Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast People Leader Accelerator Podcast
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Episode 52: Leading with Human Judgment in the Age of AI - with Yue Zhao | 22 sept. 2026 | 00:39:53 | |
What does effective leadership look like when AI expands individual scope, compresses teams and disrupts familiar career paths? Yue Zhao joins the podcast to explore how leaders can navigate this shift without losing sight of human judgment, strong relationships and intentional career choices. The challenge is not simply adopting more technology. Organizations must decide where AI creates genuine leverage, where expertise remains essential and when pressure to consolidate roles risks undermining sustainable performance. At the same time, leaders need to reconsider how people build influence, progress their careers and prepare for less conventional paths. In this episode, Yue discusses:
For HR and People leaders, these shifts have practical implications for career architecture, workforce planning and leadership development. Organizations will need to design roles around complementary strengths, account for the learning costs of broader responsibilities and retain the human capabilities that technology cannot simply confer. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 51: Scaling with Purposeful Urgency - with Matt Hoffman from M13 | 15 sept. 2026 | 00:45:44 | |
How can an early-stage company move at exceptional speed without creating the organisational problems that later slow it down? Matt Hoffman, Partner & Head of Talent at M13, joins Andrew and Jess to explore the leadership and people decisions that help companies scale with focus, adaptability and the right level of structure. The central tension is not structure versus freedom. Early-stage organisations need enough discipline to support fair decisions, effective execution and sustainable growth, without importing heavyweight processes designed for mature businesses. Matt brings an investor and operator perspective to finding that balance as the company, leadership team, and nature of work evolve. In this episode, Matt discusses:
The conversation offers a practical view of people strategy as business infrastructure. Strong people leaders preserve essential outcomes and organisational values while adapting roles, processes and operating mechanisms to the company’s present needs. If you are a founder, investor or senior people leader working through rapid growth, flatter structures or the right time to build internal people capability, this episode offers a commercially grounded perspective on scaling without premature complexity. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 50: How HR Can Turn AI Capacity into Business Value - with Joseph Clay | 08 sept. 2026 | 00:41:16 | |
AI is arriving faster than many organizations can absorb it, often with pressure for immediate efficiency gains. Joseph Clay joins Andrew and Jess to examine why this compressed timeline creates a leadership challenge for HR - and why treating AI as another technology rollout risks missing its deeper impact on work, skills, and the operating model. The conversation makes the case for greater discipline: define the organizational problem first, clarify the intended value, and decide how any capacity created will be used. Joseph argues that HR has a larger role to play in this shift, bringing together governance, workforce planning, communication and change management so transformation produces meaningful business outcomes. In this episode, Joseph discusses:
For People leaders, the discussion reframes AI from a race to adopt tools into a test of strategic clarity. It also raises a harder question: if automation returns time to HR, will roles and priorities genuinely change, or will the function simply perform the same work faster? If you are shaping AI strategy, redesigning HR’s contribution or preparing for broader executive responsibility, this conversation offers a practical lens for making technology decisions that stand up commercially. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 49: Accessing Global Talent Without Global Chaos - with Arif Khimani from MobSquad | 01 sept. 2026 | 00:38:40 | |
What does it take to access global talent without creating global chaos? Arif Khimani, President & COO at MobSquad, joins the podcast to explore why workforce geography has become a strategic leadership decision - and why neither office-bound hiring nor unrestricted work from anywhere offers a complete answer. Global workforce planning involves a difficult trade-off. Organisations want broader access to critical skills and greater flexibility, but operating across too many countries and time zones introduces legal, cultural and operational complexity. Arif makes the case for a bounded model built around clear priorities, realistic capabilities and carefully selected markets. In this episode, Arif discusses:
For People leaders, this conversation highlights the operating discipline behind a successful global workforce. Local employment rules, family integration and human connection are not secondary details - they can directly affect employee performance, retention and the organisation’s ability to scale responsibly. If you are making decisions about cross-border hiring, talent mobility, technical workforce planning or hybrid work, this episode offers a practical executive perspective on balancing opportunity with organisational reality. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 48: Designing Better Decisions Under Uncertainty - with Matt Mulford from TRIUM Global Executive MBA | 25 août 2026 | 00:42:35 | |
Why do smart, experienced leaders still make predictable mistakes - and why does knowing about cognitive bias rarely prevent them? In this episode, Matt Mulford, Capstone Project Director at TRIUM Global Executive MBA, explores how leaders can make better decisions under uncertainty by designing stronger decision processes. Matt explains why our minds turn observations into simple causal stories and then search for evidence supporting the first explanation. Under pressure - or when credibility is tied to a particular view - this can quickly become confirmation bias. In this episode, Matt discusses:
The conversation also examines how leaders can make better use of the intelligence distributed across their organisations, evaluate performance more fairly and avoid blindly copying the practices of successful companies. If you want to improve the quality of important decisions without pretending uncertainty can be eliminated, you will enjoy this thoughtful and practical conversation. Listen in to learn how to test the first compelling narrative, involve the people closest to the relevant information and assess the decision process separately from the eventual outcome. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 47: Designing HR for Greater Strategic Impact - with Brian Kuchcicki from Visiting Media | 18 août 2026 | 00:46:16 | |
HR’s strategic influence depends not only on what the function delivers, but on how its leaders design the team, systems and personal capacity behind the work. In this episode, Brian Kuchcicki, SVP, People + Culture at Visiting Media, shares a practical approach to creating greater leverage: build a complementary senior team, experiment with AI around genuine employee needs, retain human accountability for every output and develop working practices that reflect how you actually operate. Brian explains why he deliberately built a lean People and Culture team around experienced professionals who can move between strategic and administrative work. Rather than separating higher-level thinking from execution, he wanted colleagues capable of owning work end to end, analysing the outcome and challenging an idea before it reached employees. The conversation explores how trusted internal debate can improve decisions and give a functional leader more capacity to contribute at executive level. The discussion then moves into people-first AI experimentation. Brian shares how initial encouragement helped make AI feel safe to explore without requiring him to match an expert’s technical ability from the outset. He describes using Claude and Claude Code to build an internal Slack assistant from approved HR information, as well as tools his team developed to support severance preparation and help employees compare the personal cost of benefit plans. His central lesson is to begin with a clear employee problem, ask the technology how an idea might be built and improve it iteratively rather than waiting for complete technical fluency. Brian also describes applying this approach during an international acquisition, when joining employees needed information before receiving company email or intranet access. According to Brian, Claude helped him create and translate a branded information website with action instructions and an English-Spanish language option. He also shares how he created a separate manager-facing nine-box tool when the company’s existing performance software did not provide the required functionality. Across both examples, the starting point was not the technology itself, but the experience employees and managers needed. That enthusiasm for AI comes with a firm warning about quality and accountability. Brian recounts building executive-offsite materials through successive AI-generated outputs, only to realise while presenting them that the result was generic, disconnected from the organisation and unusable. His response was to rebuild the work through staged prompting, review and editing. He argues that leaders should manage AI like an assistant: provide context, inspect intermediate work, give feedback and remain accountable for the final product. The episode also examines why verbose, unedited AI output creates a burden for everyone downstream and why distillation should become an explicit organisational expectation. In the closing discussion, Brian advocates learning in formats suited to the individual, gathering useful ideas in manageable increments and proactively seeking informal mentors. He shares that three women became significant unofficial mentors in his own development and emphasises the value of observing, asking questions and requesting access to relevant conversations. His final message for strengthening HR’s credibility is concise: “Understand the business and bring the people thought process to the table.” For senior people leaders, that means understanding the organisation’s commercial model and numbers while contributing a distinctive human perspective - moving HR beyond mandatory activity and towards genuine business partnership. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 46: The HR Career Journey That Came Full Circle (Plus a Look Inside the Latest People Leader Accelerator Cohort) | 11 août 2026 | 00:18:12 | |
Welcome to the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we go behind the curtain on building high-performing organisations with honest conversations between experienced leaders. In this episode, we take a break from the traditional guest interviews and invite you into an informal conversation between hosts, Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow. Instead of sharing the spotlight with a guest, they dive into their own lived experiences and perspectives as people leaders, exploring what leadership, culture, and authenticity look like in practice. Today, Andrew and Jess offer a look inside the latest People Leader Accelerator cohort before exploring the value of leadership development, professional community, and giving back. The 12th People Leader Accelerator cohort brings together an especially experienced group of People leaders from organizations across the United States, Canada, and Australia. Although they work in different industries and organizational environments, the participants share a desire to operate more strategically and become more effective and influential executives. Andrew and Jess explain how the People Leader Accelerator combines established management research with practical application. Rather than presenting one collection of HR “best practices” as universally correct, the program helps leaders consider how factors such as ownership, organizational structure, business goals, and operating conditions should shape their decisions. They also discuss the longer-term impact of the program. More than 80% of surveyed People Leader Accelerator alumni reported being promoted after completing the program, with an average reported pay increase of almost 30%. The conversation then takes a personal turn as Andrew reflects on the graduate program in Human Resources and Industrial Relations at the University of Illinois, which changed the direction of his life and launched his HR career. After graduating from the program, serving on its alumni board, helping to launch a podcast and speaker series, and later returning as a commencement speaker, Andrew has now come full circle. He is co-teaching the master’s-level course Mastering Business Fundamentals alongside his longtime collaborator and co-author, Brad Harris. In this episode, Andrew and Jess discuss:
Listen for an honest and thoughtful conversation about developing more effective People leaders, creating a genuine professional community, measuring long-term impact, and giving back to the institutions that helped shape our careers. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 45: Speaking the Language of Business as an HR Leader (Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow in conversation) | 04 août 2026 | 00:09:33 | |
Welcome to the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we go behind the curtain on building high-performing organisations with honest conversations between experienced leaders. In this episode, we take a break from the traditional guest interviews and invite you into an informal conversation between hosts, Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow. Instead of sharing the spotlight with a guest, they dive into their own lived experiences and perspectives as people leaders, exploring what leadership, culture, and authenticity look like in practice. HR does not earn influence by changing its name, adopting more polished language or reporting the metrics it finds most familiar. It earns influence by solving genuine business problems - and by making the commercial value of that work clear to the stakeholders who matter. In this episode, hosts Andrew Bartlow and Jess Yuen examine how people leaders can translate HR activity into organisational outcomes, build credibility with executives and connect their work directly to the company’s most important priorities. Andrew and Jess explore why measures such as engagement, attrition and vacancies may only tell part of the story. They suggest that a business leader may ultimately be more concerned with the unfinished work, reduced capacity or lost revenue behind those indicators. Rather than expecting executives to adopt HR’s internal terminology, people leaders can identify the measures their stakeholders already value and use those measures to explain why action is needed. Jess and Andrew also show how shifting from activity-based descriptions to outcome-based narratives can change the way HR work is understood. A leadership-team prioritisation session is not valuable simply because HR facilitated it; its value lies in improving organisational execution and increasing the likelihood that critical work achieves its goals. Similarly, updating an organisation chart becomes more commercially relevant when it is explained as work designed to strengthen accountability, clarify roles and improve decision velocity. The right narrative depends on the strategic concern at hand: if leaders need the organisation to move faster, HR should clearly connect its work to faster communication, decisions and execution. The conversation offers a practical method for setting priorities: work backwards from the business need. Start with the organisation’s most important current objective, determine which capabilities or changes are required to support it, and then draw a direct line to the relevant people work. This helps HR move beyond process completion and demonstrate how its contribution supports execution, accountability, speed and commercial performance. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 44: Building Executive Presence From The Inside Out (Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow in Conversation) | 28 juil. 2026 | 00:20:48 | |
Welcome to the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we go behind the curtain on building high-performing organisations with honest conversations between experienced leaders. In this episode, we take a break from the traditional guest interviews and invite you into an informal conversation between hosts, Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow. Instead of sharing the spotlight with a guest, they dive into their own lived experiences and perspectives as people leaders, exploring what leadership, culture, and authenticity look like in practice. Why do capable, confident HR leaders sometimes become approval-seeking “yes people” around the CEO? In this episode, Andrew and Jess examine the habits that can prevent senior HR leaders from becoming credible enterprise executives - and what it takes to move beyond responsiveness, perfectionism and flawless execution toward greater perspective, self-direction and influence. The conversation begins with an experienced CHRO who immediately agrees to plan an executive offsite, only to realise later that they do not understand what the CEO wants from it. Andrew and Jess use this example to explore why authority can trigger a “middle school” version of an otherwise accomplished leader: someone focused on being liked, gaining recognition and proving they can deliver. They unpack three forces that can contribute to this response - real differences in power, a lifetime of learned deference and the perfectionist instinct to accept an assignment and execute it well. For HR leaders, the tension can be particularly acute: they are expected to challenge and advise the CEO while knowing that the same person influences their ratings, compensation, title and continued employment. Andrew and Jess also reframe organisational politics as a leadership reality rather than inherently manipulative behaviour. Political awareness does not require cynicism or unethical conduct. It means recognising the stories, interests and motivations influencing how people respond. Executives may all care about the organisation while prioritising different outcomes, including mission, financial performance, efficiency or people. Instead of assuming bad intent, the hosts encourage listeners to separate assumptions from facts and consider both the story they are telling themselves and the story another stakeholder may be telling themselves. The episode also explores the risks of codifying idealised expectations for executive teams. Clear expectations can be useful, but only when leaders are prepared to model, reinforce and be held accountable to them. Andrew and Jess argue that statements about teamwork, enterprise-first decision-making, values or culture can cause real damage when daily conduct, incentives and decisions contradict them. The lesson is not to abandon aspiration, but to ensure it remains credible and connected to organisational reality. At the centre of the discussion is the transition from high-performing executor to enterprise executive. The qualities that often accelerate an HR career - responsiveness, reliability and consistently strong delivery - can eventually become constraints. At the executive table, leaders cannot simply wait to be told what to do. They need to understand what the business and their peers care about, identify the work that matters and be willing to question, clarify and push back when necessary. This is a thoughtful, practical conversation for senior HR leaders ready to move beyond being excellent functional executors and become more credible, self-directed and commercially grounded enterprise executives. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 43: Culture Is Built One Decision at a Time - with Alex Buder Shapiro | 21 juil. 2026 | 00:41:32 | |
Culture is not an HR programme to impose, preserve or package into a set of aspirational statements. It is a commercially relevant operating system: shaped by founder behaviour, grounded in the realities of the business and made credible through the decisions and behaviours leaders consistently reinforce. In this episode, Alex Buder Shapiro, Head of People at Clay, explores what it takes to build an authentic, distinctive culture in a fast-changing company. She explains why senior People leaders need genuine alignment with founders, why the best culture work begins with ingredients already present in the organisation, and how a strong employee experience can become a meaningful advantage when sought-after candidates have several credible opportunities to consider. The conversation examines two of Clay’s operating principles: “negative maintenance” and “non-attached action.” Alex describes negative maintenance as the quiet, continuous work of leaving things better than you found them. Non-attached action combines movement, momentum and iteration with a willingness to let go of any individual answer or method. Together, these ideas show how precise and distinctive language can make behavioural expectations clearer than familiar but broadly interpreted values terminology. Alex also discusses the importance of turning culture into something employees experience rather than simply read about. She shares Clay’s “Starting Fresh at Clay” onboarding exercise, in which new hires examine assumptions and negative experiences carried from previous workplaces before physically shredding what they have written. The exercise began as a quickly launched worksheet and developed through contributions from employees and other teams - an example of why a useful People practice does not always need to be fully polished before it is tested. From there, the discussion tackles one of the most important questions facing executive teams: who actually owns culture? Alex distinguishes between the top-down responsibility to define and support the organisation’s direction and the bottom-up role employees play in revealing how culture is experienced. The People function enables that environment, but it cannot act as its sole architect. Alex describes the People leader as a “cultural archeologist,” observing how the organisation behaves in real time and articulating those patterns honestly and specifically. The episode also challenges the idea that scaling culture means preserving an early version of the company indefinitely. Alex argues for addressing the organisation’s current chapter: observing what is genuinely breaking, waiting until a problem is specific enough to solve and allowing each stage of growth to develop practices suited to its circumstances. This requires judgement about when to intervene, as well as the confidence not to build solutions for hypothetical future problems that have not yet materialised. Finally, Alex considers how AI-native companies operate at the pace of rapidly changing technology and customer behaviour. She argues that established organisations cannot reproduce this tempo simply by introducing AI tools; they must also examine the assumptions, workflows and behaviours that need to be rewired. In these environments, hiring becomes less about matching a fixed checklist and more about curiosity, adaptability, learning agility and what each candidate can teach the organisation. Listeners will come away with practical questions to apply in their own companies: Are your stated values reflected in recent leadership decisions? Does your cultural language describe observable behaviour? Which parts of your employee experience genuinely distinguish you in the talent market? Could an onboarding slide become a tangible experience? Are you solving a current organisational problem or anticipating one that is not yet defined? And, before entering a leadership meeting, do you know what you will contribute beyond absorbing context? This is a practical, thoughtful conversation for People leaders, founders and executives who want to treat culture as a living business system - one that is authentic to the company, precise enough to guide behaviour and adaptable enough to evolve as the organisation grows. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 42: Harnessing AI for Leadership Development and Organizational Insights - with Ben Perreau of Parafoil | 14 juil. 2026 | 00:42:15 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we explore what it really takes to build high-performing organisations. Our guest today is Ben Perreau, Founder and CEO of Parafoil. Ben brings a unique perspective shaped by his diverse background spanning journalism with major media brands, digital transformation, consulting, and organisational change. After two decades of uncovering how teams operate and adapt, Ben now leads Parafoil, an AI-powered platform focused on leadership intelligence and cultural insight for modern enterprises. His deep understanding of both behavioural science and technology makes his perspective particularly relevant to experienced people leaders navigating transformation. In this conversation, we discuss the evolving role of leadership development and the emerging opportunities that new technology, especially AI, presents for HR and executive teams. The core theme centres on how people leaders can build real-time, data-backed understanding of organisational culture and leadership effectiveness - while maintaining trust and privacy. Listeners will gain practical insights into measuring and developing leadership behaviours, building a data-informed people strategy, and identifying microcultures within organisations. Ben shares lessons on balancing technology with the irreplaceable value of human judgement, as well as tangible examples that help people leaders upgrade their approach to organisational diagnostics and behaviour change. Discussion highlights:
This conversation provides a clear-eyed look at how technology is transforming leadership development. Ben's experience underscores that while AI offers new ways to observe culture and behaviours at speed and scale, the value of human connection, context, and judgement is only increasing. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 41: AI Adoption, ROI and Governance (Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow in Conversation) | 07 juil. 2026 | 00:19:27 | |
Welcome to the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we go behind the curtain on building high-performing organisations with honest conversations between experienced leaders. In this episode, we take a break from the traditional guest interviews and invite you into an informal conversation between hosts, Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow. Instead of sharing the spotlight with a guest, they dive into their own lived experiences and perspectives as people leaders, exploring what leadership, culture, and authenticity look like in practice. This discussion centres on the realities and nuances of AI adoption in organisations, exploring not only the opportunities but also the pitfalls and unintended consequences. Andrew Bartlow and Jess Yuen examine how leaders can balance innovation with intentionality, ensuring that new tools drive business value rather than distraction or wasted investment. Discussion highlights:
Collectively, this conversation sheds light on the real challenges leaders face as they integrate new technologies into their organisations. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 40: Building Outstanding HR Teams and Board Relationships - with Anna Binder | 30 juin 2026 | 00:42:01 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we explore what it really takes to build high-performing organisations. Our guest today is Anna Binder, a seasoned HR executive, board member, and investor. With a career that spans leadership roles at startups and global technology companies such as Asana and MuleSoft, Anna offers a nuanced perspective on scaling teams, navigating organisational change, and shaping the board-level agenda. Her experience as both operator and board member allows her to see leadership and organisational effectiveness through multiple lenses, making her guidance particularly relevant for senior HR leaders and executives. In this episode, we unpack the realities of building a sustainable career in HR leadership while driving business outcomes in dynamic environments. Anna shares her journey leading the People function through significant growth stages, including IPOs and global expansion, and the lessons learned about aligning people strategy with business objectives. The conversation also explores the evolving role of the Chief People Officer, the relationship with boards, and the leadership implications of AI and technology shifts in the workplace. Listeners will come away with straightforward, actionable insights on how to increase their impact as people leaders. Anna delivers hard-earned advice on navigating board dynamics, managing burnout, building outstanding teams, and prioritising ruthlessly through periods of rapid change. Her reflections also provide valuable guidance for those looking to accelerate their HR careers and build deeper credibility with executive teams. Discussion highlights:
Taken together, this conversation offers a candid and practical exploration of what it means to lead at the intersection of people and business success. Anna’s reflections shine a light on the habits and mindsets that help HR executives thrive across growth stages, work effectively with boards, and drive meaningful impact in their organisations. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 39: Building Trust and Driving Change as an HR Leader - with L. David Kingsley | 23 juin 2026 | 00:43:51 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we explore what it really takes to build high-performing organisations. Our guest today is L. David Kingsley, Chief People Officer at Illumio. With a background spanning management consulting, HR leadership in public and scale-up technology companies, and service as a Navy Reserve intelligence officer, David brings a disciplined, mission-driven perspective to people leadership. His experience working with founder-led startups, large enterprises, and fast-growing teams gives him a valuable lens on the intersection of organisational strategy and human dynamics. In this conversation, we focus on what it means to be of service as a people leader and how to navigate complex change in today’s business environment. David shares lessons from large-scale organisational transformation, the evolution of the HR function, and how leaders can position themselves as critical enablers and trusted advisors to their business. The discussion addresses both the timeless challenges and new realities facing people leaders, especially around technology shifts and alignment with business priorities. Listeners will take away practical strategies for career growth, frameworks for stakeholder management, and clear guidance on building credibility with business leaders. David unpacks the importance of curiosity, business fluency, and continual learning, and offers concrete examples of how HR teams can deliver value in organisations navigating significant change. This episode is particularly relevant for people leaders looking to accelerate their impact and develop the mindsets required to succeed in senior HR and executive roles. Discussion highlights:
This conversation provides a grounded, experience-based look at the challenges and opportunities for people leaders in dynamic organisations. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 38: Increasing HR Impact by Aligning People Analytics with Business Strategy - with Cole Napper | 16 juin 2026 | 00:42:27 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we explore the realities of leadership and organizational effectiveness. Our guest today is Cole Napper, the first Chief People Intelligence Officer at HRBench and a recognized leader in people analytics, workforce intelligence, and evidence-based HR strategy. He is the creator of the *People Intelligence Manifesto*, founder of Directionally Correct, LLC, and host of one of the world's leading people analytics podcasts and newsletters. Cole also leads the Data Driven HR Academy, a practitioner-led program that equips HR leaders and people analytics professionals with the skills to operate at the intersection of data, AI, strategy, and decision-making. Throughout his career, Cole has helped organizations transform how they use people intelligence to make better business decisions. His experience spans major global companies including FedEx, Texas Instruments, Toyota, PepsiCo, and Grainger, as well as venture-backed startups such as Motive, Booster, and Orgnostic. He previously served as Vice President of Research and Workforce Intelligence at Lightcast and has become a sought-after advisor, speaker, and consultant on the future of people analytics. Holding both a Ph.D. and M.A. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Cole combines academic rigor with extensive real-world experience. In this conversation, we focus on the evolving landscape of people analytics and the growing expectations for HR functions to contribute directly to business outcomes. The discussion goes beyond dashboards and reporting, examining how people leaders can integrate analytics, workforce intelligence, and behavioral science to drive meaningful organizational change. Listeners will come away with practical ideas for making HR data more relevant to executive decision-making and board-level discussions. Cole shares insights on shifting from traditional metrics to actionable intelligence, building business acumen as an HR leader, and aligning people insights with the core priorities of the business. This episode is particularly valuable for those seeking to increase their impact as strategic partners within their organizations. Discussion highlights:
Cole's perspective offers a candid look at how people leaders can move beyond traditional HR practices to become essential contributors to business performance. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 37: Prioritization Frameworks To Help People Leaders Drive Organizational Success (Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow in Conversation) | 09 juin 2026 | 00:35:37 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we examine the realities of building effective organizations and leading through complexity. In this episode, we take a break from the traditional guest interviews and invite you into an informal conversation between hosts, Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow. Instead of sharing the spotlight with a guest, they dive into their own lived experiences and perspectives as people leaders, exploring what leadership, culture, and authenticity look like in practice. The central theme of this discussion is prioritization - how leaders distinguish between what is urgent and what is truly important, and how to maintain focus on the highest-impact work amid continual demands. They explore how people leaders, executives, and founders can clarify organizational priorities, structure their time, and avoid getting lost in day-to-day tasks at the expense of longer-term, strategic goals. Discussion highlights:
This conversation offers a grounded view of the leadership challenges that come with growth and complexity. The insights shared will help people leaders avoid getting sidetracked by low-impact activity, encourage better alignment between HR and business strategy, and support effective prioritization in demanding environments. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 36: Navigating Rapid Change and Innovation in People Leadership with - AJ Thomas | 02 juin 2026 | 00:28:25 | |
Welcome to the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we examine what it genuinely takes to lead, scale, and evolve effective organisations. Our guest for this episode is AJ Thomas, an accomplished executive with a remarkable track record across talent, HR operations, business strategy, and the early-stage venture ecosystem. Having served in pivotal roles at Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory (Google X) and as a founder and general partner at an early-stage venture firm, AJ Thomas brings a rich, multidisciplinary perspective to the evolving world of people leadership. AJ Thomas’s hands-on experience spans leading global talent initiatives, designing organisational culture, and advising both startups and established enterprises as they navigate innovation and change. This conversation focuses on the vital role of experimentation, curiosity, and first principles thinking in shaping effective HR leadership. Against a backdrop of technological transformation, including the rising influence of generative AI, we dig into how people leaders can remain grounded in the human aspects of their roles while effectively driving innovation and business outcomes. Discussion highlights:
This episode offers candid insight into the leadership qualities and practical tools needed to guide organisations through uncertainty and change. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 35: AI Meets HR - How OpenAI’s People Innovation Labs Are Simplifying Workflows - with Dylan Vassallo | 26 mai 2026 | 00:42:20 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we explore what it really takes to build high-performing organisations. Our guest today is Dylan Vassallo, an engineering leader at OpenAI, where he leads the People Innovation Labs team. Dylan brings a unique blend of technical expertise and a deep passion for people operations, having previously held impactful roles at Khan Academy and Stripe. His background in both engineering management and HR innovation gives him a distinctive perspective on how cutting-edge technology can empower and transform people teams. In this conversation, we discuss the strategic and practical considerations behind building internal tools for people teams at scale. Dylan shares how OpenAI balances the decision to build versus buy people systems, the importance of simplifying employee workflows, and how AI is enabling new levels of efficiency and impact for people operations. The episode delves into the nuances of aligning technology, culture, and operational realities as organisations expand rapidly. Listeners will come away with actionable insights on optimising people processes, fostering a culture of experimentation, and navigating the trade-offs of introducing new technologies within HR. Dylan also shares tips on how HR leaders can adopt a builder’s mindset, pilot solutions, and partner effectively with engineering teams, even in resource-constrained environments. Discussion highlights:
This conversation is a grounded exploration of how technology and people strategy intersect as organisations grow. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 34 - Navigating AI-Driven Efficiency and Headcount Impacts for HR Leaders (Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow in Conversation) | 19 mai 2026 | 00:26:28 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. In this episode, we take a break from the traditional guest interviews and invite you into an informal conversation between hosts, Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow. Instead of sharing the spotlight with a guest, they dive into their own lived experiences and perspectives as people leaders, exploring what leadership, culture, and authenticity look like in practice. This episode centres on the real impact of artificial intelligence on productivity, headcount, and organizational structure. Andrew and Jess discuss how recent technology-driven layoffs in major companies, the drive for efficiency in tech and high-growth environments, and the practicalities of leveraging AI tools are reshaping management practices and leadership demands. They examine whether the wave of workforce reductions is truly about AI-driven efficiency or if other factors, such as investor pressure and post-pandemic organizational changes, also play a critical role. Discussion highlights:
Taken together, this conversation delivers a thoughtful look at what it takes to lead organizations through waves of change, especially as AI and new technology reshape job roles and leadership responsibilities. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 33: From Employment Lawyer to Chief People Officer - with Guissu Baier from GoFundMe | 12 mai 2026 | 00:42:48 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we dive into what it truly means to lead teams and build effective organisations. Our guest today is Guissu Baier, Chief People Officer at GoFundMe. With a diverse background as both an employment attorney and people executive, Guissu brings unique perspective from her time at Visa, Instacart, venture capital firm General Catalyst, and as a co-founder of The People Collective. Her experience spanning high-growth startups, large enterprises, and investor advisory roles gives her uncommon insight into the challenges and opportunities people leaders face as organisations evolve. In this conversation, we examine the real-world complexities of leadership development, the evolving role of people leaders, and the nuances of career growth in HR. The episode explores the contrast between operating roles and advisory positions, offers a candid look at working with stakeholders like legal and investors, and highlights the decisions that matter most as organisations scale or adapt. Discussion highlights:
Taken together, this conversation offers grounded insight into the multifaceted nature of HR leadership. Guissu shares practical lessons on building impactful partnerships, making the right career decisions, and focusing on the outcomes that matter most for your organisation and your own growth. People leaders who want to deepen their influence, whether inside fast-scaling companies or in investor advisory roles, will find plenty to reflect on and apply. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 32: Navigating Change and Building Influence as an HR Leader - with Teresa Lilly | 05 mai 2026 | 00:46:40 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we explore what it really takes to accelerate careers and build high-performing organizations. Our guest today is Teresa Lilly, an experienced HR leader and fractional CPO who has navigated the people leadership landscape across the US and Australia. With over a decade spent scaling tech startups from early to growth stages, advising founders, and now helping multiple organizations as a consultant and interim executive, Teresa Lilly offers a candid perspective on the practical realities of change leadership, executive relationships, and adapting people strategy to diverse business contexts. In this episode, we focus on the leadership challenges of managing organizational change, aligning HR and business strategy, and building the relationship between people leaders and CEOs. Teresa Lilly shares lessons from change-heavy environments, the impact of local employment regulations, and what she wishes more HR professionals understood about their own influence. Listeners will gain a wealth of practical insights on navigating organizational transitions, building credibility with executive teams, and stepping into consulting or fractional leadership roles. Teresa Lilly provides grounded advice on influencing company direction, managing personal values amid business pressures, and making the leap from in-house operator to advisory roles. Discussion highlights:
This conversation offers a nuanced, experience-based look into the trade-offs and decisions people leaders face when managing organizational transitions and shaping people strategy. Teresa Lilly’s insights into executive relationships, practical change management, and the realities of consulting are relevant for HR leaders, founders, and executives alike. Whether you are scaling a startup, considering a shift to advisory work, or navigating the unique challenges of your region’s ecosystem, the lessons here provide actionable guidance and candid reflection for your leadership journey. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 31: Navigating Talent Advisory and Executive Search Across Europe - with Puren Ucar | 28 avr. 2026 | 00:32:50 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we explore what it really takes to build high-performing organisations. Our guest today is Puren Ucar, one of Europe’s original venture capital talent partners, and now an independent advisor working closely with founders and VC firms across the UK and Europe. With a background in executive search and years spent building out talent functions for leading venture firms, Puren brings a unique, insider’s view of both the operational and strategic sides of scaling leadership teams inside high-growth companies. In this episode, we explore the evolution of the talent function within VC-backed organisations, the shift from talent acquisition to advisory, and the practical realities of supporting founders as they scale teams and navigate critical leadership hires. We also examine how emerging tools like AI are influencing executive search and networking, and delve into the personal side of working closely with ambitious founders. Listeners will gain practical, candid insight into what it takes to build and support executive teams—from diagnosing organisational needs, to coaching founders through decision-making, to leveraging frameworks that balance business needs with human dynamics. Leaders will also hear about effective approaches to founder advisory, common misconceptions in hiring, and lessons for building trust with both founders and boards. Discussion highlights:
This conversation sheds light on the realities of building and advising executive teams in high-growth environments, where business strategy and people dynamics intersect. For senior people leaders and founders, the insights shared here offer both tactical takeaways and a reminder that effective leadership is as much about human connection as it is about frameworks and process. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 30: How Hypergrowth Companies Balance Speed And Talent Quality - with Maryanne Caughey and Charles Guillemet from Lovable | 21 avr. 2026 | 00:48:12 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we explore what it really takes to build high-performing organisations. Our guests today are Maryanne Caughey, Head of People at Lovable, and Charles Guillemet, Head of Recruiting at Lovable. Between them, they bring decades of experience leading people and talent functions at world-class technology organisations, including Google, Dropbox, Notion, Meta, Neuralink, and Gusto. Their perspective is highly relevant for leaders building teams at the intersection of culture, talent strategy, and breakthrough technology. This episode centers on the realities and challenges of building organisational culture, systems, and talent processes in an environment defined by hypergrowth and rapid technological change. Jess Yuen, Andrew Bartlow, Maryanne Caughey, and Charles Guillemet discuss how Lovable, a leading AI-native company, scales its team and leadership practices while navigating intense competition and a fast-moving market. Listeners will walk away with grounded insights into what it means to operationalize people strategy for speed without sacrificing trust, quality, or culture. The conversation unpacks practical approaches to hiring, compensation, decision-making, and performance management, as well as the core leadership habits required to succeed in dynamic, founder-led environments. Discussion highlights:
This conversation offers practical, experience-driven guidance for senior HR and business leaders looking to build high-performance organisations in uncertain and fast-moving markets. Maryanne Caughey and Charles Guillemet share not just frameworks, but also lived experience scaling teams where stakes are high, expectations are explicit, and learning cycles are short. For leaders navigating similar environments, there is much here to reflect on, whether you are building your first systems, rethinking people strategy for the AI era, or working to harmonise trust, culture, and operational excellence. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 29: Empowering Technical Leaders Through Effective Coaching Strategies - with Kevin Rice | 14 avr. 2026 | 00:41:58 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we explore what it really takes to build high-performing organisations. Our guest today is Kevin Rice, an executive coach who previously led product and engineering teams through rapid growth at companies like Airbnb. Drawing on a background that bridges hands-on technical management and leadership coaching, Kevin now partners with heads of product, heads of engineering, and CEOs, helping leaders evolve as their organisations scale. With experience developing people processes in high-growth environments and supporting leaders through changing responsibilities, Kevin brings a unique perspective to supporting both leadership and people teams. This episode centres on the evolving challenges faced by technical leaders, particularly as their teams expand and the demands of scale intensify. We discuss the tension between technical expertise and people management, how leaders can determine where their time and focus are most valuable, and the critical partnership between HR and technical functions as companies evolve. Discussion highlights:
Taken together, this discussion offers a practical roadmap for people leaders working alongside technical executives in dynamic, scaling environments. The episode surfaces both the hidden pitfalls and proven tools for accelerating leadership growth, structuring effective partnerships with HR, and ensuring that coaching has a measurable and lasting impact. For those supporting technical talent or navigating rapid organisational change, these insights offer valuable guidance for developing high-performing teams and resilient leadership. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 28: Bridging Academic Insights and Business Practice - with Brad Harris from HEC Paris | 07 avr. 2026 | 00:36:56 | |
In this episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, we welcome Brad Harris, Professor of Management and Human Resources and Associate Dean at HEC Paris. Brad brings an exceptional blend of academic rigour and deep practical experience, having taught, researched, and consulted across several continents. As a co-author of Scaling for Success and one of the core faculty members in the People Leader Accelerator program, his perspective is especially relevant for executives shaping organisational effectiveness and people strategy. Brad’s background bridges academic research with on-the-ground leadership, advisory, and program delivery for high-growth companies. His understanding of team dynamics, leadership development, and organisational behaviour equips him to pinpoint the real challenges people leaders encounter, including those intrinsic to scaling teams, driving alignment, and navigating executive decisions. This episode centres on the realities of building and leading high-performing teams. The discussion dives into what leaders consistently get wrong about teamwork, the critical design elements of effective teams, and the essential (but often misunderstood) balance between clarity, empowerment, and control. Brad and the hosts, Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow, unpack the “messy middle” where most organisations and leaders operate and share tangible approaches for aligning people and business priorities. Listeners will gain actionable insights into diagnosing team effectiveness, optimising goal setting for clarity and alignment, and approaching empowerment in complex environments. Brad’s advice is grounded in research but always tailored to the practical realities of leadership, offering new ways for people leaders to support executives, make better trade-offs, and accelerate their own impact. Discussion highlights:
This conversation offers people leaders a grounded look at what it actually takes to foster effective teams and drive organisational performance. Brad’s practical frameworks and coaching stories clarify how leaders can apply academic insights without overcomplicating their approach - and why clear alignment and the right strategic bets matter most. For HR executives, founders, and those supporting high-growth businesses, these lessons offer actionable prompts to elevate leadership, influence strategy, and empower teams. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 27: Transforming HR Through Community and Innovation - with Stephen Huerta from the Modern People Leader Podcast | 31 mars 2026 | 00:44:24 | |
Welcome to the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, the show where we dive into the realities of building effective organisations and accelerating the careers of people leaders. Our guest today is Stephen Huerta, co-founder of The Modern People Leader Podcast, founder of Huertonomics, and an experienced HR entrepreneur. With a career spanning HR consulting, corporate roles at Goldman Sachs, and multiple ventures in HR tech and media, Stephen brings a seasoned perspective about both the operational and strategic sides of people leadership. His work as a podcaster and advisor has connected him with hundreds of leaders across startups, scaling companies, and enterprise organisations, making him uniquely positioned to comment on the evolving landscape of HR, leadership, and organisational culture. In this conversation, we explore how HR leaders can expand their impact, adapt to shifting trends in people strategy, and navigate the challenges of building meaningful community - both within organisations and across the wider HR ecosystem. We discuss the practicalities of career development, entrepreneurship in HR, and why community-driven approaches are reshaping how leaders learn, build networks, and make decisions. Listeners will gain actionable insights on advancing their own leadership careers, building engaging workplace cultures, and responding strategically to new challenges such as AI adoption and shifting stakeholder expectations. Stephen’s candid reflections offer guidance for people leaders looking to grow their network, refine their skills, and exert greater influence inside their organisations. Discussion highlights:
This episode offers a grounded look at the realities of navigating an HR career, expanding your influence, and adapting to new forms of organisational and community leadership. Stephen’s experience highlights both the power of network and the urgency of embracing new skills in today’s environment. For senior HR leaders and executives, the discussion provides a roadmap for cultivating professional connections, making strategic decisions, and investing in your own career growth. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 26: HR Career Growth Through Mentorship and Networking - with Maggie Ruvoldt | 24 mars 2026 | 00:43:12 | |
Welcome to the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we dive deep into the realities of building and leading high-impact organisations. Our guest today is Maggie Ruvoldt, an experienced CHRO and executive with over 30 years spanning HR, business operations, and advisory roles. Maggie’s career features significant time in education and healthcare, from building HR teams at early-stage startups to managing global people operations in billion-dollar companies. Her perspective is particularly relevant to people leaders seeking to bridge the gap between HR and business, evolve their own careers, and contribute meaningfully as both leaders and mentors. In this episode, we explore the interplay between HR and business strategy, challenging traditional career path thinking and examining what it means to truly partner with the business. Maggie shares hard-earned lessons from her own “careen, not a career” trajectory, including how she navigated between business and functional roles, developed a personal board of directors, and cultivated the confidence to take on stretch assignments and difficult conversations. Listeners will gain practical frameworks for career development, tools for networking intentionally, and actionable advice for influencing senior leaders and opening doors to new opportunities. Maggie offers grounded insights on seeing HR through the lens of business impact, building relationships across and beyond the function, and the critical importance of sponsors, mentors, and connectors for sustained career growth. Discussion highlights: • Seeing HR as a business function: why understanding the broader business context is essential for HR leaders • The “careen, not a career” approach: embracing non-linear paths and focusing on growth over rigid career planning • Taking stretch assignments and leveraging fear as a signal for learning and growth • How to open doors between HR and business roles—and why advocating for yourself matters • Structuring conversations with executives to align your skills with organisational needs • The strategic value of developing both sponsors and mentors, and how each supports career acceleration • Building a personal board of directors and finding your “pump-up” person for confidence and support • Practical tactics for intentional networking, including the “20-minute meeting” strategy • Systematising relationship management to become a super connector, even as an introvert • Giving and receiving difficult feedback: skill-building for tough conversations with senior leaders • Understanding and leveraging second-degree connections (“weak ties”) for opportunity and growth • The importance of diversity of thought and lived experience in mentorship relationships Taken together, this episode offers an honest and practical look at career development, influence, and the human side of organisational leadership. Maggie’s journey illustrates that impact often comes from stretching outside your comfort zone, building intentional relationships inside and outside your function, and always keeping the broader organisational context in view. For HR executives and senior leaders shaping their own careers and teams, her advice is immediately applicable—and grounded in genuine experience. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 25: What Private Equity Looks for in Top HR Leaders - with John K. Anderson | 17 mars 2026 | 00:35:25 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we delve into the real-world challenges of building organisations that deliver sustained performance. Our guest today is John K. Anderson, Managing Director at ZRG. With a career spanning more than two decades as a head of HR and now as a leading search partner for HR executives, John brings a unique perspective on both the operational and executive recruitment sides of people leadership. His work with CEOs, investors, and boards across industries has given him a front-row seat to how leadership expectations are evolving for today’s people leaders. In this conversation, we focus on the evolving expectations for HR leaders, particularly those working with investor-backed and growing companies. John shares his experiences and observations on what distinguishes high-impact HR executives in private equity compared to venture-backed contexts, how value creation is defined, and why being adept at business strategy is essential for modern people leaders. Listeners will gain actionable advice on preparing for executive search processes, positioning themselves for senior opportunities, and translating HR impact into business results. The episode also explores practical career development steps, the real value of certifications and advanced degrees, and how to build relationships with search partners and executives. Discussion highlights:
This conversation is a pragmatic look at the shifting landscape for HR executives. John’s insights highlight the increasing integration of business and people strategy, the need for clear impact stories, and the critical difference that proactive learning and networking can make for leadership careers. For people leaders thinking about their next step or seeking to maximise their contribution, John’s perspective offers useful direction and reassurance that the function’s influence is only set to grow. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 24: How Zapier Reached 97% AI Adoption and What HR and Business Leaders Can Learn - with Brandon Sammut | 10 mars 2026 | 00:42:02 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Our guest today is Brandon Sammut, Chief People and AI Transformation Officer at Zapier. Brandon’s professional journey spans education, recruiting, HR leadership, and technology. He joined us to talk about what it takes to lead people teams at the intersection of automation, AI, and human potential, and how Zapier has become a model for integrating AI across business functions. In this episode, Brandon walks us through his unconventional career, from working with first-generation college students and Teach For America to building people teams in tech companies. We dig into how Zapier achieved industry-leading AI adoption, the frameworks and workflows powering transformation, and practical ways any HR leader can start leveraging automation and artificial intelligence right now. We discuss:
Brandon offers actionable insights for HR and people leaders navigating AI adoption, designing new workflows, or seeking inspiration for driving meaningful business transformation. This episode provides concrete tools and reflections for anyone aiming to deepen their impact in talent and technology. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 23: Exploring Leadership Through the Lens of Workplace Fun (Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow in Conversation) | 03 mars 2026 | 00:16:14 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. In this episode, we take a break from our traditional guest interviews and invite you into an informal conversation between us as hosts, Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow. Instead of sharing the spotlight with a guest, we dive into our own lived experiences and perspectives as people leaders, exploring what leadership, culture, and authenticity look like in practice. We unpack a surprisingly spicy topic - costumes in the workplace. Is it ever appropriate for leaders (or anyone, really) to wear costumes to the office, whether for Halloween or a holiday party? We find ourselves on different ends of the spectrum, each drawing from our backgrounds at established corporations, professional services, and high-growth startups. We discuss:
This conversation offers a window into our thinking about culture, expectations, and leadership style - and how leaders at all stages can question and shape the unwritten rules of workplace behavior. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 22: Our Thinking on HR Conferences and Communities (Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow in Conversation) | 24 févr. 2026 | 00:17:35 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Today, we’re taking a more informal approach as we (hosts, Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow) sit down together for a candid conversation about conferences, professional communities, and how people leaders choose where to invest their limited time and attention. There’s no guest this episode - just real talk between two experienced leaders reflecting on the value of industry events, how to build a supportive network, and finding the right mix of learning, connection, and ROI. In this episode, Jess and Andrew share practical insights for people leaders weighing conference invitations, considering new communities, or just wanting to make more intentional decisions about professional development. We discuss their approaches to vetting events, setting goals for participation, and balancing networking with learning -along with some favorite hacks and honest critiques of the HR conference landscape. We discuss:
This episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at how two seasoned HR leaders think about professional growth, relationship-building, and the realities of staying current in an ever-evolving field. If you’re debating which conference to attend, which community to join, or how to make better use of your learning and networking time, you’ll leave with actionable ideas and honest perspective. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 21: From Consultant to Five-Time Chief People Officer - with Jevan Soo Lenox | 17 févr. 2026 | 00:35:29 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Our guest today is Jevan Soo Lenox, a seasoned Chief People Officer whose career spans industries from fintech and food & beverage to e-commerce and biotech, currently at an AI-first enterprise organization. Jevan joins us for an honest conversation on building longevity in the CPO role, navigating transitions, and developing resilience as a senior people leader. In this episode, Jevan shares how his early experience at McKinsey and in Asia’s dynamic growth markets shaped his curiosity for people and organizations. We explore his frameworks for career decision-making, the importance of courage and professional distance, and what shifts as you lead across different business contexts. Drawing from his experience at companies like Square, Blue Bottle Coffee, Minted, WRITER, and more, Jevan offers practical advice for people leaders looking to grow and sustain their impact. We discuss:
This conversation is full of candid perspectives for HR leaders at any stage - whether you’re exploring your first executive role or looking to stay resilient and impactful over the long term. Jevan’s approach to pattern recognition, authentic relationships, and business-centric HR offers actionable takeaways for anyone invested in shaping organizational culture and strategy. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 20: Lessons in International People Leadership and Organizational Change - with Kelli Koschmann | 10 févr. 2026 | 00:43:03 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Our guest today is Kelli Koschmann, an experienced Chief People Officer who has led global teams at organizations such as Center City, Showpad, and SRAM, and is now an executive coach and founder of the consultancy Walking Palm. Kelli joined us for a practical and honest conversation about leading complex HR transformations, navigating founder transitions, and building cultural alignment in international businesses. In this episode, Kelli shares her journey from falling in love with HR during her undergraduate studies to stepping into top people leadership roles at companies scaling across continents. We examine what it means to steer organizational change while supporting both employees and leadership through times of uncertainty and expansion. We discuss:
This discussion is packed with actionable insights for people leaders steering growth, culture shifts, or cross-border teams. Kelli’s experiences offer grounded advice on enabling high performance, prioritizing stakeholder value, and building the networks of support every HR leader needs. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 19: Leadership Lessons From a Tech Founder Turned Executive Coach - with Adam Weber | 03 févr. 2026 | 00:36:49 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Our guest today is Adam Weber, a tech founder, executive coach, and former Chief People Officer, who joins us for a thoughtful conversation on executive development, building high-performing teams, and navigating the emotional demands of people leadership. Adam’s career journey spans founding and selling tech startups, leading culture transformation at 15Five as Chief Evangelist, and today, guiding executives and founders through the complexities of leadership and team dynamics. In this episode, Adam discusses his transition from entrepreneur to coach, the patterns he’s observed across high-growth organizations, and practical strategies for executives aiming to scale their impact while maintaining personal well-being. Drawing on rich experience with executive teams, Adam breaks down the leadership lessons featured in his recent ebook and shares actionable advice for people leaders at every stage. We discuss:
This episode offers clear-eyed perspective on the realities and rewards of senior people leadership, with practical frameworks to help you support your teams and yourself. If you’re navigating executive team dynamics, culture building, or looking to deepen your capacity as a leader, you’ll find valuable takeaways in our conversation with Adam. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 18: Building a Strong People Function in an Early-Stage Startup - with Keshar Sheridan | 27 janv. 2026 | 00:41:57 | |
Our guest today is Keshar Sheridan, a seasoned people leader with deep experience in the startup and health tech space. Keshar has spent more than a decade building HR foundations at organizations ranging from early-stage startups to high-growth companies like Hired, Oscar Health, Galileo, Headway, Growth Therapy, and now Tulea Health, where she serves as the first and only people leader at an 11-person team. In this episode, we dive into the practical realities of being a team of one, what it means to join and scale an HR function at the foundational stage, and how to evaluate companies and CEOs when considering your next leadership opportunity. Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow explore with Keshar how early people leaders can set themselves and their organizations up for long-term success, and what it takes to create leverage, influence culture, and build strong leadership relationships from day one. We discuss:
This conversation is full of actionable insights for people leaders at early-stage companies, or anyone considering how to assess fit and make an impact as the first HR hire. Keshar shares concrete advice on building relationships, structuring your work, and trusting your own expertise—even when the playbook is still being written. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 17: How HR Leaders Use Storytelling to Build Alignment and Momentum - with Robin P. Zander | 20 janv. 2026 | 00:41:48 | |
Our guest today is Robin P. Zander, founder of Zander Media, entrepreneur, and long-time contributor to the People Leader Accelerator’s early story and brand. With a diverse background ranging from the arts and business ownership to organizational storytelling, Robin Zander brings a unique perspective on the intersection of narrative, leadership, and HR. In this episode, we explore how storytelling can shape organizational alignment, drive engagement, and elevate the business impact of people leaders. Together with Andrew Bartlow and Jess Yuen, Robin discusses how leaders can develop authentic stories that foster clarity, build coalitions, and help teams move forward - while remaining true to their core values and aspirations. We discuss:
This episode offers concrete tips and relatable examples for people leaders looking to embed storytelling into daily leadership practice, align their teams around shared purpose, and drive culture in a way that endures through change. Robin Zander’s experience underscores the value of practicing storytelling, owning your narrative, and using story as a strategic tool. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 16: A Non-Traditional Path to People Leadership - with Ryanmae McAvoy-Pepin | 13 janv. 2026 | 00:31:50 | |
Our guest today is Ryanmae McAvoy-Pepin, Vice President of People Operations at Blackthorn, a SaaS company specializing in Salesforce-native event management software. Ryanmae has built a career that crosses industries from veterinary practices to the ski slopes, before settling into the tech sector, where she’s now recognized for her transparency, candor, and practical approach to HR leadership. In this episode, we dig into Ryanmae’s nontraditional career arc, her philosophy on executive presence, and how she leverages authenticity to drive effective people programs at scale. We explore how Ryanmae’s drive to keep learning has shaped her career moves, why she initially turned down her recent promotion, and what it takes to build real trust with executive teams and individual employees. We also discuss how she navigates hard trade-offs around benefits, organizational change, and her commitment to keeping HR genuinely human - especially in high-growth startup environments. We discuss:
This episode is filled with candid reflections, practical advice, and actionable takeaways for people leaders in startups and growing organizations. If you’re curious about accelerating your own HR career, advocating for yourself, or building relationships that drive impact, you’ll find real-world lessons you can use right away. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 15: How HR Tech and AI Are Redefining Organizational Growth - with Eugene Lee | 06 janv. 2026 | 00:39:58 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Our guest today is Eugene Lee, who joins us for an insightful conversation on investing in HR technology, the evolving responsibilities of people leaders, and how AI is transforming organizations. Eugene’s background spans M&A investment banking, operational leadership at Yahoo, Google, and Pinterest, and his current work as a venture investor at OMERS, focusing deeply on early-stage enterprise and HR tech companies. In this episode, Eugene shares his perspective as both an operator and investor. We explore the intersection of people strategy and business impact, what investors look for in high-growth companies, and how today’s HR leaders can increase their influence by embracing innovation, especially AI. We discuss:
This episode offers practical insights for people leaders at all stages, especially those in tech or VC-backed companies looking to advance their understanding of the investment landscape, shape company culture, and become true strategic partners to their executive teams. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 14: How to Build Power and Likability in Leadership - with Kate Mason | 30 déc. 2025 | 00:50:13 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Our guest today is Kate Mason, executive communications coach and author of the fascinating new book, Powerfully Likable. Kate’s career has spanned global tech companies and high-stakes startup environments, supporting leaders to communicate with impact. She brings together expertise in communications, coaching, and competitive debate to help professionals navigate the delicate balance of authority and warmth required to lead effectively. In this episode, we dig into the central question so many HR and people leaders face: Do I need to choose between being powerful or likable to be effective in my role? Drawing from her book, career experiences, and coaching practice, Kate reveals how we can transcend this false binary, communicate more authentically, and deploy strategic warmth without sacrificing authority. We discuss:
For those looking to strengthen their leadership presence and maximize impact within their organizations, Kate’s insights are both actionable and thought-provoking. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 13: Cultural Psychology At Work And What It Takes To Build Trust Across Borders - with Debbie Ko | 23 déc. 2025 | 01:03:19 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Our guest today is Debbie Ko, a US-born cultural psychologist now based in Singapore, whose career journey has traversed academia and tech in global environments. Debbie’s expertise bridges social psychology, cultural dynamics, and real-world application for business and people leaders. She publishes the popular blog, PsykoBabble, where she explores behavioral science in organizations and the psychological roots of workplace challenges. As Senior Research Manager, APAC and SEA Consumer and Marketing Insights at Google, Debbie directs research strategy for the SEA region. Her job is to take complex human data and turn it into a clear path forward. In this episode, we sit down with Debbie to explore culture beyond HR and the practical implications of cultural psychology when working across geographies, generations, and organizational boundaries. We dive into frameworks for understanding team friction, the evolving “psychological contract” between employers and employees, and how technology, especially AI, is impacting communication, feedback, and team trust. We discuss:
This episode is packed with grounded insights for anyone involved in people leadership, especially those working with distributed, cross-functional, or multi-cultural teams. Debbie’s stories and frameworks offer practical strategies for building more resilient, connected, and effective organizations. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 12: Scaling People and Culture Across Borders In Hypergrowth Companies - with Daniel Illes | 16 déc. 2025 | 00:41:13 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Our guest today is Daniel Illes, who joined us for an in-depth discussion on career transitions, scaling high-growth organizations, and the realities of global people leadership. Daniel’s journey has taken him from New York-qualified lawyer to startup operator, people leader, and currently, a Venture Capital operator at Atomico, supporting founders across Europe on all things people, culture, and leadership. In this episode, Daniel shares candid reflections on working at companies like Lyft, WeWork, and Vinted - each with their own explosive growth stories and operational challenges. We explore his approach to navigating major career pivots, what it takes to build and lead teams at scale, and how deep business acumen can help people leaders become true strategic partners. We discuss:
This conversation is filled with insights for those navigating high-growth environments, making big career moves, or looking for ways to deepen their impact as people leaders - especially across borders and cultures. Daniel’s experience offers concrete takeaways on how empathy, business fluency, and adaptability help people leaders thrive. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 11: The Journey From Operations To People Leadership In Hospitality - Jamie Thorpe | 09 déc. 2025 | 00:40:50 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Our guest today is Jamie Thorpe, SVP, People at Pursuit, joining hosts Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow for a candid conversation about leading people functions in hospitality and attraction-based organizations. Jamie brings over twelve years of HR experience covering restaurant operations, corporate HR, and high-growth environments, with prior roles at Sonic Drive-In, Taco Bueno, and Alamo Drafthouse. In this episode, we explore Jamie’s career path from frontline operations to HR leadership, including lessons learned about authenticity, vulnerability, and strategic partnership at the executive level. Jamie shares insights into the distinctive challenges and opportunities of supporting hourly workforces and transitioning organizations through acquisitions and growth. We discuss:
Whether you work with hourly teams or exempt staff, lead in hospitality or tech, or are considering your next step in people operations, you’ll find Jamie’s reflections and tactical advice immediately relevant. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 10: Business First HR Meets AI for Modern People Leadership - with Q Hamirani | 02 déc. 2025 | 00:47:41 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast. Our guest today is Q Hamirani, a seasoned Chief People Officer whose unconventional career journey - from electrical engineering and finance to leading HR at companies like Airbnb and High Level - has influenced how he thinks about building effective people teams and driving business outcomes. Hosted by executive coach Jess Yuen and PLA co-founder Andrew Bartlow, we dig into practical, honest conversations about what it takes to lead modern organizations and drive impact at scale. In this episode, Q shares his pathway from engineering and FP&A into people leadership, including the pivotal role that understanding finance, business strategy, and human-centered problem solving has played in his approach as a people leader. We explore how people leaders can work more closely with CFOs and cross-functional teams, translating HR initiatives into the language of business value. Q also takes us inside his hands-on experimentation with AI tools and describes tangible ways his team has used automation to enable growth, streamline HR, and unlock new organizational capacity. We also discuss:
Links: LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/hamirani Website: www.hamirani.com Whether you’re in your first HR role or leading people at a fast-growing company, this conversation is filled with actionable insights on bridging the gap between people and business, scaling impact with technology, and thinking ahead in a changing world. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 9: The Lightspeed People Trends Report | 25 nov. 2025 | 00:39:45 | |
Welcome to this episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we sit down with industry leaders to uncover the real-life insights, strategies, and challenges that shape world-class organizations. Our guest today is Luke Beseda, Talent Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, returning for a timely discussion about the annual Lightspeed People Trends Report. With nearly 170 venture-backed companies participating, this year’s survey delivers practical insights into how AI, hiring, and workplace productivity are transforming the landscape for people leaders and founders alike. We explore:
Throughout the conversation, Luke Besada shares his team’s practical takeaways, including the importance of hands-on AI experimentation for HR professionals and concrete steps people leaders can take to adapt to these shifts. If you’re curious about how real-world companies are using data and new tools to navigate headcount decisions, drive performance, and future-proof talent strategies, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 8: How Creativity and Curiosity Shape Better People Leaders - with Marie Szuts | 18 nov. 2025 | 00:45:23 | |
Welcome to another episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we get practical about leadership, culture, and building organizations that work. Our guest today is Marie Szuts: executive coach, consultant, and co-director of the People Leader Accelerator. Marie brings a unique, multifaceted background, including early career experience in food journalism, entrepreneurship in education technology, and transformative leadership roles at high-growth startups like Figma. Marie shares her career journey, lessons learned from leading through hypergrowth, and insights on what it means to carve a non-linear path in people leadership. In this conversation, we explore the real-world challenges of scaling a company, the human side of working alongside founder CEOs, and the realities of moving into executive coaching and consulting. Marie Szuts also opens up about learning to experiment with new career directions, the role creativity plays in leadership, and how she now works with leaders facing major transitions. We discuss:
If you’re thinking about how to accelerate your career, embrace new challenges, or explore coaching and consulting, this conversation offers clear-eyed, actionable perspectives from a leader who’s walked the path. For show notes, bonus resources, and more, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 7: Transforming Talent Strategy in Venture Capital and Startup Ecosystems - with Luke Beseda | 11 nov. 2025 | 00:52:46 | |
Welcome to this episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we sit down with industry leaders to uncover the real-life insights, strategies, and challenges that shape world-class organizations. Our guest today is Luke Beseda, longtime Talent Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, joining hosts Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow for an in-depth conversation about the evolving world of venture capital, the changing expectations of talent partners, and how HR professionals can best navigate their relationships with investors. In this episode, we explore the inner workings of VC platform and talent teams, lift the curtain on how these roles add value to both the firm and its portfolio, and share practical advice for people leaders in venture-backed environments. Luke offers candid insights from more than a decade at Lightspeed, sharing what’s changed and what remains constant in supporting founders and organizations through rapid growth and change. We discuss:
Whether you’re thinking about a career on the “other side of the table” or just want to be savvier in working with your investors, you’ll find plenty of actionable advice and clear-eyed perspective in this episode. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 6: Accelerating Leadership Impact and Career Growth - with Michelle Wagner | 04 nov. 2025 | 00:40:41 | |
Welcome to this episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we sit down with industry leaders to uncover the real-life insights, strategies, and challenges that shape world-class organizations. Our guest today is Michelle Wagner, a seasoned executive and current Talent Partner at Playground Global. Hosted by executive coach Jess Yuen and People Leader Accelerator co-founder Andrew Bartlow, this episode takes us through Michelle’s remarkable career journey, as she reflects on her path from accidental HR leader to CEO, and now to her unique role working with founders and early-stage companies in venture capital. We dig into pivotal moments that shaped Michelle’s approach to leadership and the people function, including her transition to CEO during a time of crisis and her insights from supporting deep-tech startups. Michelle openly shares the lessons she’s learned about navigating ambiguity, building strategic partnerships, and developing the confidence to take on new challenges—often before feeling fully ready. We also explore:
Whether you’re navigating your own leadership pivot, interested in the intersection of people, business, and venture, or looking for practical strategies to increase your impact, you’ll find actionable insights in this conversation. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 5: Unlocking High Performance in People, Process, & VC Partnerships - with Heather Doshay | 28 oct. 2025 | 00:48:40 | |
Welcome to this episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we sit down with industry leaders to uncover the real-life insights, strategies, and challenges that shape world-class organizations. Our guest today is Heather Doshay, the founder of Waypoint Works. Heather joins our hosts, Jess Yuen and Andrew Bartlow, for a thoughtful conversation about her unique journey across tech, VC talent leadership, and organizational development. Heather shares her insider perspective on the evolving role of VC talent partners, what it’s really like to support hundreds of startup leadership teams, and the lessons she’s carried forward into launching her own independent consultancy. Together, we explore the intersection of people strategy, business fundamentals, and the importance of choosing roles and partners, where you can both thrive and have impact. We discuss:
Heather also announces her new venture, Waypoint Works, and shares her philosophy for building impact through advisory, coaching, and facilitation. For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast. About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 4: The Power of Business Alignment in HR Career Success - with Melanie Naranjo | 22 oct. 2025 | 00:48:42 | |
Welcome to this episode of the People Leader Accelerator Podcast, where we sit down with industry leaders to uncover the real-life insights, strategies, and challenges that shape world-class organizations. Our guest today is Melanie Naranjo, Chief People Officer at Ethena, joining hosts Andrew Bartlow and Jess Yuen for a candid conversation about the real skills, mindset shifts, and strategies needed to accelerate a people leader’s impact at the executive table. In this episode, we explore Melanie’s career journey from her start in HR to her transition into leading people teams at high-growth startups. Melanie shares honest insights about the challenges of stepping into a Chief People Officer role, including what it takes to earn trust, develop true business acumen, and move beyond the traditional boundaries of HR. We talk openly about how people leaders can build authentic partnerships with CEOs and other executives, what it means to align work with the priorities that drive organizational success, and how to navigate the discomfort of not knowing all the answers. Melanie also discusses the importance of agency, proactive self-development, and balancing employee advocacy with commercial realities. We also discuss:
Whether you’re a first-time people leader or a seasoned executive, this episode offers honest reflections and tangible tools for deepening your impact and navigating the real challenges of C-suite HR leadership. Contact Information:Melanie Naranjo: Ethena and on LinkedIn About The People Leader Accelerator PodcastOur goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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| Episode 3: How Executive Search Is Evolving For HR Leaders In Startups & Scaleups - with Brad Warga and Ben Dewar | 22 oct. 2025 | 00:52:48 | |
In this episode, host Jess Yuen and co-founder Andrew Bartlow are joined by executive search experts Brad Warga (Heidrick & Struggles) and Ben Dewar (NU Advisory Partners) for an in-depth conversation about executive search in human resources within tech companies. Brad and Ben share their extensive insights into hiring Chief People Officers and senior HR talent, covering changes in candidate profiles, evolving business needs, and what today’s market truly values in HR leaders. Key Topics & Discussion Highlights:
Whether you’re leading an HR function or aspiring to your first C-level role in people leadership, this episode offers practical insights for navigating the current landscape of executive HR talent. Contact Information:
Our goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community. Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away. We can’t wait to share these conversations with you. Welcome to the journey! Listen, learn, and connect: 🎧 Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify, YouTube). 💡 Find show notes and bonus resources at peopleleaderaccelerator.com/podcast. 📬 Share this episode with a colleague who’s ready to level up as a people leader. 🤝 Connect with your hosts:
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