Today's guest is Marques Ogden, host of the Get Authentic With Marques podcast and inspirational keynote speaker, coach and consultant. In our conversation he shared the leadership lessons he got from a life in football: Marques played Division I football at Howard University, and was then drafted in the NFL where he played as an offensive lineman for the Titans, Bills, Ravens and Jaguars. This episode is a podcasting collaboration: it is part 2 of a conversation that I had with Marcqurs on his ...

Kathryn Valentine is the Founder of Worthmore Strategies, a research based firm aimed at advancing women in the workplace by partnering with companies to deliver negotiation training to women. Kathryn developed her approach to leadership in the years she spent at McKinsey and at a couple of apparel companies. In this conversation we discuss her journey, her leadership style, and she shares a number of actions that women can use to improve their negotiation skills. Contact Dino at: dino@al4ep.com...

Christian Muntean is a strategic coach and consultant based in Anchorage, Alaska, who specializes in leadership transitions and business exits. Christian came into this work from a very nontraditional path. He started his career in the NGO world and specifically doing work supporting medical efforts in Africa and Kosovo. Through this work he became interested in mediation and that is what ultimately led him down his current path. In our conversation we spent a lot of time discussing his experien...

Lily ZHeng is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategist, Author and Practitioner. They take a very practical approach, deeply grounded in data and in creating long-term measurable results for the companies they partner with. In this conversation, Lily explains what it means to take a data driven approach to DEI. They share their focus on fostering long-term partnerships with clients truly committed to change, ensuring that DEI efforts are impactful and sustainable. They also give us insights ...

Jim Schleckser is founder & CEO of The CEO Project, a company that serves CEOs and high-revenue entrepreneurs. Their offering combines peer group meetings and discussions with personalized one-on-one coaching sessions led by former CEOs. We start with Jim's path to his first CEO role, and how coming up from the sales side shaped his approach. And in this context he shared some of his early mistakes and lessons. We then talked about what drove him to choose a more entrepreneurial path. We continu...

Neta Weiner is an artist and social activist based in Jaffa. He is the founder and lead singer of the Jewish-Arab hip-hop band System Ali and the artistic director of the Beit System Ali social educational movement. And right now, he is also teaching a Tufts University. System Ali is musical collective of artists of many nationalities and ethnicities, that blends music genres and languages. As we discussed Neta’s journey from the organic birth of System Ali through its evolution into a structure...

Today's guest is Patrick Heron - Managing Partner of Frazier Life Sciences, a healthcare investment firm focusing on companies developing novel therapeutics. In our conversation we covered his career, but then we dove into the hard questions: how do you build a successful partnership with a founder? As a VC, how do you balance protecting the interest of your investors with ensuring the business success of the companies you invested in? How do you navigate the hard trade offs when they show up? A...

Maggie Olson is the Founder of Nova Chief of Staff, the first-of-its-kind destination for Chief of Staff education, certification, and development. In our conversation, we discussed her career and then dug deep into what it means to lead from the Chief of Staff spot. What are the key steps to take when you start in the role, what are the success factors, what are the traps, and conversely, what CEOs can do to make sure that they successfully onboard a chief of staff. Maggie is the perfect expert...

At the end of every episode I ask my guests their "food for the soul" - arts or other things that inspire them. In this episode I answer the question with some of my food for the soul. I start with guitars and specifically, my current favorite guitar, my Powers Electric. Then I talk about two groups of books that have influenced me - the great early 20th Century European novels and musicians biographies. Contact Dino at: dino@al4ep.com Websites: al4ep.com Mentioned in the episode: Powers Electri...

Claudia Scott, the Head of Inclusive Entrepreneurship and Director of KIVA North West Arkansas at Startup Junkie. In that role, Claudia leads the development and implementation of strategies that give access to capital and other entrepreneurial resources to underserved populations. We talked about the main challenges that these entrepreneurs face suffer, and some of the steps that can be taken to help them succeed. In our conversation Claudia shared her personal journey from focusing on busines...

Today's guest is Damon Lembi – CEO of Learnit, published author and host of the Learn-It-All podcast. As you may guess from the name, Learnit is a learning and training company that helps organizations upskill their workforce. Through college, Damon thought he would be a professional baseball player. He was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in high-school but elected to go to college and played at Pepperdine and Arizona State. But after college he found himself without an option to go pro, and elect...

Joanna Strober is the CEO and founder of MIDI health, a company that provide tele health services to women in midlife. In the process, she ended up taking a leadership role not just for the company but for society as a whole, as MIDI Health does work that fills a big gap. Like many founders, Joanna had the idea to start the company when she experienced this void of service personally. In our conversation, she very candidly discusses the experience that led her to the idea, and she shares how her...

Victor Cho, CEO of Emovid comes back to the podcast. In our first conversation he mentioned his passion for the topic of the Fourth Stakeholder and the role of business in society. We agreed that since it was a topic we both loved, rather than discussing it in that episode we would dedicate a whole episode to it. So here he is. In the past 30 years, business has moved from a world where CEOs were expected to optimize for one stakeholder (shareholders) to three, adding customers and employees. A...

Today's guest is Ali Cox, founder and CEO of Noble West, a marketing consultancy that specializes in food ingredients, agriculture and the entire agricultural ecosystem. Ali is not your typical CEO – before starting her business career, she won a world championship gold medal and an Olympic silver medal, in rowing. At the time she won it, in 2004, the US had not medaled since 1976 in her event, the women’s 8, and that team’s win launched an era of historic dominance for the US in the event. In t...

An anthology episode including all the answers to the favorite food and drinks by guests of the podcast. Includes answers by: Anna Goldsmith Ginevra Bersani Franceschetti Jason Downie Bryan Adams Jesse Friedman Melissa Kwan Jason Thompson Whitney Hinshaw Sullivan Jeff Bender Debi Kleiman Carlos Williams Don Martelli Mosongo Moukwa Giovanni Vacchi Contact Dino at: dino@al4ep.com Websites: al4ep.com Authentic Leadership For Everyday People / Dino Cattaneo Dino on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dinocatt...

Today's guest is Jesse Friedman, Head of WP Cloud and VP of Innovation and Partnerships at Automattic. We discuss how to build an open and creative culture when leading technology teams and the foundational practices that make Automattic so successful at remote work. Contact Dino at: dino@al4ep.com Websites: al4ep.com jesse.blog Additional Guest Links: Corporate: automattic.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jesserfriedman/ Instagram: @jessefriedman Twitter: @professor Authentic Leadership For Everyd...

John Torrens is an entrepreneur, founder of two successful healthcare related businesses, and a professor of entrepreneurship at Syracuse University. What makes him unique is that he accomplished all this, including getting a PhD. in business, while having adult ADHD. In this episode, you will hear about how John adapted once he got his ADHD diagnosis and actually became a better entrepreneur by leveraging the strengths that ADHD gave him and managing the weaknesses. We also discussed how being ...

Today's guest is is Victor Cho, a tech entrepreneur, former CEO of Evite, and current CEO of Emovid, a company that uses video messaging to deliver more authentic communications at scale. Unlike many people, Victor knew from an early age that when he grew up he wanted to be the CEO of a software company. In our discussion he shared how that clarity informed every choice in his career, and how his perspective on success changed as he progressed. We also talked about some of his leadership framewo...

Today we talk about branding and leadership with Carlos Williams, the founder of DBC, a creative agency that leverages data and equity to connect brands with their audiences. Carlos shares his unique perspective on leadership influenced by historical city-states. We started the conversation going way back to his experiences in elementary school, where he was always the smartest kid in the class, and how he had to mature and adapt as he went through high school and college, his experiences workin...

Our guest is Bryan Adams, one of the pioneers of the employer branding discipline and the author of the book “Give and Get Employer Branding” a book that is considered the bible of the discipline. He is the founder and CEO of two companies: Ph. Creative, an agency that focuses on employer branding, and HappyDance, an enterprise career technology company. In our conversation we talked about Bryan’s entrepreneurial journey and some of the missteps he took and how he overcame them. He also discusse...

Giovanni Vacchi is the CEO of Colombini Group, a family owned company that has been one of the leaders in the Italian design and furniture sector for over 50 years. Giovanni had a variety of experiences across countries and industries, and in this conversation shares how authenticity and effective leadership are pivotal in diverse business environments. Specifically, we discuss his journey from consultant to private equity investor to CEO/operator. We talk about the different approaches necessar...

David West, co-founder and CEO of Proscia, shares his journey from student/researcher to founding and building a medical software company whose goal is to improve cancer diagnosis through technology. We discussed how he developed his vision of authentic leadership while building the company as he transitioned from a scientist/hands-on entrepreneur to a leader who fosters a problem-solving mindset within his team. He shared the importance of finding the right investors and how transparency and ef...

In today's episode we revisit all the answers to the question: what is the business expression or jargon that drives you crazy. If you missed it, make sure you check out 4th Annual Business Jargon that Drives You Crazy - Part 1 , which came out on Memorial Day. Here are our featured guests: Ginevra Bersani Franceschetti Jason Thompson Dr. Amanda Blake Anna Goldsmith Jason Downie Amy Vaughan Stephen Klein Steve Wunker Christian "Boo" Boucusis Pam Prior Dr. Yasmeen Abu Frahia Anthony Frasier Annie...

Rachel Labi is the co-founder of Building Financial Freedom, an organization that develops financial literacy programs for youth. As she discusses her journey from advocating for mandatory personal finance education in Indiana to founding Building Financial Freedom she builds a strong case for the necessity of systemic changes in financial education, and not leaving the responsibility solely to parents. We talk about what it's like to build an organization at such a young age - she is still a co...