Today we are tackling a topic that is crucial to the success of many companies when they go from startup to the next phase of growth. It’s the question that many founders especially technical founders or scientific founders who start as CEO's have to ask themselves at some point. When is it time to bring in a new CEO? How do you find the right CEO? And how do you set up the partnership for success. To help us answer the questions we have Gil Blander, Founder and Scientific Officer of InsideTrack...

Today we talk to mom, activist, and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) expert, Kameelah Benjamin-Fuller . As the Chief Diversity Officer and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Leader at PTC , a Boston-based global technology company. Kameelah supports the company's full activation of opportunity in the DEI space. We talk about the foundational tenets of genuine leadership and the difficulty of balancing high expectations with empathy in corporations. Kameelah also explains how deep and com...

We are in the beginning of the year, and for many of us, this is a time where we think about setting goals and making new plans. A big topic of the podcast is how we measure success. Over two years of conversations, my guests have given me many definitions of what success is to them – some are personal, some are business based, some are short term and some are long term. In this episode, first I share some of my thoughts on how I think about success, and then I share some of the answers from my...

Allison Bennie is a Creative Leadership and Life Coach at Does As She Pleases , an international coaching, facilitation, and training company that helps people in the performing arts who want to live by their own rules. Allison and I were both diagnosed with Adult ADHD in. the past 3 or 4 years. Today she joins me to discuss our journey to being diagnosed, what the diagnosis has meant in our lives, and how we live successfully with Adult ADHD. KEY TAKEAWAYS [00:59] - We’re starting year three of...

Jamie Mittelman is the founder of Flame Bearers , the first and only global storytelling platform for women Olympians and Paralympians. Flame Bearears champions elite women athletes, using sport as a conduit for issues such as disability bias, mental health, and pay equity. We host a podcast with listeners in 47 countries, create short form video content, and host online and virtual events. We have a conversation we talk about how she started the podcast, and then she shares with us one of her e...

Today we talk to Scarlet Keys , songwriter, author, podcaster, and Professor of songwriting at Berklee College of Music since 2003. Scarlet was a signed songwriter in Nashville and then evolved into one of the country’s top songwriting educators, aside from teaching at Berklee she is an in demand professor at songwriting camps and workshops across the country. I her podcast What's in a Song . you will hear some amazing in depth conversations on creativity, songwriting and music. It’s an opportun...

Today's guest is Judi Fox , the Founder of LinkedIn Business Accelerator , the coaching program to help you network and position yourself to get the most out of LinkedIn and find new opportunities while building a solid support community. We talk about how to build an authentic presence on LinkedIn by tapping into who you are as a leader and using that as a platform to create relatable content, make long-term genuine connections, and network in a way that's true to who you are. KEY TAKEAWAYS [01...

Francesca Gargaglia is the COO and co-founder of Amity , a tech company that builds ready to use social features that companies can easily incorporate in their websites and app to create their own communities. What’s unique about Amity is that even though the company was started very recently, it already has a very global feel: it has over 250 employees, of 30 nationalities, and it has offices in Thailand, Italy, the UK and the US. The companymirrors the personality and experience of Francesca. ...

Wil Reynolds , is the Founder of Seer Interactive , one of the best digital marketing agencies in the country. Wil started the company as a solo practitioner and grew it to over 200 people. At some point, he realizedided that with the success of the company he had accumulated enough wealth for himself. Yet, he still wanted to grow the company, so he decided that from that point on all the company's growth was going to benefit his employees and his community. KEY TAKEAWAYS [02:40] - Wil shares ho...

This episode is part two of our look back at the start of the podcast through an anthology of leadership lessons from guests: Erin Barra , Dr. Steve Yacovelli , Rand Fishkin , and Marcel Quiroga . We look at leadership from a broader point of view, tackling topic such as how do you build a music education program that gives access to underrepresented groups, the benefits of adding diversity to an organization, what founders should take into consideration when they build company values and the im...

In this episode we look back at the start of the podcast and present an anthology of leadership lessons from the first four guests: Raj Kapoor , Katarin Dyer , Rishad Tobaccowala and Dave Edelman. They talk about how they formed their own leadership style, what makes a great leader and how to build and run successful teams. KEY TAKEAWAYS [00:53] - Rewinding the best of episodes focusing on leadership traits [01:01] - Raj Kapoor, former Chief Strategy Officer at Lyft, shares how his leadership st...

Chris Lynch is the Executive Chairman, and CEO at AtScale , the industry leader in data federation and cloud transformation. Sometimes known as the Punk Rock VC , Chris is a VC investor, operator, advisor, and mentor to dozens of entrepreneurs and startups. He has been in the founding team of Arrow Point, Acopia Networks and Vertica. We talk about the influence of punk rock and the Sex Pistols on his approach to work, why connection is the key to success in any industry. Chris is also pushing fo...

Laura Cesaro is the Founder & CEO of Siriusgame , a gamified platform that helps high school students in Italy learn Latin. She started her venture during the pandemic, working across two continents as she was pursuing her Masters of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. We talked about the impact of her international experience, the inspiration behind Laura's passion project, the challenges of being a young founder, the influence of her entrepreneurial family, and how Siriusgame is...

Arielle Nissenblatt's is the community team manager at SquadCast , a remote recording software solution. Her obsession with podcasts began when she learned she loved being entertained by audio. An advocate and influencer in the podcast community, she founded EarBuds Podcast Collective in 2017. EarBuds is a weekly podcast recommendation engine that sends a newsletter with a theme and 5 podcast episodes on that theme, with each weekly issue curated by a different person. Arielle is also a founder ...

The first half of Cindy Gallop’s career would have been enough for most people: she was instrumental in building Bartle, Bogle and Hagerty into a global advertising firm, opening and growing both their Asia and US offices. But for the past almost 15 years Cindy has blazed her way into a new uncharted territory. Her company Make Love Not Porn is driving a really important conversation around sex, sex education and consent. In the process, Cindy has also become a powerful voice in support of women...

Our guest today is Jackie Indrisano, General Manager of the Off Cabot comedy club. Jackie spent the bulk of her career in entertainment, booking music and comedy venues. She built not one but two college venues, one at Northeastern and one at Berklee College of Music. We talked about what it means to run a business where your team members are students, so your goal as a manager is to run a successful business while also preparing your employees for a long term career in the industry. Jackie also...

Can there be such a thing as being authentic in sales? Our guest, Ronnell Richards is an entrepreneur who spent over two decades in sales. He has been a producer, has built and led sales organizations in tech and telecom, and he runs a very successful sales training business. His upcoming book, Shut The Hell Up And Sell puts forward a vision of selling that is based on building genuine relationships and meeting your client needs. Ronnell’s belief is that successful long-term sales careers are ba...

Christina Wallace is a former entrepreneur with over 10 years of experience building companies, and and currently a professor of entrepreneurship and marketing at Harvard Business School. She is writing a book about the Portfolio Life. It’s a concept that acknowledges that we all have multiple interests, and that given how business has evolved, the idea of a linear career no longer applies. In this world, we look at our life as a portfolio of experiences, that may or may not build on each other....

Sean Fahey has been an entrepreneur his whole life. He spent the last 13 years building Vidcruiter, an HR tech company that uses software and video to significantly improve the recruiting process for organizations. Sean shared his experience as an entrepreneur, the advantages and disadvantages of starting early and had plenty of helpful advice and suggestions for people who want to start their own business. KEY TAKEAWAYS [01:44] – I ask Sean to share his story and how he got there. [03:42] - Sea...

Dr. Wayne Markman is is the co-founder and CEO of SYMBYX Biome, an Australian medical technology company developing light (photobiomodulation) therapies and devices for previously intractable, chronic diseases. One of their first applications, the treatment of Parkinson's disease, has proved to be revolutionary both in its approach and results. Wayne's story is unusual, because he dropped out of a successful career in investment banking in his mid-forties returned to school in his forties to go...

Today's guest is Jim Young . My guest is my friend Jim Young, also known as The Centered Coach. Jim had a long career in tech, rising in his company until he was the president. And then, he experienced a serious burnout, that led him to a serious recalibration of his life and priorities. Now he is an executive coach, speaker and facilitator who specializes in Burnout and DEI work. His book, Expansive Intimacy: How "Tough Guys" Defeat Burnout , helps men create a roadmap for more fulfilling lives...

Tonya Montella is a coach helps women manage their career. Often, when people look for help in managing their career, it’s when they feel the need to make a change. The reality though is that to have a successful career, you need to manage it proactively at every step. Tonya had great advice covering every aspect of career management, from making sure that you thrive and are recognized at your current job, to figuring out when it is time to change, and how to go about changing your job. Key Take...

Today's guest is Zenica Chatman. Zenica was working in corporate America as a communication manager when she was the victim of a bullying episode at work. She took her own experience overcoming her situation and now she is a coach who works with women of color who have been bullied in the workplace. In our conversation, we first focused on the problem of bullying in the workplace in general. We had a very practical conversation on what people can do to address and prevent the problem. Zenica had...

Governing, running a city, a state or a country is an increasing complex job, and we need specialists who are passionate about that job if we want our society to thrive. Kim Driscoll comes very close to that ideal: she is smart, pragmatic, and she is truly following a calling. She was part of a team that turned around the city of Chelsea in Massachusetts after it entered receivership, and then went on to become mayor of Salem, an office she has held for for 16 years. Currently, she is running fo...