deeper into a single function. But in this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Joshua Horenstein, Senior Vice President, Administrative Office & Corporate Secretary at Innophos, to explore a different model: the dual executive. Joshua...

The CHRO’s real test isn’t getting a seat at the table, it’s whether the CEO would make the decision without them. In this special episode, Lewis Brown, Jr. - MA and Josh Klein of From Here Collective join Rich Jennings , Executive Advisor to Comcast, to explore what it means for the CHRO to become the CEO’s trusted consigliere. Using The Godfather as an intentionally provocative analogy, they unp...

AI is moving faster than most organisations can redesign themselves, so how do you stop transformation becoming a series of disconnected technology fixes? Every leader says they want a high-performing team. But what happens when poor performance, missed standards and a lack of ownership are tolerated for too long? In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had a fascinating conversation with...

AI is moving faster than most organisations can redesign themselves, so how do you stop transformation becoming a series of disconnected technology fixes? In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an insightful conversation with Judith Wiese, Chief People and Sustainability Officer (CPSO) of Siemens AG. She explains how Siemens is rethinking its operating model, skills infrastructure an...

What if AI isn't replacing jobs, but quietly redesigning the tasks inside them? In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an important conversation with Sultan Murad Saidov , Former CEO / Founder and Investor at Beamery . He explains why task intelligence could become critical to workforce planning, how AI is changing the work inside existing roles, and why deciding what gets automated...

Constant tech shifts and viral noise are quietly exhausting your workforce and killing critical thinking. In the latest HR Leaders Podcast episode, I spoke with Laura Maffucci, Head of HR at Globalization Partners. She explains why HR cannot rely on corporate spin, unvetted AI add-ons, or forced office returns during times of rapid change. Most organizations do not lack technology tools. They lack...

What if the self-doubt holding you back isn't proof of failure, but evidence of growth? In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an important conversation with Maharukh Dalal, founder of The Career Accelerator for Women by Maharukh Dalal. She explains how senior leaders can overcome imposter syndrome by closing the internal identity gap, reframing self-doubt into a signal of growth, an...

AI could influence 90% of jobs. David Lloyd says AI literacy is still only around 38%. That gap is where many enterprise AI strategies begin to break. In the latest HR Leaders Podcast episode, I spoke with David Lloyd , SVP Platform Engineering & Chief AI Officer at Dayforce . He explains why HR cannot wait until the end of an AI transformation to address skills, trust and organisational chang...

Why do enterprise skills programs always look great on paper, but break down the moment real work happens? In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an inspiring conversation with Josh Newman, VP of Skills and Talent Readiness at ServiceNow. He explains why organisations must shift away from perfectionist data collection and embrace good-enough skills capture paired with real-world tale...

Every company wants to become AI-native. But who is preparing the workforce for what comes next? In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an important conversation with Bijal Shah , CEO & Board Director at Guild . She explains why becoming AI-native is not simply a technology upgrade. It requires employers, governments and learning institutions to rethink how people gain skills, bu...

We spend all our time fixing business workflows, so why is HRs own workflow still broken? In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an inspiring conversation with Jeffrey Schmitz, Former Chief People Officer at Zebra Technologies. He explains how his team successfully restructured their entire HR operating model by separating daily tactical operations from long-term talent strategy. By...

HR fixes everyone else's workflows, but who fixes HR's? In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an inspiring conversation with Barbara Matthews, Chief People Officer at Remote. She explains how her team successfully operates across 85 countries without traditional office mandates or endless meetings. By replacing friction with clear asynchronous documentation, Remote maintains connect...

Many HR teams struggle to move beyond transactional order-taking . Ty Beasley , Chief Talent Officer at RSM US LLP , shares how grounding HR in financial realities transformed his team into trusted strategic advisors . Through the Drive Peak Performance framework, RSM redesigned performance advisor training and held partners directly accountable for the talent experience . This strategy replaces r...

Employee benefits can be the second-biggest people cost, yet many global organisations cannot clearly see what they offer, what they spend, or what value each provider delivers. In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I had an inspiring conversation with Chris Bruce , CEO and Co-Founder at Origin . He explains why fragmented policies, spreadsheets, and local systems have kept benefits out of st...

AI is changing work faster than most people expect. The real question isn't whether jobs will change, but whether employees and leaders are prepared to adapt. In this episode, Jacob Morgan , Best-Selling Author, Keynote Speaker and Founder of Future Of Work Leaders , explains why employee experience must evolve and what organisations can do to stay ahead. Jacob introduces the Eight Laws of Employe...

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, Mechelle Monroe , former Global Chief People Officer for WPP Open X, Team Coca-Cola at WPP , explores how people leaders can support others without losing touch with what they need themselves. Mechelle breaks emotional resilience into practical habits, including scheduled emotional maintenance, conscious breathing, honest self-talk, protected meals, movem...

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I had an inspiring conversation with Jennifer M. Bales , Chief Human Resources Officer at Shearwater Health , to unpack how HR leaders can build culture, scale talent, and use AI without losing the human behind the work. Jennifer shares how Shearwater Health is connecting values, frontline employees, clinical talent, leadership development, engagement dat...