The Modern People Leader

25 episodes scanned. 12% of ad slots promote the show's own products.

Recent Episodes

1. 343 - This CHRO Dismantled Recruiting. Here’s Why: Megan Barbier (CHRO, Xactly)

   Nov 3, 2026

   Megan Barbier, CHRO at Xactly, describes how she collapsed Xactly's standalone talent acquisition function into a talent engagement model, removed roles, and paired teams like enablement with engineering and customer with product. The conversation covers the mindset shift needed for employees during HR transformation, her use of the 'high slope talent' concept in team building, and how tenure, job security, and career growth look in an AI-driven, uncertain market.

2. The AI Career Track Is Coming | Live from HR Tech, Pt. 2

   Oct 30, 2026

   Recorded live at HR Tech in Las Vegas, this episode features two conversations with Gianna Driver, Chief People Officer at One Workplace, and Emlyn De Leon, Workforce Transformation Leader at USAA. Driver discusses change fatigue, explaining the reasoning behind organizational change, reframing "do more with less," and a possible new AI management career track with its own compensation structure. De Leon covers task and skills redesign around AI, measuring AI's impact on productivity, and the gap between AI adoption and AI transformation.

3. Don’t Automate a Bad Process, Obliterate It | Live from HR Tech, Pt. 1

   Oct 30, 2026

   Kiran Jalakam, a VP in HR technology, AI, and innovation, argues that organizations should redesign work rather than automate existing processes, sorting tasks into deterministic, probabilistic, and consequential decisions. He discusses using AI to support compensation and performance decisions while keeping human judgment in place, and stresses trust, governance, and AI fluency. The conversation was recorded live at HR Tech in Las Vegas and also covers the role of the CHRO as a technology partner and the idea of creating a 'kill company.' Jacob Little, who discusses AI agents and employee privacy, joins in a second conversation.

4. 341 - “80% of our Engineering Applicants Are Fake”: Inside the Candidate Fraud Crisis

   Oct 27, 2026

   Liz Bronson, Chief People Officer at Skimmer, and Sean Page, TA Manager at Propel, join hosts Stephen Huerta and Daniel to discuss rising candidate fraud in hiring. They cover AI-assisted interview cheating, fake profiles, and applicant volume that makes engineering pipelines hard to trust, along with the red flags recruiters use to catch it. The conversation also addresses the shift back toward referrals, direct sourcing, behavioral interviews, and cross-functional vigilance, including the risk of fraud extending beyond hiring.

5. 340 - How Citizens Helps Leaders Build IQ, EQ, TQ, and MQ: Susan LaMonica (CHRO, Citizens)

   Oct 23, 2026

   Susan LaMonica, CHRO of Citizens, traces her path from Chase Manhattan Bank through banking operations, HR development roles, and a five-year break before returning to Royal Bank of Scotland's Citizens unit. She discusses how Citizens rebuilt its culture and leadership after its 2014 separation from RBS and public listing, using the Organizational Health Survey to measure progress. The conversation centers on Citizens' new LQ leadership framework (IQ, TQ, EQ, MQ) and the role of adaptive leadership and learning agility.

6. 339 - When People Grow, the Company Grows: Katarina Berg (Chief People Officer, On)

   Oct 19, 2026

   Katarina Berg, Chief People Officer at On, discusses her career path from Volvo through telecom, banking, and retail to Spotify, and why she joined On. The conversation centers on her view that performance growth is more effective than performance management, that people growth drives company growth, and that learning and human skills matter as technology and work change. The episode also covers how remote and hybrid work norms have shifted since COVID.

7. 338 - How Edward Jones Builds Inclusion into Everyday Business Decisions

   Oct 14, 2026

   Vanessa Okwuraiwe, Head of Inclusion & Accessibility at Edward Jones, discusses how inclusion work has shifted from standalone programs into policy, processes, leadership behavior models, and business resource groups that influence products and client experiences. The conversation also covers serving five generations of clients, digital-first expectations for branches, purpose at the firm and individual level, and the role of human judgment and trust as AI becomes more common in financial services.

8. 337 - Who benefits from AI gains? (Andy Doyle, Chief People & Agent Officer at Kantar)

   Oct 9, 2026

   Andy Doyle, Chief People & Agent Officer at Kantar, discusses the company's agentic HR transformation, including its move to business capability hubs, AI-driven service delivery, and a policy library built for agents to read. He also outlines a four-part framework for who benefits from AI gains: clients, shareholders, employees, and society. The conversation covers how HR's role may change, the disposability of technology, and questions about pay, working time, and early-career pathways.

9. Build - Onboarding, L&D, & building in the AI era

   Oct 6, 2026

   Luca Oake and Jessica Zwaan discuss building scalable L&D and outcomes-focused onboarding programs at Talentful. They explore how AI changes the role of learning leaders, the importance of strategic project setup and clear runways for consultants, and how iteration and builder mindsets enable faster execution in people operations.

10. 335 - Why This CEO Says High Output Management No Longer Works in the AI Era

    Oct 2, 2026

    Dan Mishin, Founder & CEO of Manifest OS, discusses how his AI-native immigration law firm is rebuilding legal services for the modern era. He challenges traditional management frameworks like High Output Management as obsolete in the AI economy, describes Manifest's radical organizational structure pairing AI engineers with lawyers in one-to-one autonomous teams, and argues that immigration strategy has become a critical talent acquisition and retention lever for companies competing for elite engineers globally.