Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Leadership Recalibrated™
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
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| When Leaving Corporate Is Survival: Finding Purpose Through Healing | 01 Feb 2026 | 00:37:31 | |
Amy Pons left corporate to escape toxicity. What she found on the other side changed everything. Through healing and recovery, she discovered her life's purpose as an energy coach and healer. Now she helps others navigate their own healing journey through Unlock the Magic. This episode explores the journey from toxic corporate to purpose-driven work: the healing required, discovering your brilliance beyond corporate metrics, building businesses rooted in feminine energy and community, and supporting women. If corporate toxicity has broken you, this conversation shows what healing and purpose can look like. About our Guest Amy Pons comes from a long line of shamans…and was a 20 year corporate executive. She is a certified life coach, intuitive energy healer, womanist podcaster, and facilitator of magic school. Her work is focused on bridging the gaps between strategy, soul, and radical self-remembrance. She is an absolute force for good and healing, pioneering the new paradigm of existence that all humans came here to experience. You can connect with Amy through: | |||
| Menopause and Leadership: The Transition No One Prepares You For | 01 Feb 2026 | 00:56:33 | |
Brain fog in meetings. Anxiety before big presentations. Sleep so disrupted you can barely function. And no one's talking about it. Menopause coach Lisa Boate joins me to break down what's actually happening during perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause, and why these transitions hit women at the peak of their careers. We discuss how hormonal changes affect cognitive function, emotional regulation, and leadership confidence. We also talk about the workplace stigma, why women aren't getting adequate support, and what needs to change in organizational culture. This conversation is for women navigating menopause and for leaders, colleagues, and loved ones who want to understand and support them better. Because the silence is costing us. About our Guest: Lisa Boate is the founder of Liberated Menopause, host of Transforming 45 and co-host of the Unmuted Podcast. She helps organizations create Menopause-Empowered Workplaces through professional learning, policy development, and the kind of honest conversations that shift culture—not just check boxes. Drawing on her 20-year career as an educator, she brings clarity, compassion, and real-world strategy to leaders who want to better support their midlife employees and strengthen retention, performance, and well-being. Based in London, Ontario, Lisa fuels joy through spending time with the wise women in her life and dance parties in her kitchen to 80s and 90s tunes. Links to Lisa's work online: | |||
| Strategic Career Moves: Knowing When To Stay vs When To Go | 01 Feb 2026 | 00:20:06 | |
Linda Fernandes Joseph knows career strategy. She's helped countless professionals navigate moves, negotiate offers, and position themselves for advancement. In this episode, we talk about what actually makes a career move strategic (hint: it's not just a better title), how to negotiate salary when you've been historically underpaid, and how return-to-office mandates are reshaping career decisions for women. We also dive into self-advocacy, understanding your market worth, and why embracing flexibility is becoming non-negotiable. If you're thinking about your next move, or just trying to navigate your current one strategically, this conversation is for you. About Our Guest Linda Fernandes Joseph is an award-winning author, Strategic Recruitment Partner at Top Tier Talent Group, and Director of Sales and Business Development at Her Executive Ascent Inc. With over 16 years leading recruitment strategy, Linda has built her career connecting exceptional talent with transformative leadership opportunities. She specializes in executive search for marketing and sales roles, helping organizations build the teams that drive business innovation. Linda's consultative approach centers on true partnership: understanding organizational culture, challenges, and objectives while creating lasting career opportunities for the talent she represents. She's passionate about helping women navigate strategic career moves, negotiate their worth, and position themselves for advancement. You can reach out to Linda on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linda Buy her book, You're Hired, at: https://hiredforward.com/ | |||
| Purpose-Driven Business: What Building ACE & Co. Taught Antoinette Ellis About Women's Careers | 08 Feb 2026 | 00:52:59 | |
Antoinette Ellis saw a gap: Women were entering STEM fields, but they weren't staying. And traditional recruitment wasn't solving the problem. So she founded ACE & Co not just to place candidates, but to prepare women for what they'll face in tech and help companies build cultures where women can thrive. In this episode, we explore the shift from STEM to STEAM (why arts integration matters), creating safe spaces for women in male-dominated industries, mental health in tech workplaces, and the difference between authentic leadership and performative DEI. We also discuss the confidence gap that keeps overqualified women from applying, and what the next generation is demanding from corporate structures. This is about building environments where women don't just enter, but one that enables them to stay and advance. About our Guest: Antoinette Ellis is the CEO and Co-Founder of ACE & Co, a social enterprise dedicated to empowering women and girls to explore and thrive in STEAM careers. A certified Arts Integration Specialist and professional speaking coach, Antoinette bridges education and industry through leadership development, public speaking, and confidence-building programs. Her work aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal #5 on gender equality, and she is the founder of the ACE & Co EmpowerHer Award Scholarship, in partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University. Through workshops, keynotes, and her Full STEAM Ahead podcast, Antoinette amplifies brave voices and helps the next generation lead with confidence and purpose. Links: | |||
| What Leaders Need to Hear Right Now: The Community Has Spoken And It's Time to Listen | 08 Mar 2026 | 00:24:59 | |
I asked my LinkedIn community: "What is one concrete thing you wish leaders would do right now to better support their people?" The responses were honest and powerful. Then, at a networking event, I heard a C-suite executive say that to sponsor a woman, she needs to see a commitment to 80-100 hour weeks. This episode shares responses from my community and what they revealed: people are exhausted, overextended, and navigating a world that feels increasingly unstable. They don't need leaders demanding more. They need leaders who actually see them. I share what people-first leadership looks like and why it matters. Did this episode resonate but leave you wondering how to lead differently? I work with senior women leaders navigating these exact challenges. Visit herexecutiveascent.com. | |||
| Slow Down to Speed Up: Leading with Curiosity in a Culture of Urgency | 01 Mar 2026 | 00:45:28 | |
Slow down to speed up. It sounds like a paradox but it's how better decisions get made. Cass Cooper, known as the "Chaos Whisperer", helps leaders interpret chaos instead of reacting to it. And it starts with slowing down enough to ask the right questions. In this episode, we explore how curiosity uncovers what urgency hides, why asking "why" multiple times reveals systemic issues, and how corporate culture's obsession with speed creates poor outcomes. We also discuss building relationships instead of managing tasks, understanding different personality types, the post-pandemic shift toward meaningful work, and why leaders need to rethink meetings and arbitrary deadlines. This is for leaders caught in constant urgency who want to lead more intentionally. Slow down. You'll get there faster. About Our Guest Cass Cooper is a writer, speaker, and leadership strategist who helps organizations navigate complexity and lead with clarity. With more than twenty years of experience across sales, organizational development, and leadership advisory work, she is known for translating messy people challenges into practical, scalable strategies. Through keynotes and workshops, Cass challenges leaders to rethink so-called “soft skills” as core business capabilities and build people-centered systems that support accountability, resilience, and long-term performance. Social Media Channels
TikTok
Websites | |||
| From Burnout to Balance: A Microsoft Director’s Six-Month Reset | 22 Feb 2026 | 00:48:00 | |
Your team is watching everything you do. When you message them on vacation. When you skip lunch for another meeting. When you don't take time off. Rekha Narang, Senior Director at Microsoft, learned this the hard way after burnout forced her to take a six-month leave. In this episode, we talk about her journey from burnout to balance and what changed when she stopped proving and started modeling. We discuss why burnout isn't about time (it's about mental load), the moment she knew something had to change, and why she now takes time back unapologetically. We also explore self-care as selfless (not selfish), why your team needs you well (not just present), and how modeling balance matters more than saying the right things. If you're a leader struggling with balance, this conversation will resonate. About Our Guest Rekha Narang is a Director of Partner Technology, Global Channels Partner Solutions for Microsoft. Her team's mission is to build Microsoft Cloud technical capability and capacity across the Canadian partner ecosystem to accelerate innovation and digital transformation with AI. Rekha is a leader focused on building leadership within her team and those around her. Her passion and purpose are to help people grow beyond what they might think is possible for themselves.
You can find Rekha on LinkedIn. | |||
| Leading Humans, Not Just Projects: EQ for Engineering Minds | 15 Feb 2026 | 00:56:32 | |
In this episode, Nikki Maginn shares a powerful and unexpected career journey from nuclear engineer to project manager and emotional intelligence educator. Drawing from her experience inside highly technical, male-dominated environments, Nikki unpacks why emotional intelligence is not a “soft skill,” but a critical leadership capability, especially for engineers and women navigating complex workplaces. The conversation explores the often-overlooked mental health challenges within engineering and technical fields, the pressure many women feel to downplay their femininity, and the cost of leadership that prioritizes tasks over people. Nikki makes a compelling case for investing in relationships at work, leading with authenticity, and building cultures where people feel supported, seen, and valued. This episode is a thoughtful reflection on leadership, legacy, and what it really takes to create workplaces that don’t just perform but sustain and evolve for the next generation. About Our Guest Nikki Maginn is a nuclear engineer, pilot, and former Division I athlete who has built her career at the intersection of technical excellence and human-centered leadership. With experience leading multimillion-dollar engineering and logistics programs and shaping innovation in the nuclear startup space, Nikki knows what it takes to thrive in high-stakes technical environments. But her true passion lies in reimagining how engineers are developed. As the founder of Inside Out Engineering, she pioneered a course that brings emotional intelligence into STEM education—first launched at the University of Tennessee and now expanding through industry and academic partnerships. Nikki’s work equips engineers and technical leaders with the courage, curiosity, and communication skills needed to collaborate, lead, and create with impact. Connect with Nikki: | |||
| Energy in Motion: How Ancient Frameworks Are Reshaping the Modern Workplace | 15 Mar 2026 | 00:51:53 | |
What happens when a high-achieving, award-winning corporate professional hits a wall she never saw coming? In this episode, I sit down with Julie Lafleur — former corporate full-timer turned wellness practitioner — to unpack the hidden cost of people-pleasing, chronic overperformance, and the culture of silence around burnout. Julie shares how her own burnout became the unexpected catalyst for a career pivot rooted in purpose, and how she now helps leaders and organizations heal from the inside out. This conversation is a wake-up call for anyone still running on autopilot in their career. Whether you're a leader trying to better support your team, or someone quietly wondering if there's a better way to show up at work and in life, this episode is for you. About Our Guest For over 20 years, Julie Lafleur successfully operated inside high-performance corporate environments, including global roles at Microsoft. Burnout didn’t end her ambition. It refined it.
She became deeply interested in what actually sustains joy, resilience, and performance over the long term, and why self-awareness is a leadership advantage, not a luxury.
Today, Julie works at the intersection of AI and human energy, helping women and corporate teams recognize their stress patterns before those patterns shape their leadership. She blends ancient wisdom with science-informed tools and translates them into practical strategies for modern work. She also serves as an Enterprise Solutions Lead with Empressa AI, supporting women in building AI fluency and visibility in this defining technological era.
Connect with Julie Website: julielaf.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/julie-lafleur Discover Your Dominant Element: https://julielaf.com/five-elements-assessment/
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| The Menopause Mindshift: Reclaiming Your Power When Everything Feels Like It Is Falling Apart | 03 Jul 2026 | 00:41:14 | |
Most women navigate menopause the same way they were taught to navigate everything else — quietly, alone, and without complaining. Our mothers did not talk about it. Our grandmothers did not talk about it. And so when the symptoms arrived, we pushed through, wore the mask, and told ourselves it was just part of getting older. Lisa R. Triggs did that too. For years. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Lisa, known as The Menopause Queen, to talk about what happens when you stop letting menopause control you and start making choices that change everything. Lisa managed her own journey without medication — using visualization, meditation, journaling, and a mindset shift that she now teaches through her coaching practice, bestselling book, and speaking work. What she has to say is going to reframe the way you think about this chapter of life entirely. We get into why the story we have been told about menopause is the thing making it harder, how the hormonal changes of midlife bring buried things back to the surface and what to do when that happens, why the strength that women in leadership wear as armor is often a mask for the vulnerability underneath, what it looks like to grieve who you used to be while building someone even better, and the one rule Lisa wants retired from the old playbook about what women are capable of at this stage of life. This one is for every woman who has ever felt like she was disappearing inside her own body and needed someone to tell her that the other side of this is worth fighting for. About Our Guest The Menopause Queen, Lisa R. Triggs is a certified menopause coach, motivational speaker, best selling author and podcast host. With a deep love for personal growth, Lisa has spent nearly 20 years navigating the rollercoaster of menopause; an experience that ultimately transformed her life. In her bestselling book, The Menopause Mindshift: How I Unleashed My Inner Queen, And You Can Too!, Lisa shares her story to inspire other women to take back control, prioritize their well-being, and step into their power. Today, she stands as a voice of hope, showing women that menopause doesn’t have to be a struggle—it can be a powerful awakening. Her mission is to help others awaken their inner Queen, embrace self-love, and redefine what it means to thrive in this life phase. Connect with Lisa Website: https://themenopausemindshift.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisartriggs Buy her book: https://www.amazon.ca/Menopause-Mindshift-Unleashed-Inner-Queen-ebook/dp/B0DJG47FS8 | |||
| Inclusion Starts With I: How Women Can Shape The AI Era Before It Shapes Them | 21 Jun 2026 | 00:54:15 | |
Most of the technology shaping our world right now was not built with women in mind. The algorithms deciding who gets hired, who gets promoted, and whose ideas get amplified were built largely without us, trained largely without us, and are now being deployed at a scale that is moving faster than most of us can keep up with. The numbers are sobering. 86% of jobs most exposed to AI automation are held by women. Women make up less than 25% of the workforce actually building AI. And the World Economic Forum estimates it will take 123 years to close the gender parity gap worldwide. In 2026, women are still making 83 to 86 cents for every dollar a man earns for the same work. But today's guest is not here to talk about the problem. She is here to talk about what we do about it. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Miri Rodriguez, Founder and CEO of Empressa.ai, the groundbreaking AI platform built on women's lived experiences, trained on women's knowledge, and designed to close the very gaps the technology industry has spent decades widening. After 13 years at Microsoft, where she became one of the company's most recognized storytellers and published the award-winning bestseller Brand Storytelling, Miri left one of the most powerful platforms in the world to build something the industry had never seen before. We get into why AI is either the most powerful tool women have ever had access to or the fastest way to permanently hard-code today's gaps into tomorrow's opportunities at scale, what it actually means for an AI to be built on women's lived experiences and why that changes everything about how it responds, the Empressa Imperial Council and the model that pays women royalties for the knowledge they contribute, how to start closing the gap today, and the rule Miri wants every woman to rewrite before she walks into her next room. This one will fire you up. And it is supposed to. About Our Guest Miri Rodriguez is the Founder and CEO of Empressa.ai, a groundbreaking AI company reshaping the future of work for women. With 13 years at Microsoft, where she evolved from communications and marketing into one of the company's most recognized storytellers, Miri built and led work that changes how organizations connect with people. That body of work became her bestselling book, Brand Storytelling, published by Kogan Page, translated into four languages, and recognized with multiple awards worldwide. Now she is channeling everything she built at Microsoft into something the market has never seen before. Empressa is an AI platform built on women's lived experiences, trained on women's knowledge, and designed to close the very gaps the technology industry has spent decades widening. She is also the author of the book The Women of Microsoft, an advisor to Ragan's Center for AI Strategy, and one of the clearest, most urgent voices on what it is going to take for women to stop adapting to systems that were never built for them and start building the ones that are. Connect with Miri LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/mirirod Website: https://empressa.ai
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| From Operator to Architect: How Women CEOs Scale Without Becoming the Bottleneck | 05 Apr 2026 | 00:51:53 | |
You built the business from the ground up — and for a long time, being at the center of everything worked. But somewhere between steady revenue and real scale, that same drive starts working against you. Decisions stack up, the team stalls, and the operation gets messy. Sound familiar? In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated, I sit down with Nana Obeng, Strategic Operations Partner and Fractional COO, to talk about the critical — and often painful — mindset shift every scaling founder eventually has to make: stepping out of the role of operator and into the role of architect. Nana breaks down why high-achieving women are particularly susceptible to becoming the bottleneck in their own businesses, what the warning signs look like before they become a crisis, and how to build the kind of decision infrastructure that lets your business grow without everything running through you. They also get into the role of AI in modern leadership — how to use it to accelerate your thinking and pressure test decisions without letting it replace the executive judgment that no algorithm can replicate. If you're leading an established, revenue-generating business and starting to feel the friction of your own growth, this conversation will meet you exactly where you are. About Our Guest Nana Obeng is a Strategic Operations Partner and Fractional COO for women CEOs leading established, revenue-generating businesses navigating the shift from steady growth to structured scale. She helps founders strengthen how their companies operate so growth becomes intentional, disciplined, and sustainable. With over 15 years of experience across engineering, corporate strategy, and entrepreneurship, she brings systems thinking and executive-level judgment to complex growth decisions. After starting her career in structured corporate environments, she realized she wanted to see more direct impact where strategy translated quickly into results. After earning her MBA and co-founding a consumer brand, she saw a consistent pattern. Ambitious women were building exceptional businesses while also carrying significant responsibilities outside of work. What they needed was not more tools. They needed the right operational partner. Today, she partners with women CEOs leading established, revenue-generating businesses to reduce operational noise and scale with clarity, financial discipline, and operational leverage. Connect with Nana
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| Empowerment Before Engagement: What Growth-Stage Companies Get Wrong About Their People | 29 Mar 2026 | 01:00:06 | |
Most companies build Employee Engagement teams when what they need first is an Empowerment team. Yvonne helps growth-stage companies tackle scaling challenges—and one of the biggest gaps she sees is companies trying to fix engagement without first creating empowerment. In this episode, we explore the difference between engagement and empowerment, why companies default to measuring engagement (and why it doesn't work), what empowerment actually looks like at scale, and how to build systems that empower people to do their best work. This is for leaders at growth-stage companies who are watching engagement scores drop and wondering why their initiatives aren't working. About Our Guest Yvonne Jackson is a strategy, talent, and AI governance advisor who works with leadership teams navigating organizational misalignment and rapid technological change. She helps executives clarify decision authority, align talent and strategy, and build operating systems that allow organizations to execute during periods of growth, transformation, and disruption. Her perspective is shaped by leadership roles at Apple Inc. and Whirlpool Corporation and an MBA from the University of North Carolina. She is also the creator of EDEN (Ethical Decision & Engagement Norms), a framework exploring how AI and digital systems reshape power, governance, and human autonomy inside modern organizations. Through this work, Yvonne helps leaders identify emerging organizational risks and design decision systems that support ethical, human-centered transformation in the age of AI. Connect with Yvonne
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| The Hidden Cost of Living In Your Head: How Mental Clutter Is Stealing Your Time | 22 Mar 2026 | 00:51:04 | |
What if the reason you're overwhelmed isn't a lack of effort, but a broken system? In this episode, Shirah Huff, creator of The Kinetic Method™, shares how what started as a personal survival tool — protecting her time with her family while still chasing career ambitions — evolved into a repeatable system she's now teaching others. We also dig into why the traditional tools we rely on are actively setting us up for guilt, failure, and burnout. We explore how leaders are operating from memory instead of systems, why interpretation is the silent killer of workplace culture, and how trust might be the most underrated leadership skill of all. If you've ever felt like you're doing everything right but still falling behind, this episode is the reset you didn't know you needed. About Our Guest Shirah Huff is the creator of The Kinetic Method™, a structured execution framework designed for high-performing leaders who are experiencing execution drag despite having clear vision and strong capability. With advanced degrees in mathematics, finance, and organizational performance, Shirah has spent her career architecting clarity inside complex systems — from corporate environments to growth-stage organizations. She is known for her ability to see patterns others miss, dissolve complexity into structure, and convert scattered ideas into measurable outcomes. Rather than teaching productivity tactics, Shirah builds personal and organizational operating systems that help leaders reduce decision fatigue, align initiatives to strategic value, and convert time into measurable return. Her work sits at the intersection of identity, execution architecture, and strategic leverage helping leaders move from overwhelmed and busy to precise, intentional, and high-impact. Connect with Shirah
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| AI Is Not A Strategy: What Leaders Get Wrong About AI Adoption and What to Do Instead | 14 Jun 2026 | 00:45:37 | |
Every leadership team is talking about AI right now. The slide decks are full of it. The board presentations reference it. The press releases announce it. And on the ground, the people actually responsible for building and delivering are quietly panicking because nobody gave them the time, the tools, or the training to actually do it. That gap has a name. And it has a cost. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Heather Gawel, founder of Momentum Product Co. and former VP of Product and Design, to talk about what AI adoption actually looks like inside organizations right now versus how leadership is talking about it. Heather has spent the better part of two decades leading product teams managing portfolios of over $100 million and earlier this year left the corporate seat to go deeper — building an enablement practice specifically around the AI gap she kept running into everywhere she turned. What she is seeing is not what most leaders think is happening on their teams. There is a bell curve playing out inside most organizations right now. At the top, urgency is high. In the middle, leadership is building slide decks and attending demos. And at the IC level, people are on their own time trying to piece together a skill set their organization demanded but never equipped them for. This is a conversation for anyone in leadership who has announced an AI strategy without building the conditions for their people to actually execute on it. And for anyone on the ground who is tired of being told to learn AI without being given the time or support to do it. About Our Guest Heather Gawel is the founder of Momentum Product Co. and a practitioner at the intersection of AI, product, and execution. She started her career in mechanical engineering, moved into product management, and spent the better part of two decades leading product teams across hardware, software, and B2B SaaS — most recently as VP of Product and Design at a San Francisco-based scale-up managing a portfolio of over $100 million. Earlier this year Heather made the move from the corporate seat to consulting, co-founding Momentum Product Co. to fill the AI enablement gap she kept running into — first inside her own organizations and then in every discovery call she took when launching the business. Through Momentum, she runs hands-on AI workshops and enablement sessions for product managers, founders, and cross-functional teams across Waterloo, Toronto, and the US. What makes her perspective different is straightforward — these are not frameworks she read about. These are workflows she uses every day. She is passionate about creating on-ramps for people who want to build with AI, especially women who are new to the AI community. Connect with Heather: Website: momentumproductco.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/heathergawel Build With AI: Tech Worker Edition Heather is running an in-person, hands-on Build with AI workshop in partnership with Communitech on Thursday June 18th in Kitchener, Ontario.
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| Bold Women, Sustainable Futures: Rewriting the Rules of Leadership for a Changing World | 07 Jun 2026 | 00:50:51 | |
Sustainability is not just about the environment. It never was. At the heart of every climate policy, every economic model, every sustainability report is a deeper question — whose voice is centered, whose leadership is legitimized, and whose values are prioritized. And right now, in 2026, the answers to those questions are moving in the wrong direction. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Supriya Verma, Founder of Sustainability X Magazine and author of the newly released book Bold Women, Sustainable Futures: Leadership Lessons in an Age of Resistance. Supriya has spent a decade at the intersection of sustainability, women's leadership, and systems change — building a platform that brings together the conversations most people keep in separate rooms, and shining a light on the women who are leading through some of the most complex and consequential challenges of our time. This book arrived at exactly the right moment. As DEI commitments are being rolled back, climate accountability is being deprioritized, and a generation of young women is entering a workforce that feels more hostile than the one that came before it, Supriya chose not to be quiet about it. And that decision changed everything about what this book became. This is a conversation for anyone who has felt defeated by how quickly progress can be reversed. And for anyone who needs a reminder that the women who came before us faced resistance too and kept going anyway. About Our Guest Supriya Verma is the Founder of Sustainability X Magazine, a platform she launched in 2016 to bring together environment, economy, society, and politics through dialogue and storytelling. What began as a digital sustainability magazine evolved into a broader space for visibility and recognition, most notably through the Global 50 Women in Sustainability Awards, now celebrating its fifth annual cycle as Sustainability X marks its 10th anniversary. Over a decade of listening to extraordinary women across climate, governance, finance, advocacy, science, policy, and social justice, Supriya began to see patterns that demanded more than celebration. They demanded documentation. The result is her debut book, Bold Women, Sustainable Futures: Leadership Lessons in an Age of Resistance, published in March 2026 during Women's Month and available worldwide wherever books are sold. She is one of the most urgent and necessary voices on what bold, sustainable, and human-centered leadership actually looks like in a world that is actively resisting it. Get Involved:
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| Nothing's Written Down and No One's Talking: Why Most Business Transformations Are Set Up to Fail | 31 May 2026 | 00:43:01 | |
Most business transformations fail. Not because the strategy was wrong. Not because the budget ran out. Because nobody wrote anything down and nobody was talking to each other. That is not a dramatic oversimplification. That is what Jessica Caresse White walks into every single time. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Jessica, CEO & Managing Director of her own transformation consulting practice and a woman who built her career inside some of the most demanding organizations in the world — starting with McKinsey, where she learned what it means to be obsessive about the details everyone else dismisses, and continuing through Cisco, Hitachi, and beyond. What makes Jessica different from every other consultant in the room is that she has never been interested in transforming the business alone. She is in the business of transforming hearts and minds. And she has spent her entire career proving that you cannot have one without the other. Jessica does not sugarcoat what transformation actually requires — the people decisions, the AI reality, and the corporate habits that quietly sabotage even the best-laid plans. She has seen it all from the inside and she is not holding back. This is a conversation for anyone leading a team through change right now who suspects the problem is not the roadmap. It is the people. And what happens when no one is paying attention to them. About Our Guest Jessica Caresse is a visionary leader, transformational coach, and the driving force behind J.Caresse & Company, a consulting firm that not only transforms businesses but also transforms hearts & minds. With a wealth of experience across industries, Jessica has built a career on the principles of integrity, innovation, and unwavering determination. Her work at industry giants like Cisco Systems, Hitachi Solutions, and McKinsey & Company was marked by her ability to turn challenges into opportunities and lead teams through complex, high-stakes projects. She is a master at streamlining operations, driving strategic change, and creating environments where both businesses and people can thrive. Connect with Jessica:
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| The Hiring Gaps Nobody Wants to Talk About: Women, Work, and What Needs to Change | 24 May 2026 | 00:46:35 | |
The hiring process is sending signals to women long before the first interview. In the job posting. In whether the salary is listed or conspicuously absent. In how flexibility is framed or not mentioned at all. Women are reading every one of those signals and making decisions based on what they find. Or more often, what they don't. And the data backs it up. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated, I sit down with Alexandra Tillo, Senior Talent Marketing Consultant at Indeed Canada, who has spent nearly a decade sitting at the intersection of employers and job seekers translating labour market research into insights that the people making hiring decisions need to hear. What she is seeing right now when it comes to women in the Canadian workforce is equal parts progress and friction. And the friction is persistent. This is a conversation for every woman navigating the job market right now, for every leader who wants to understand what their hiring process is actually communicating, and for anyone who believes the only way to change outcomes is to change the system creating them. About Our Guest Alexandra Tillo is a Senior Talent Marketing Consultant at Indeed Canada, where she has spent nearly a decade working at the intersection of employers and job seekers. In her current role, she serves as Indeed Canada's market-facing voice — speaking at industry conferences, executive briefings, and events, and translating labour market data and talent trends into actionable insights for HR and talent acquisition leaders across the country. Before stepping into thought leadership, Alexandra built her career on the front lines of enterprise sales managing national accounts at Indeed with some of Canada's largest employers including Walmart, McDonald's, and Gordon Food Service, and earlier at Oracle where she led bilingual account management across enterprise and mid-market segments in Eastern Canada. Alexandra brings a global perspective to the Canadian hiring market and a clear-eyed ability to connect what the data says with what employers and job seekers are actually experiencing on the ground. She is one of the most informed voices on what the labour market data says about women in the workforce right now. And in this episode, she is not holding back. Connect with Alexandra | |||
| Stop Surviving The Room: How High-Achieving Women Reclaim Their Voice, Their Time, and Their Power | 17 May 2026 | 00:55:39 | |
You have been in the room. You have done the work. You have delivered the results. And somehow you still walk out of meetings feeling like you left something on the table. That is not a you problem. That is what happens when high-achieving women are handed a leadership playbook that was never written for them. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Lynsey Mulder — keynote speaker, certified coach, and former SVP at a Fortune 100 company — who spent over two decades inside corporate America before leaving to do something about the leadership advice gap that keeps so many women stuck. Lynsey does not do recycled. She does not do watered down. She comes with frameworks, data, and the kind of honest conversation that most leadership training skips entirely. We get into the invisible work tax that women absorb without even realizing it is happening, why only 20% of people actually know their superpower and what it costs when you are not one of them, the BANK framework and how cracking your own communication code changes everything about how you lead and how you are heard, why no is not a problem to manage but a strategy to master, and what it actually takes to stop conforming to a mold that was never built for you and start leading in a way that is fully, unapologetically yours. This is a conversation for women who are done surviving the room and ready to own it. About Our Guest Lynsey Mulder spent over two decades rising through corporate America to reach the level of Senior Vice President at a Fortune 100 company, and what she learned along the way is that most leadership advice handed to women is either recycled, watered down, or written by people who've never actually been in the room. So she left to change that. Today, Lynsey runs multiple businesses. Her favorite being working with high-achieving women, business owners, and executives who are ready to lead on their own terms. She is a keynote speaker, certified coach, podcast host, and the person your leadership team calls when they need real talk, not a motivational poster. Her frameworks help leaders get clear on what they stand for, how they communicate, and what they refuse to compromise, so they can stop surviving the room and start owning it. Connect With Lynsey Website: https://lynseymulder.com Lead With Spark Podcast: https://lynseymulder.com/podcast | |||
| The AI Double Standard: Why Women Get Punished for Playing the Game Everyone Said to Play | 10 May 2026 | 00:27:41 | |
Everyone's telling women to use AI. Learn it, embrace it, or get left behind. So women do. And then they get penalized for it. In this episode, I dig into the research and I came with receipts. Most importantly, I share some positive stats we don't hear about.
Her Executive Ascent Leadership Programs: https://community.herexecutiveascent.com/pages/program-offerings The Research
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| Beyond the Quick Fix: Joana Castro on Food Therapy and Reclaiming Your Health | 26 Apr 2026 | 01:00:03 | |
We've all been handed the same playbook — eat less, move more, push through. And most of us have followed it faithfully while still feeling exhausted, disconnected from our bodies, and no closer to actually feeling well. Joana Castro has a different theory about why that is. And the answer isn't another supplement, another diet, or another wellness trend. Joana is a food therapy expert and founder of My Own True Balance, who sits at a rare intersection of nuclear medicine, biomedical engineering, and traditional Chinese medicine. After spending years inside the corporate world while quietly rebuilding her own health — following years of being dismissed by the medical system — she built a practice that merges Eastern and Western science in a way that most people in either field haven't managed to do. In this episode, we talk about why the way most women have been eating their entire lives has been working against them, what traditional Chinese medicine understands about the female body that Western medicine is only beginning to catch up to, and why real healing was never supposed to be fast. It was supposed to be steady. This is a conversation about food as medicine, about learning to understand your own body's makeup, and about what it looks like to stop chasing fixes and start owning your energy. About Our Guest Joana Castro is a creative polymath and food therapy expert bridging science, TCM, and holistic health. With a background in nuclear medicine, biomedical engineering, and TCM food therapy; she turned personal health struggles into a mission: helping people to achieve balance through food, so they can truly own their energy.
Connect with Joana
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| The Power of Three: How Radical Generosity Builds the Career and Network You Actually Want | 19 Apr 2026 | 00:48:10 | |
Most of us were taught to solve problems alone. To carry the weight of our careers on our own shoulders. To wait until we had the perfect answer before raising our hand or reaching out. But what if that instinct is exactly what's keeping you stuck? In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated, I sit down with Saeideh Fard, CFO at Introhive and one of the most intentional network builders I have had the pleasure of meeting. Saei has spent 25 years in executive finance roles across some of North America's most ambitious growth-stage technology companies. And she credits a significant part of that success not to technical expertise alone, but to a concept she calls the Power of Three. The idea is simple. The impact is anything but. This is a conversation for anyone who has been playing small, waiting to be discovered, or solving everything alone when the network they need is already two steps away. About Our Guest Saeideh Fard — known as Saei — serves as CFO at Introhive, a B2B SaaS organization bringing client intelligence, data and automation solutions that drive growth in North America and Europe's top legal, accounting, and consulting firms. Previously, Saei was the SVP, Finance at PointClickCare, the leading Electronic Health Record technology partner to North America's senior care industry; CFO at Tulip Retail, a SaaS technology leader in retail store associate mobility and a Kleiner Perkins and Salesforce Ventures portfolio company. Earlier, she served as Group CFO at Traveledge and Kensington Tours, overseeing teams across luxury leisure, corporate, and technology divisions across Canada, US and Bermuda. Her C-Suite career spans transformation roles focusing in high organic growth and M&A environments. Saei started her career as a CPA with PwC. She holds both Canadian and US CPA designations, and is an alumni of the Queens (Smith) School of Business. Her championed causes include helping women, youth and immigrants achieve their leadership potential. Connect with Saei on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/saeidehfard Learn more about Introhive at introhive.com | |||