Raising The Bar on Leadership

Bobby Powers is a passionate learning and development director, avid reader, and writer. Reading over 70 books per year, who better than Bobby can talk about influential and essential reading for business leaders and people professionals. (Plus, Bobby and Raising the Bar on Leadership host Aaron Levy love talking about books—this episode is peek into some of their favorites.

Mia Blom, a seasoned human resource director and strategic business partner with over 20 years of experience, shares her expertise in leadership and human potential. Mia joins Raising the Bar on Leadership host Aaron Levy and discusses the importance of active listening, building trust, and creating value in workplace relationships.

Get to know a company’s products and services; dig into the culture and processes—then get to know the people. This is the insightful advice from Victoria Bethlehem, Chief People Officer at Jitjatjo. On this episode of Raising the Bar on Leadership, Victoria shares the lessons she’s learned from living in a country other than her country of origin—lessons that can be applied to professionals who work with teams in a global setting.

People will give their best efforts when they work in a company where they feel valued, recognized, and seen. That’s the perspective of Marcela Pizzi, of Atlas Renewable Energy as shared on this episode of Raising the Bar on Leadership. With over 15 years’ experience leading global companies, Marcela has some clear advice about engaging employees in a way that truly matters—and gets results. Marcela shares first-hand experience about working across different cultures and languages, and how to navigate that territory in a way that builds relationships and strong communication.

Can a culture of performance truly be cultivated? Alison Pickett, Chief People Officer at Kenect, believes it can. In her dynamic approach, Alison shares how she drives a high-performance culture in rapidly growing companies by using what she calls the 'triangle of accountability.'

Starting something is easy; sustaining it is hard. Building team habits and consistent follow-up are crucial yet challenging. How do we create a work environment where companies thrive because of their leadership, not despite it? Joining us today is Deb White, former people executive at Peloton, Nike, and Williams-Sonoma. From sales floor to L&D leader, Deb crafted Peloton's global learning strategies, excelling in large-scale facilitation and behavior change. In this episode, we explore Deb's journey and her strategies for creating sustainable change across diverse and remote environments. Discover practical steps for long-term success in leadership and talent development.

In the latest episode host Aaron Levy sat down with Vice President of Human Resources at Backstage, Stephanie Trindade. Stephanie navigated through her unexpected transition from a criminal justice career into the realm of people management, driven by her strong desire to make a positive impact on others. She emphasized the integral role that people have within organizations and highlighted the value of clear communication from senior executives to entry-level employees in understanding the company's core values and culture.

Join us as we dive into the world of virtual team building and authentic leadership with Heidi Scott, Ph.D, VP of Learning and Development at Salary.com. Discover brain-centric techniques for boosting creativity, the secrets of million-dollar meetings, and how to align project objectives with business goals. And listen as Heidi talk about the power of curiosity, humility, and servant leadership in driving peak team performance.

How can you grow confidence and encourage top performance in your company’s people? Can constructive conversations bring about true authenticity in your workforce? Tom Bromwich didn’t start off in the gaming industry, but now as the Head of People Development at Kwalee, he brings his own leadership journey to his role. On this episode of Raising the Bar on Leadership, Tom and Aaron explore how to pick up the good tactics of mentors, while developing your own leadership style. Tom explains how personal and company values are crucial to team harmony as well as how to honor the experience of more senior leaders as newer leaders are being developed.

In today's episode, David Kaus, VP of HR at Catalyte, is a human resources professional and servant leader that is passionate about increasing the effectiveness of organizations and maximizing employees’ potential. In his roles, which have ranged from his current position managing over 700 employees to an Instructional Designer, David collaborates with business leaders to create and implement strategic and tactical plans to meet company objectives and growth initiatives, develops and tracks HR metrics to identify process improvement, organizational development, and employee engagement opportunities and helps employees and managers navigate ambiguity in fast-paced and changing environments.

In this episode, we are joined by Wanda Lee Florestine, Director, Outreach (People Development/DEI) at GRID Alternatives, a nonprofit on a mission to transition to clean, renewable energy by making renewable energy technology and job training accessible to underserved communities. In addition to that powerful work, Wanda is an author and in the process of publishing her second book; if that doesn't keep her busy enough, she does DEI training & workshops in her local community.

In this episode, we welcome Barr Moses, the Co-Founder & CEO of Monte Carlo, a data reliability company and creator of the industry’s first Data Observability Platform. Barr and I discuss the importance of speed; not just speed for the sake of moving fast, but focused, intentional speed. We talk about how it’s helped her grow and scale Monte Carlo and how she’s put structures in place to help her team move at speed and take the time to reflect, reevaluate, and move forward even faster. Lastly, Barr leaves us with probably the most important nugget of all about authenticity. You’ll have to listen to the end to hear that one.

Matt is the CEO and Co-Founder of Clockwise and AI-powered scheduling app built to help teams and people make time for what matters most before Clockwise. He helped build RelateIQ, a company acquired by Salesforce for 390 million. He was previously a front-end software engineer. A civil litigator and a founder of a variety of software startups. Matt holds a BA from Dartmouth and a JD from UPenn in Philadelphia. In today's conversation, we talk about the challenge of moving from an individual contributor to a manager of people, of going from getting instant gratification to delayed gratification as you lead others, and how to best maximize your time during that transition.

On today's episode, we are joined by Aidan McCullen. Aidan is a change consultant and works with organizations to improve how they collaborate and create the environment for change. He is the Host and Founder of The Global Innovation Show, a speaker, board advisor, author, and a reinvention expert.

In today’s episode, Keturah McCottry, Director, Learning and Development at Radancy, the leading cloud-based talent acquisition software provider intelligently solving the most critical challenges for enterprises globally and delivering cost-efficient outcomes that strengthen their organizations, shares the importance of being open to change, her key tool to GSD, creating and then letting go so projects can spread their wings + more.

In today’s episode, Rod Lacey, the Chief People Officer at simPro, a private SaaS company that provides cloud-based job and project management software to those in field service and trade contracting industries, introduces the concept of fostering trust through candor as a people leader. We dive deep into the 90-second rule, how to identify a great manager, tips for leading + serving teams across a multicultural organization, 3 questions to ask yourself before making an investment as a people leader, and more.

Welcome to the Raising The Bar on Leadership Podcast! We're excited to have you joining us today as we welcome the very insightful Kelly Buchanan, CPO at Revinate, to the show. In this episode you will learn: Kelly brings 20+ years of experience to her role as Chief People Officer at Revinate, where - as a proud boomerang hire - she oversees the team’s global people and culture strategy. She is also a founding member of Chief’s San Francisco chapter - a network focused on developing female executive leaders. Kelly’s had a wide range of experience as a people leader and in this conversation we dive deep into the importance of experimentation, what it looks like on a people team and how to get initiatives off the ground faster so your business doesn’t have to wait to reap the benefits. Enjoyed this convo? Don't forget to share it with your team.

In today’s episode, Anitra St. Hilaire, the Vice President of People at ThreeFlow, a Benefits Placement Software that brokers and carriers use to maintain relationships and help employers make the best benefit decisions, introduces the concept of Responsible Transparency. We dive deep into the importance of communication and its impact on business performance and what it means to provide clarity and context in your communication.

In today’s episode, Mariah Nagy, the Head of People at Monte Carlo, a company that helps data engineers improve their data reliability and downtime, talks about how they maintain culture and connection across a global and remote team. Mariah was a college athlete turned public accountant turned seasoned people leader with 15 plus years of experience scaling high growth global companies. In this conversation, we talk about the vulnerability cycle, a one size fits one approach to employee experience, and all the other things that it takes to grow a fully remote global team.

In today’s episode, Laura Luckman Kelber, Chief Marketing Officer of Double Good, a virtual fundraising organization, selling premium popcorn to fund teams and non-profits, talks about the non-sexy stuff that builds successful teams, from stamina to deliberate practice and saying no as the core tenets of what builds successful leadership and successful companies. Laura is a strategic catalyst, a marketing wiz, a revenue accelerator, and productivity orchestrator.