Podcasts about value creation

AI value creation is not the same as doing more work with AI. That distinction is becoming increasingly important as AI compresses the time required to build, market, analyze, and deliver products. Faster execution can create remarkable leverage, but it can also accelerate activity that was never particularly valuable in the first place. In the second part of Rob Broadhead's conversation with Scott Shagory, that tension becomes a central issue. AI is changing delivery, sales, marketing, engineering, product ownership, and financial planning simultaneously. When everything can move faster, leaders face a more difficult question than "Where can we use AI?" They must determine where value is actually created. Speed becomes leverage only when the work being accelerated contributes to an outcome that matters. About Scott Shagory Scott Shagory is the founder and CEO of the Purple Finch Group, where he helps technology CEOs navigate growth when organizational complexity begins to outpace the clarity that originally drove the business. His work focuses on identifying underlying growth constraints, clarifying where organizations create value, making implicit founder knowledge visible, and helping leaders adapt their strategy and operations as technologies such as AI reshape the business environment. Outside his business work, Shagory is a senior martial arts instructor, an experience that complements his focus on teaching and breaking complex ideas into understandable frameworks. AI Value Creation Begins With the Value Chain Shagory points to delivery, sales, and marketing as areas experiencing significant disruption. Roles are morphing and overlapping, and responsibilities that once seemed clear are becoming harder to define. What does it mean to be an engineer when AI can accelerate portions of development? Where does product ownership begin and engineering end? What should sales and marketing teams prioritize when content, research, outreach, and analysis can all be accelerated? These questions become more difficult because organizations are not simply introducing a new tool. They are changing the speed and boundaries of work across multiple functions at once. The natural response to that pressure is often to do more, but that is precisely where trouble begins. Shagory describes reacting as "the lowest form of action." When organizations feel pressure to keep up, they can launch projects without deciding what trade-offs those projects represent. Every AI initiative consumes something, whether that resource is money, attention, management capacity, employee energy, or opportunity. The systems question is therefore not simply, "Can AI perform this activity?" Instead, leaders need to ask where value is being created and whether accelerating a particular activity strengthens that value. AI Value Creation Requires Clear Trade-Offs The early AI rush encouraged experimentation at enormous speed. Teams pushed products, consumed tokens, worked weekends, and pursued the possibilities created by rapidly changing technology. Shagory describes attending conferences where leaders talked about pushing their teams to produce more and "token max," yet he rarely heard them clearly articulate what the company intended to do and, equally important, what it had deliberately decided not to do. That second decision is where strategy becomes important. AI expands the number of things a company can attempt, but it does not expand attention, capital, leadership capacity, or customer demand at the same rate. Prioritization therefore becomes more important, not less. A company might use AI for generation, categorization, development, customer analysis, or internal automation. Each application may be technically possible, but technical possibility does not mean each one deserves investment. For every proposed AI initiative, identify the customer or business outcome it should improve and what the organization is willing to deprioritize in exchange. This approach changes AI adoption from experimentation for its own sake into a portfolio of deliberate business bets. It also forces leaders to acknowledge opportunity cost. A team spending months developing one AI capability is choosing not to direct those same people, resources, and attention somewhere else. Faster development does not eliminate that trade-off. AI Value Creation Exposes Busy Work Broadhead raises an organizational problem that predates AI: people can work extremely hard without moving customer or company value forward. Employees may be busy every day, completing tasks and generating output, while producing little that materially changes an outcome. AI makes this problem more visible because it dramatically increases the amount of output a team can generate. A team can now produce more code, campaigns, prototypes, research, documents, and ideas in less time. Increasing the volume of work, however, does not prove that the organization has become more productive. It may simply mean that the organization is producing waste faster. Shagory therefore returns to what he calls the linchpins of value creation. Leaders need to understand what the organization does better than anyone else, which activities support that advantage, and where customers actually experience meaningful value. Once those elements become visible, teams have a clearer basis for deciding what deserves acceleration. AI can make an unfocused organization look extraordinarily productive because output can rise long before anyone proves that outcomes have improved. Without that clarity, teams can work at cross-purposes while every individual appears busy. Engineering can accelerate one direction while product moves toward another, and sales and marketing can generate more activity without improving the customer experience. AI does not automatically align those functions. In fact, increasing their speed can make misalignment more expensive. From AI Hype to Organizational Discernment The conversation also identifies an important change in how businesses are approaching AI. The initial phase was characterized by excitement and pressure to move. Organizations feared being left behind, and experimentation itself sometimes became evidence that a company was adapting. Shagory describes the beginning of the year as a period of "token maxing," when businesses were caught up in the excitement, power, and perceived magic of what the technology could accomplish. He now sees signs of a transition toward greater discernment. Companies are beginning to confront harder questions about what their experiments actually produced, what customers gained, which initiatives deserve continued funding, and where automation may not be the right choice. That transition matters because moving quickly up the wrong ladder still leaves the company in the wrong place. As Shagory observes, "Everyone's chasing or moving up a ladder, but it's not necessarily the right ladder." AI may allow an organization to unwind certain mistakes faster than before, but speed does not restore the months, attention, money, and employee energy consumed by a poorly chosen initiative. Shagory also points to the human cost of aggressive experimentation, describing teams working seven days a week as they attempted to keep pace with rapid technological change. That effort can eventually create exhaustion and burnout. For Shagory, employees remain an organization's most important resource, which means a strategy that accelerates technology while exhausting the people responsible for directing it is not a sustainable system. AI Value Creation Must Show Up in the Financial Model Eventually, the AI system reaches finance. As AI becomes embedded in products and operations, organizations need to understand its costs rather than treating the technology as an experimental budget with unlimited upside. Shagory discusses how companies are beginning to determine how inference costs should be measured. Leaders have to consider whether those costs should be understood at an aggregate level, individual product level, or product-channel level because each approach changes what they can see about the economics of the business. These questions matter because unpredictable AI costs can undermine budgeting and forecasting. A product that appears attractive when AI usage is inexpensive can become considerably less attractive when inference grows with adoption. Shagory notes that even a substantial variance in inference costs can create serious problems for a company because finance leaders may no longer know how to forecast what a product or project will actually cost. The underlying financial foundation matters just as much. Shagory describes AI as a spotlight that exposes areas where a business is weak, including fundamentals such as the general ledger and chart of accounts. Poor underlying data does not automatically become useful financial intelligence because an AI layer has been added. The business still needs coherent data if leadership expects technology to provide accurate insight. The more sophisticated the AI system becomes, the more important seemingly boring foundations become. Coherent financial data, meaningful metrics, and clear cost attribution help leaders distinguish genuine growth from expensive activity. Build the System Before You Accelerate It AI creates a genuine opportunity because many established assumptions are being reset. Large companies and small founders alike are reconsidering how products are built, how work is organized, and what customers will pay for. Shagory sees that disruption as a potential leveling field because organizations of different sizes are facing many of the same fundamental questions. The advantage does not automatically belong to the company that uses the most AI. It can belong to the organization that develops greater clarity about where technology creates meaningful leverage. Companies that understand what Shagory calls their "origin of genius," know where value is created, and can articulate their strategic trade-offs have something meaningful to accelerate. Companies without that clarity may simply move through confusion faster. The practical challenge is to connect the system from end to end: customer value informs strategy, strategy determines priorities, priorities shape AI investments, and those investments produce measurable costs and outcomes that inform the next decision. That creates a business system rather than a disconnected collection of AI experiments. AI Value Creation Also Requires Leadership Leverage Shagory's bonus recommendation provides a practical way for founders and executives to apply the same thinking personally: audit their time. He recommends recording where time is actually spent without immediately judging the results. A leader may intend to devote two hours to deep work and discover that the activity repeatedly consumes four or five hours. Another high-priority responsibility may continually receive less attention than expected because the executive is being pulled toward work that is interesting, familiar, or urgent. The audit matters because Shagory describes a founder as the company's "very first professional investor." Money is not the founder's only investment; time and attention are capital as well. Looking carefully at how those resources are allocated can reveal the same kind of misalignment that an organization may discover when evaluating its AI investments. The question remains consistent: Where is the resource going, and is that where it creates the greatest leverage? Conclusion: Faster Is Not the Same as Forward The most important question in AI adoption is becoming less technical. Organizations already know that AI can produce extraordinary amounts of work. The harder challenge is deciding which work deserves to exist. AI value creation begins when leaders identify the few activities that genuinely move the business, make explicit trade-offs around them, measure their economic impact, and use technology to increase leverage where it matters. AI can accelerate the conveyor belt, but leadership still has to decide what belongs on it. Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community

Your business might be profitable and still be worth less than you think. In this episode, Jason Miller and Makenzie Ragland continue their Foundations of Transition series with value creation, protection and risk awareness. They explore how business owners can begin viewing their company through the eyes of an outside buyer or ESOP trustee, focusing on what drives enterprise value, where value may be quietly leaking, and what risks could impact a future transaction. Other factors include adjusted EBITDA, management depth, customer concentration, working capital, financial reporting, key-person dependency and reputational risk. Ultimately, this episode encourages owners to identify and address potential risks before entering a transaction, while there is still time to strengthen the business, protect its value, and prepare for a successful ownership transition.

On this episode, Alex Abell, Managing Partner at RCP Advisors, explains how fund of funds investors evaluate lower middle market managers—and why fund-level benchmarking alone fails to surface which GPs are genuinely creating value. Hear how deal-level data can validate or challenge the narrative a manager pitches, why a strong return in a single deal means little without peer context and how operational metrics like entry margins and revenue CAGRs reveal whether a manager is actually improving the companies it owns.Then learn how to evaluate the operational side of a GP—from the structures firms use to deploy functional expertise across portfolio companies, to the qualitative signals that can override a strong track record.The information contained in this podcast is not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, investment advice.

Why your best team only gets noticed when everything breaks — that's the maintenance leadership trap Frank Hess and Tim Staton dig into in this episode. Together, they break down why most organizations only pay attention to maintenance teams when something fails — and why that reactive culture is a leadership failure, not a technical one.   You'll discover: Why "access to data doesn't mean you have the knowledge" Why maintenance is a long-term leadership initiative, not a two-year budget game Why value-creating teams beat cost-cutters — and how downtime and safety risk hit profit and reputation Why AI can surface insights but can't replace human judgment   Frank Hess co-founded T.A. Cook, an asset performance management consultancy later acquired by Accenture, where he led intelligent asset management globally. He's now Chairman of Vysr Performance Intelligence and author of "The Decision," a novel on the origins of operations-centered maintenance, with 30+ years advising capital-intensive industries.   Why Your Best Team Only Gets Noticed When Everything Breaks Frank argues most plants only notice maintenance "when something breaks, right? Then everyone is in trouble." Tim connects this to leadership: teams deserve real leadership everywhere, not just the boardroom. They cover redundancy ("if you have one of something, you have none of something") and planning for "software has always failure" — reliability is a leadership discipline before it's technical.   Maintenance as Value Creation, Not a Cost Block Frank makes the financial case: "reusing it and enlarging the lifecycle time of an equipment is way more profitable... than investing every three or five years in new equipment." High-performing teams avoid the profit losses of unplanned downtime and mitigate safety risks that protect stock price and reputation — yet maintenance is too often "seen as a cost block instead of a value creator," keeping organizations stuck in reactive mode. Maintenance is invisible when it's working — it's the bedrock of operational stability, from utilities to refineries.   Data Without Knowledge, and the Complexity of Decision-Making "Just because you have access to data doesn't mean you have the knowledge." Frank contrasts his early career in East Germany, where scarcity forced creative, manual repairs, with the modern approach favoring replacement over repair — introducing "black box" automation where software failures are harder to diagnose than mechanical ones. Tim and Frank flag a dangerous trend: treating maintenance as a two-year budget game leads to poor long-term asset management, and argue for empowering technicians to decide based on value, not cost-cutting.   Human Judgment and Technology Frank is clear that AI and digital tools surface useful insights but can't replace human intuition and responsibility. Leaders must build environments where technology supports judgment instead of replacing it — people still evaluate recommendations and prioritize safety and long-term reliability over quick fixes. Perfect for plant managers, operations and reliability leaders, maintenance engineers, and any executive who wants to understand why equipment health is a leadership issue, not just technical. Subscribe to Tim Stating the Obvious for more interviews with executives and leaders turning hard-won experience into practical, everyday leadership lessons.   Connect with Frank Hess: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-uwe-hess Book "The Decision" (get it on Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2QWP25D Vysr Performance Intelligence: https://vysr.io   Connect With Tim: Website: https://timstatingtheobvious.com Professional Reading List: https://timstatingtheobvious.com/products Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/timstatingtheobvious YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHfDcITKUdniO8R3RP0lvdw Instagram: @TimStating TikTok: @timstatingtheobvious LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-staton-04b41a271/ SKOOL Community: https://www.skool.com/timstatingtheobvious-9537/about

I want you to understand the system you're operating in before you decide how much effort to put into it. Closed systems have fixed rules and rewards, while open systems reward initiative and value creation. If you use the wrong strategy for the system you're in, you're going to create frustration and may never understand why you're not getting the results you expect. Show Notes: [01:26]#1 Closed Systems Have Fixed Rules and Fixed Rewards [09:06]#2 Open Systems Reward Initiative and Value Creation [17:24]#3 Using the Wrong Strategy Creates Frustration [19:20] Recap Next Steps: --- Execution is not a talent.   It is a standard. If your results don't match your ability, something in your approach is out of alignment. Most people do not have a motivation problem.   They have a consistency problem. Power Presence is the system for operating with greater discipline, clarity, structure, and execution under pressure. Learn more: → http://www.PowerPresenceProtocol.com  Know what to do but not always doing it?  Measure your execution at → http://RateMyExecution.com. Get Dre's free Daily Game email at http://WorkOnMyGame.com. Every day you'll receive one practical lesson on leadership, mindset, discipline, and execution to help you perform at a higher level. No fluff. Just game

Jon Haas, Managing Director of Portfolio Transformation at Clarion Capital, joins Sean Mooney to discuss how private equity value creation has evolved from a differentiator into the core of the business. He shares Clarion's approach to founder-led companies, operational improvement, digital transformation, AI, and the balance between standardized playbooks and customized support. Jon also explains why firms need to distinguish between a broken thesis and a difficult period, and why intelligent risk-taking still matters in an industry under pressure to avoid downside. This is a thoughtful conversation on conviction, adaptability, and building better companies after the deal closes—hit play. Episode Highlights 2:00 - Early exposure to private equity through family connections and portfolio company boards 3:39 - A nonlinear path through consulting, banking, and Clarion's early days 6:49 - Building Clarion after IMAX disruption changed the original fundraising plan 13:15 - A collections investment tests Clarion's conviction through COVID and leadership change 20:38 - Why value creation has become the business of private equity 22:03 - Clarion's eight focus areas for portfolio transformation and value creation 27:24 - The tension between LP expectations, downside protection, and differentiated returns 33:10 - Jon's book recommendation and the lesson behind intelligent risk-taking

Not all performance creates value, and not all motion deserves to be rewarded.In this episode of The Executive Compensation Podcast, Virginia Rhodes, Ryan Harvey, and Darren Moskovitz examine one of the most important distinctions in incentive design: the difference between activities that look productive and outcomes that actually create durable business value.The conversation explores why companies often default to measures that are easy to track, how activity-based goals can create the appearance of rigor, and when strategic milestones may still deserve a place in an incentive plan. The hosts also discuss leading versus lagging indicators, delayed outcomes, transformation periods, market practice, disclosure pressure, and the role of committee judgment when value cannot be measured neatly.For compensation committees, the challenge is not simply choosing measurable goals. It is determining whether the plan rewards what management completed or what the business actually gained.In this episode, you will learn:How to distinguish management activity from meaningful value creationWhy easily measured goals are not always the most important goalsWhen activity-based measures may still be appropriateHow boards should evaluate delayed or long-term outcomesWhy leading indicators may become more useful as data capabilities improveHow market practice should inform incentive design without controlling itWhat committees should ask before rewarding progress rather than resultsThe strongest incentive plans do not reward movement for its own sake. They reward the outcomes that matter.

Sangeet Paul Choudary is the Founder of Platform Thinking Labs. In this episode, Sangeet joins the podcast to explore how AI is reshaping knowledge work, organizational structures, and the way businesses create value. He explains why the biggest impact of AI may not be automation, but coordination, why most conventional explanations of Jevon's paradox are off,  and why leaders need to think beyond individual tasks to understand how entire systems and workflows are being redesigned. Finally, also discusses the changing relationship between humans and AI, the risks of knowledge work becoming commoditized, and why organizations need to focus on where value is moving rather than simply what AI can automate. LinksSangeet's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sangeetpaul/Sangeet's Substack: https://platforms.substack.com/

The following article of the Infrastructure industry is: “ESG and Corporate Prestige: The New Currency of Value Creation” by Jorge Humberto Lezama Brito, Vice President, Finance and Controlling, T-Systems Mexico.

The following article of the Professional Services industry is: “The Value Creation Imperative With AI” by Philipp Haugwitz, Partner, McKinsey & Company. (AA1584)

" Value is not always profit; it's the outcome the organisation is designed, funded, trusted or judged to produce. And if your track record aligns to that, the more valuable you become." Chief, in today's Minisode I run you through the various ways organisations create value for their various stakeholders. In today's world, I believe that many have become distracted from the  actual core role of being a Chief, which is to create value and to protect value, depending on the kind of organisation you work for. Today, I walk you through the above and why understanding it is so important for your career momentum - whether as an owner, founder, leader, board member or shareholder.

In this episode, we speak with Alex Venino, Managing Director, and Spencer Miles, Technology Operating Partner, at Corsair Capital, a specialist investment firm with approximately $14.6 billion invested across Buyouts and Infrastructure. Founded as a J.P. Morgan private equity practice in 1992 before becoming an independent, partner-owned firm in 2006, Corsair specializes in control buyouts in the payments, software, and business services sectors, alongside value-added infrastructure investments. Alex joined Corsair in 2018 and is a member of the firm's Investment Team, serving on the boards of portfolio companies Spring Venture Group and HungerRush. Spencer works closely with portfolio companies on technology transformation, AI adoption, and operational value creation, drawing on more than 25 years of software engineering and technology leadership experience. I am your host, RJ Lumba. We hope you enjoy the show. If you like the episode, click to follow.

In this episode of the Grow Your Wealth podcast, host Travis Miller sits down with Michael Blythe, an economist with more than 30 years' experience shaping economic policy and analysing financial markets across Australia. Michael shares his career journey - graduating from the University of Sydney and spending 13 years at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to his long-standing role as Chief Economist at Commonwealth Bank and his current position as an independent economist. He reflects on navigating economic shocks like the GFC, earning the title of CBA's "resident optimist," and how data-driven insights and big-picture flexibility help navigate changing market cycles. Michael also unpacks the current interest rate and inflation landscape, property market pressures, key mentors who shaped his approach, tips for building long-term wealth, and life outside the markets. This episode is packed with practical wisdom for investors, business leaders, and anyone looking to understand the macro forces driving the Australian economy. – Career Overview: Michael Blythe's 30+ Years Across the RBA and CBA – Becoming an Independent Economist and Partnering with iPartners – The RBA Pipeline: How Economics Graduate Paths Have Evolved – Foundational Lessons from Working with Australia's Top Economists at the RBA – Macro Outlook: Interest Rates, Inflation, Oil Prices, and the Australian Consumer – Influential Mentors: From High School Maths to Glenn Stevens and David Murray – The Chief Economist's Role: Pitching to Clients, Handling Stress, and Independent Thinking – Pivotal Career Moments: Moving to CBA and Being the "Resident Optimist" During the GFC – What Drives Success: Client Feedback, Value Creation, and Stress-Testing Big Ideas – Career Advice for Aspiring Economists and the Rise of Double Degrees – Managing Bumps in the Road: Black Swan Events, Confirmation Bias, and Forecasting – Big-Picture Flexibility, High-Frequency Data, and Banking Data Insights – Defining Career Success: Calling Economic Resilience and Client Relationships – Property Market Reality Check: Rate Hikes, Supply Shortages, Diesel Costs, and First-Home Investors – Quickfire Questions: First Jobs, Share Buying Lessons, Wealth Creation, and Walking Sutherland Shire – Closing Remarks and Connecting with Michael Blythe Grow Your Wealth Podcast Website: https://www.ipartnerspodcast.com.au iPartners Website: https://www.ipartners.com.au Register Here: https://ipartners.iplatforms.com.au/register/register-as-wholesale/ iPartners LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ipartners-pty-ltd

.entry-img img{ display:none !important; } .single .hentry .entry-img{ display:none !important; } https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ZGZXsiAU9uEVPsIAGbSUj AI is now embedded in almost every corner of the finance function, powering forecasts, reports, and board-ready insights at unprecedented speed. Yet when powerful systems are plugged into weak data, broken processes, or poor governance, they don't just make mistakes, they do it with absolute confidence and immense credibility. For CFOs, the real risk isn't that AI is wrong; it's that it looks so right no one stops to question it. In this GrowCFO Show episode, Kevin Appleby speaks with Don Rogers, Managing Partner & Founder of Invictus Global Advisors, LLC, to explore how AI can mislead finance teams with highly convincing but incorrect outputs, and what CFOs must do to protect decision-making. Rogers explains that while AI has reignited interest in finance transformation, many CFOs are layering powerful AI tools onto broken operating models and poor-quality data. The result is not better insight, but faster, more polished versions of the same flawed information, sometimes delivered with total confidence, yet fundamentally wrong. He stresses that without strong governance, data enablement, and process discipline, AI will amplify dysfunction rather than cure it. Rogers positions AI as a catalyst that forces CFOs to rethink the strategic finance operating model, not a magic fix. He introduces a 10-component model spanning strategy, talent activation, service delivery, process optimization, governance, data, digital and AI, insights and analytics, constituent experience, and benefits realization. Throughout the conversation, he illustrates how weak change management, undocumented processes, and poor culture (e.g., fear of “red” status) cause transformations to miss their promised benefits, even when the technology works. His message is clear: AI can unlock the long-promised vision of finance as a true strategic advisor, but only if CFOs fix their operating model, embed strong governance, and keep “humans in the loop” to challenge and validate AI outputs. Key topics covered: Don explains how AI, when layered on top of a broken finance operating model and poor data governance, will “amplify the dysfunction” and produce confidently wrong answers instead of better insight. He shares a real client example where the same AI prompts produced two completely different board reports, underscoring the risks of hallucinations, model drift, and weak governance in AI-led reporting. Rogers introduces his Strategic Finance Operating Model with 10 components, showing CFOs how to connect corporate strategy, talent, processes, data, AI, and benefits realization into one coherent blueprint. The discussion highlights sobering transformation statistics (e.g., high failure and dissatisfaction rates) and links them directly to poor change management, cultural resistance, and cutting “change” from budgets first. Don stresses the need for a new apprenticeship model in finance: young professionals must learn AI, data, and tools, while experienced leaders focus on change enablement, strategic storytelling, and constituent experience. The conversation explores the evolution from bespoke AI to generative and agentic AI, and why CFOs must demand strong guardrails, governance, and documented processes before trusting AI in core finance tasks like journal entries. Links Don Rogers on LinkedIn Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn GrowCFO Mentoring Timestamps:  0:02:21 – AI, changing expectations of CFOs, and why layering AI on a broken model only “amplifies the dysfunction.” 0:04:46 – Don's story of a CFO getting two different AI-generated board reports from the same prompts, and the risks of hallucination, drift, and bad data.  0:06:13 – How young professionals must learn AI, data, and tools, while senior leaders become change catalysts and keep “humans in the loop.” [episode296] 0:11:39 – Why 50% of transformations never get off the ground and ~70–80% fail to deliver expected benefits; Don links this directly to change management and human behavior, not technology. 0:17:32 – The importance of tracking outcomes and benefits: business cases are created, funded, then forgotten, driving the gap between promised and realized value. 0:20:23 – Culture, governance, and the “green-to-red” effect: why everything looks green until a project suddenly turns red, and how fear and blame stop early escalation. 0:22:41 – Don outlines the Strategic Finance Operating Model components (strategy, talent activation, service delivery, process optimization, governance, data enablement, digital & AI, insights & analytics, constituent experience, outcomes & benefits). 0:23:39 – Evolution of AI in finance: from bespoke models to embedded generative AI in ERPs and point solutions, and now to agentic AI acting on goals, not just instructions.  0:28:27 – Agentic AI and governance: Don's epilogue on corporate and government responsibility for guardrails, and why AI is still only as good as the instructions and constraints given. 0:32:16 – Journal entry example: a client's agentic AI project hits a 96% fail rate because underlying code-block rules weren't built into the model. 0:33:33 – The hidden risk: critical business processes exist only in people's heads, never documented, leaving AI with no reliable instructions to follow. 0:35:04 – Deeper dive into the 10 components and how to prioritize projects when organizations can only handle 5–7 major initiatives at a time. 0:39:59 – Don's upcoming book: “Building the Strategic Finance Operating Model: The CFO's Blueprint for Value Creation in the Age of AI” and its practical, conversational style. Find out more about GrowCFO If you enjoyed this podcast, you can subscribe to the GrowCFO Show with your favorite podcast app. The GrowCFO show is listed in the Apple podcast directory, Spotify and many others. Why not subscribe there today? That way, you never miss an episode. GrowCFO is a great place to extend your professional network. Join GrowCFO as a free member today and participate in our regular networking events and webinars. Premium members can also access our extensive training center and CFO Digital Toolkit. You can enroll in our flagship Future CFO or Finance Leader programs here. You can find out more and join today at growcfo.net

In this powerful and thought-provoking podcast, Jerold breaks down one of the biggest myths about wealth: the idea that you have to be an athlete, entertainer, or celebrity to become financially successful. He explains how true billionaires build wealth through ownership, business, branding, and value creation, not just talent or fame. Using examples from some of the world's most successful public figures, Jerold reveals how the real money is made behind the scenes through systems, investments, partnerships, and personal branding. This episode also dives deep into emotional discipline, protecting your reputation, and understanding the importance of building a name people trust and respect. Jerold challenges listeners to stop chasing attention and start focusing on ownership, leverage, and creating value for larger groups of people. If you are serious about building long-term wealth, protecting your peace, and developing a mindset focused on growth and freedom, this podcast will inspire you to think bigger and move differently.Check us out -  Instagram and Twitter: JeroldJax Facebook:  Jerold Action Jackson and Zone Of ActionJeroldJackson.comHappiness starts with you. Not with your relationship, not with your job, not with your money, but with you in the Zone of Action.

Most AI conversations begin with productivity. Joanna Pachnik thinks that's the wrong place to start. In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Joanna Pachnik, founder of Blueclip, about why AI is changing far more than the speed of work. It's changing how businesses create value, what customers are willing to pay for, and what competitive advantage will look like over the next decade. Drawing on her experience leading global supply chain transformation projects at Ernst & Young and Mars before founding Blueclip, Joanna argues that knowledge is becoming increasingly accessible through AI. Research, analysis and reports that once took weeks and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars can now be produced in hours. That doesn't eliminate the need for expertise. It changes what expertise is worth. Rather than paying for information alone, organizations increasingly want implementation, measurable outcomes and practical experience that AI cannot easily replicate. Joanna explains why unique industry knowledge, benchmarking, practical experience and genuine human relationships may become more valuable as AI becomes more capable. We also discuss why so many enterprise AI initiatives struggle to deliver meaningful results. Joanna believes the technology is rarely the biggest obstacle. The real problem is poor data, undocumented processes and organizations trying to automate before building the foundations AI depends upon. Her advice is simple: prepare your data, document your processes, create a company knowledge layer, then introduce AI one use case at a time. The conversation also explores why AI should be viewed as a business transformation initiative rather than an automation project. Instead of accelerating existing processes, companies should ask whether those processes should exist at all. AI creates an opportunity to redesign how organizations operate, continuously improve decision-making and move people toward higher-value work. We also examine the importance of human oversight. Joanna believes AI should begin with people reviewing and guiding its outputs before gradually taking on more responsibility in carefully selected scenarios. Human accountability remains essential, particularly when AI supports material business decisions. For business leaders navigating AI strategy, digital transformation and enterprise innovation, this conversation offers practical advice on creating long-term value instead of chasing short-term AI hype. It explains why the companies that succeed will not necessarily be those using the most AI, but those prepared to rethink how they create value, organize knowledge and redesign their businesses around new possibilities. The future belongs to organizations that see AI as more than another productivity tool. It belongs to those willing to transform how they work, how they serve customers and how they create lasting business value.

Most acquisitions look strong on paper. The real challenge begins after the deal closes.In this episode of The Authority Company Podcast, Joe Pardavila sits down with J. Michael Coffey, author of G.A.L.E. Force: Navigating Strategy, Culture, and Value Creation in Modern M&A, to explore why so many mergers and acquisitions fail to meet expectations, and why culture often becomes the biggest obstacle after closing.Michael shares lessons from helping H.E. Parts acquire 14 companies, expand into seven countries, and eventually become part of Hitachi. He explains the principle behind his G.A.L.E. Force framework: global aim, local execution.Joe and Michael discuss the evolution of private equity, the rise of growth through acquisition, the hidden complexity of post-merger integration, and why financial projections often miss the human realities that determine whether a deal succeeds.Michael also shares stories from Chile, global mining operations, competing against industry giants like Caterpillar and Komatsu, and what it feels like to move from acquirer to acquiree.If you're a CEO, founder, investor, private equity leader, operator, or executive involved in M&A, this conversation offers a practical look at how companies can create lasting value after the deal is done.Chapters00:00 Intro00:43 Buffalo Bills vs. Jets01:00 How private equity changed M&A02:55 Why the book opens in Chile03:10 Building H.E. Parts as a David vs. Goliath story04:13 Why mining operations never stop05:10 Why global customers needed H.E. Parts in multiple markets06:21 Expanding into Australia, Chile, Peru, Canada, the U.S., and Zambia07:00 Competing against OEM giants like Caterpillar and Komatsu08:24 The power of being small and agile08:53 Is mining still the Wild West?10:07 Centralized ownership vs. decentralized operations10:26 What “global aim, local execution” means12:49 Why customers wanted an alternative solution13:44 Why culture is the nemesis of modern M&A14:02 How global and local cultures clash after acquisitions15:37 Why you can't force one culture on another16:28 Innovation as a shared cultural principle18:00 The Chile soccer story19:23 Turning local culture into a business advantage20:47 Why culture gets ignored during dealmaking21:36 Why culture ranks low before close and first after close23:04 Why many deals miss their financial goals23:29 The “hockey stick” problem in projections25:00 How G.A.L.E. Force improves post-close success26:16 Moving from acquirer to acquiree26:43 Why leaving H.E. Parts was emotionally difficult28:24 When founders struggle with the decision to sell29:39 Where to find G.A.L.E. Force29:51 Closing

Subhro Mallik and Vikram Mahidhar explore how AI is reshaping private equity, transforming talent strategies, and driving value creation. They also discuss the future of services, investing, and AI-powered business transformation.

Andrew Morbitzer, VP of Corporate Development, Life360 (ASX: 360) Your standard teaser tells a buyer everything about your company and nothing about why you fit their strategy right now. When sellers expect the buyer to figure out that alignment, the deal dies on the desk. Andrew Morbitzer has led more than $2 billion in acquisitions at Intuit and GoDaddy, worked on the sell-side as an M&A advisor, and returned to the buy-side as VP of Corporate Development at Life360. What You'll Learn Why do corp dev teams default to no on inbound deals before the first conversation How banker incentives and buyer incentives point in opposite directions How to research a buyer's strategy and priorities using only public information What a realistic projection signals to a corp dev leader versus what a hockey stick signals How to apply Buyer-Led M&A™ thinking from the sell side If you're advising on deals and want a framework for how buyers actually evaluate fit, DealPilot, powered by M&A Science, has Buyer-Led M&A™ frameworks to help you pitch into the buyer's strategy instead of handing them a data sheet. ____________________ This episode of M&A Science is presented by DealRoom. DealRoom just launched the only MCP server built for Buyer-Led M&A™ — so your AI and your deal data finally work together. Connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Copilot directly to DealRoom and let your AI read your pipeline, analyze due diligence documents, and automatically write findings back.  See for yourself: dealroom.net/mcp ____________________ Episode Chapters [00:00] Introduction [07:12] Why Inbound Deals Rarely Fit [09:40] Rationalization Over Strategy [10:01] The Inbound Problem Is Not Just About Bankers [15:43] When a Bank Actually Does the Work [18:12] The Banker's Incentive Problem [20:51] How to Actually Land the Pitch [22:12] Cash Flow and Finance Partnership [24:53] First-Hand Research on the Buyer [29:42] How Detailed to Get on Value Creation [34:30] What a Misaligned Banker Actually Costs You [37:50] Cold Outreach vs. Warm Relationships [40:45] Moves That Accelerate Trust [43:07] Applying Buyer-Led M&A on the Sell Side [42:48] The Year One Mistake That Bit Us [46:12] Assessing Culture Fit Before Close

How Sloan is Aligning its Teams, Tools and Strategy to Drive Profitable Growth Parthiv Amin of Sloan shares how the company is creating profitable growth by taking a more customer-centric approach across the entire value chain. From specifiers and designers to contractors, wholesalers and facilities teams, Sloan has built a strategy that helps the right people make the right decisions at the right time. Parthiv shares with Alexander Group Partner Kyle Uebelhor how Sloan brings sales, marketing, customer experience and product leadership together under one umbrella to create positive competitive tension and better business outcomes. The team is improving efficiency while driving top-line growth and EBITDA. Listen for the full discussion.

Sean Mooney, Founder and CEO of BluWave, breaks down BluWave's Q2 2026 Private Equity Insights Report and what it signals for the second half of the year. He explains why renewed geopolitical volatility stalled due diligence to an all-time low, how PE firms responded by pushing value creation to a record 84% of activity, and why AI advisory demand continues to surge across the industry. Sean also revisits BluWave's 2026 predictions on deal flow, growth, software selection, industrialization, and the widening gap between AI adopters and laggards. For PE leaders deciding where to place their bets this year, it's the quarter's playbook in one sitting — press play. Episode Highlights 1:08 – Why BluWave's project data mirrors where private equity is actually spending time 3:45 – Geopolitical disruption stalls new deal activity for the second straight year 5:51 – Due diligence drops to 16% as value creation hits an all-time high 6:30 – AI advisory services surge 193% year over year in PE 7:20 – Reading the macro backdrop: manufacturing PMI, tight credit spreads, and a resilient consumer 13:10 – Why extended holds are driving a surge in interim, PE-grade executives 23:31 – The case for adopting AI now, before the gap between winners and laggards widens For more on BluWave, visit: https://www.bluwave.net/ To request the full Q2 2026 Insights Report, visit: https://bluwave.net/resources/insights-report

Summary In this episode, Dr. Noah St. John discusses how understanding the caveman brain can unlock success in sales, leadership, and personal growth. He shares practical tools like the caveman calculator and quiz, and emphasizes the importance of taming the caveman in the age of AI. Key Topics The caveman brain and its impact on decision-making AI's role in transforming customer experience Tools like the caveman calculator and quiz The importance of taming the caveman, not fighting it Inner game vs. outer game in success The role of mindset in leveraging AI effectively Case studies of clients who increased revenue by taming their caveman brain The concept of invisible costs and how to measure them Practical steps to improve conversion rates and revenue The future of AI and human collaboration in business Takeaways Most people are unaware of how their caveman brain sabotages their success. AI is a magnifier; it can amplify both good and bad habits. Taming the caveman brain is essential for maximizing AI's potential. Understanding your caveman type can provide insights into your behavior. Focusing on conversions rather than just leads drives revenue growth. The 'invisible brake' often prevents people from reaching their goals. Practical tools like the caveman calculator can reveal hidden costs. Success involves mastering both inner and outer game. AI is a powerful tool, but human insight and mindset are crucial. Changing core beliefs can lead to significant financial and personal breakthroughs. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Augmented Intelligence 01:34 The Impact of AI on Customer Experience 04:10 Understanding the Caveman Brain 11:31 Taming the Caveman for Success 15:04 The Importance of Completing Your Past 17:53 Inner Game vs. Outer Game in AI 21:50 The Shift in Mindset for Value Creation 27:25 Conversions: The Key to Revenue 30:37 Next Steps with Dr. Noah St. John The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.

In this episode we seek to Louise Porteus, ESG Manager at Thor Explorations, a TSX-V & AIM listed gold producer and explorer focused on West Africa with operations and exploration assets in Nigeria, Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire We explore how environmental, social and governance practices have evolved from a compliance function into a key driver of value creation in the mining industry. Louise reflects on the pivotal moments in her career, discusses how ESG expectations differ across jurisdictions, shares how Thor Explorations is leading by example, and offers her perspective on the future of ESG over the next decade.  We also discuss her work supporting Women in Mining and hear her advice for anyone looking to build a career in international ESG and the mining sector. This episode is brought to you by Mining International, a global executive search partner to the mining industry. For bespoke search and advisory services, please visit www.mining-international.org KEY TAKEAWAYS ESG has successfully shifted from a rigid box-ticking exercise into a core driver of long-term value creation and operational viability in the mining industry. True project stability relies on integrating local community dynamics and cultural governance into decision-making rather than just depending on written local legislation. Implementing ESG successfully requires a practical, step-by-step approach to data gathering that builds local trust and capacity, rather than overwhelming teams with massive theoretical toolkits. Advancing women in the mining sector involves moving past token representation and actively training them for hands-on, technical roles that fundamentally transform lives. BEST MOMENTS "Most projects didn't fail because of technical reasons, they failed because of social." "There's a better understanding that it's not a tick-box, it's not just a spreadsheet, it's actually people that have to put the work behind it and do it." "I've been emphatic about bringing what I call cultural governance into our decision-making." "It's not just what you did, but so what? What did that mean? What did that lead to? Did it give more confidence to people?" VALUABLE RESOURCES Mail:        ⁠rob@mining-international.org⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-tyson-3a26a68/⁠ X:              ⁠https://twitter.com/MiningRobTyson⁠  YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/DigDeepTheMiningPodcast⁠  Web:        ⁠http://www.mining-international.org⁠ GUEST RESOURCES https://www.linkedin.com/company/thor-explorations-ltd/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/louise-porteus-65b2801/ Website: https://thorexpl.com/ Email Address: lporteus@thorexpl.com thorexplorations@yellowjerseypr.com CONTACT METHOD ⁠rob@mining-international.org⁠ ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-tyson-3a26a68/⁠ Podcast Description Rob Tyson is an established recruiter in the mining and quarrying sector and decided to produce the “Dig Deep” The Mining Podcast to provide valuable and informative content around the mining industry. He has a passion and desire to promote the industry and the podcast aims to offer the mining community an insight into people's experiences and careers covering any mining discipline, giving the listeners helpful advice and guidance on industry topics.  This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Welcome to the Summer Leadership Reset on Partnering Leadership.We have more access to ideas than ever before.More books. More podcasts. More articles. More insights.The challenge isn't finding more information. It's spending enough time with the ideas that can change how we think, decide, and lead.I have seen this in my own life. The books and conversations that have influenced me most aren't the ones I rushed through and moved on from. They are the ones I returned to, wrestled with, and understood differently as my own experiences changed.After more than 450 Partnering Leadership conversations with CEOs, researchers, authors, and leadership thinkers, there are a few I continue coming back to because the ideas become more valuable the more we sit with them.Throughout July and August, I'll be sharing 10 of those conversations.They explore some of the questions I see leaders wrestling with most: adapting to change, building trust, making better decisions, rethinking work, using AI wisely, and creating organizations ready for what comes next.Whether you are listening for the first time or revisiting these conversations, I hope they help you find an insight you can apply and a question worth thinking about long after the episode ends.—MahanConnect with Mahan Tavakoli:Mahan Tavakoli Website Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn Partnering Leadership Website

Serge Younes is Global Head of Sustainability at Invest Industrial. With a PhD in renewable energy and decades of experience in both consulting and private equity, he brings a technical and commercial grounding that shapes how he works with portfolio companies. In this episode, he joins Jenn to talk about what it actually takes to make sustainability land in a business and what the head of sustainability role might look like in ten years' time.Useful Links:Follow Serge on LinkedIn hereFind out more about Invest Industrial hereRead Serge's book recommendation: The Invention of Nature by Andrea WulfClick here for the episode web page. This episode is also available on YouTube.For more insights straight to your inbox subscribe to the Future in Sight newsletter, and follow us on LinkedInThis podcast is brought to you by Re:Co, a tech-powered advisory company helping private market investors pursue sustainability objectives and value creation in tandem. Produced by Chris AttawayArtwork by Harriet RichardsonMusic by Cody Martin

In this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, host Stewart Alsop sits down with Violeta Bulc, former European Commissioner for Transport and coordinator of the book Leadership Challenged, featuring 24 authors from around the world. They explore the dangers of transhumanism, the misuse of artificial intelligence, and how Silicon Valley has lost its authority to lead on technology ethics. Drawing from her background as a computer engineer who worked in Silicon Valley, Bulc argues for creating global AI infrastructure with democratically agreed-upon standards—similar to how the early Internet was built. The conversation covers the manipulation of public consciousness, the importance of middle-class agency in social change, and why humanity needs to reclaim ownership of its collective knowledge before private enterprises consolidate total control. Bulc's book is available for free download at ecocivilization.earth.Timestamps00:00 Stewart introduces Violeta Bulc and her book Leadership Challenged, coordinated with 24 global authors discussing humanity's chance through better leadership approaches.05:00 Violeta explains her technology background and critiques artificial intelligence naming, arguing these are powerful data-processing tools without true intelligence, emphasizing unknown ethical standards embedded in AI systems.10:00 Discussion of transhumanism as investment buzzword serving elite agendas, comparing to previous Silicon Valley bubble while emphasizing humanity's unexplored relational, spiritual and energetic dimensions beyond industrial development.15:00 Stewart discusses mainstream culture's fragmentation since 2008, Silicon Valley's dystopian vision, and personal strategies for reducing dependency on AI tools through diversification and stepping back from reliance.20:00 Violeta explains historical civilization patterns and middle class destruction, expressing hope that emerging thoughts worldwide will eventually converge to shift current power dynamics and technological obsessions.25:00 Technology as tool versus misuse, emphasizing builders' responsibility and ethical frameworks needed, comparing AI regulation needs to automotive safety standards that weren't implemented early enough.30:00 Edward Bernays discussion revealing manipulation through public relations and psychological operations, leading to modern sock puppet armies used by nation states for narrative control online.35:00 Internet described as most democratic technological tool ever built, maintained by responsible groups preserving equality and inclusion principles through decentralized infrastructure and IP address accessibility.40:00 Proposal for global AI infrastructure with agreed rules treating applications as interfaces, questioning private enterprise ownership of humanity-generated data and advocating collective management with usage fees.45:00 Technology evolution patterns from mainframes to personal computing back to centralized cloud computing, emphasizing need to prevent domination while preserving entrepreneurship and collective decision rights.50:00 Quantum physics principles applied to human connection and responsibility, discussing EU ethical committees reviewing AI projects post-approval, emphasizing caring hearts over short-term quarterly corporate thinking.55:00 Violeta shares company transformation experiences moving away from competition models toward serving genuine market needs, concluding with book availability at ecocivilization.earth for free download.Key Insights1. Violeta Bulc argues that artificial intelligence is fundamentally misnamed because there is no actual intelligence within these systems. They are powerful computational tools capable of processing massive amounts of data and identifying patterns, but they lack genuine intelligence. What concerns her most is that this technology has owners with embedded interests and unknown ethical standards, yet society increasingly wants to build everything on these applications and even allow them to make decisions for us. She emphasizes that as someone with decades of experience in high-tech engineering, including work in Silicon Valley, she understands the architecture behind these systems and believes we must recognize them as tools rather than intelligent entities.2. During her time as European Commissioner, Bulc helped write the first European strategy on artificial intelligence, which included three critical elements she was proud of. First, there must always be a red button to switch off any application or technology when it causes harm. Second, there must be a responsible person behind every app who can be held accountable for its consequences. Third, there should be an ethical committee evaluating powerful applications to understand their potential consequences. Though these principles have been somewhat diluted over time, they represent an important framework for responsible technology development that prioritizes human oversight and accountability.3. Bulc observes that throughout human history, great civilizations have risen across all continents, not just in Europe or the Americas, and most brought themselves down through decadence, self-centeredness, and arrogance before being finished off by external forces. She believes Western civilization is currently at this point, having become accustomed to obtaining resources through force and authority while constantly readjusting moral standards to serve elite interests. The industrial revolution initially improved conditions for people because industry needed workers, which led to the emergence of a powerful middle class. However, the elite recognized that the middle class was the only segment of society truly interested in change, so they systematically worked to destroy it over the past twenty to thirty years.4. The Internet represents the most progressive democratic tool ever built in human society, according to Bulc. Its fundamental architecture, based on TCP IP protocol and packet switching, was designed to be non-hierarchical, allowing any computer with an IP address to be seen on the same level as powerful global corporations. The maintenance of Internet tables remains in the hands of people with high levels of awareness and responsibility who are faithful to its initial democratic mission. She had hoped this technology would bring the world together as the closest tool humanity has invented to support equality and inclusion, and despite the problems with applications built on top of it, the underlying infrastructure still maintains these democratic principles.5. Bulc proposes creating a global AI infrastructure with globally agreed rules and standards, similar to how the Internet functions. She argues that many AI tools currently claim ownership of humanity's knowledge, wisdom, and heritage without permission, manipulating data that rightfully belongs to all of humanity. Instead of allowing private enterprises to capture this data first and then charge people to access it, she envisions putting all of humanity's data into a commonly managed infrastructure with clear rules about who can use it, under what conditions, and with fees paid back to humanity. This approach would challenge the current fragmented network of privately owned data centers and restore collective ownership of human knowledge.6. The transhumanism movement represents an obsession rather than a thoughtful application of technology, in Bulc's view. She distinguishes between using transhumanism as a tool for exploring the universe under extreme conditions where humans cannot survive versus implementing it on Earth as a replacement for humanity. The fundamental problem is that the human characters building these machines and applications have questionable ethical models, and they will not allow the rest of humanity to coexist peacefully on the planet. She advocates for transhumanism to be used for space exploration while preserving Earth for humans who want to live as relational, spiritual, and social beings connected to the natural ecosystem.7. Bulc emphasizes that we must move beyond the competition model and think carefully about the consequences of our actions because humanity is too connected and interdependent to simply do things because we can. She applies three basic laws of quantum physics to everyday life: we are all connected and influence each other, the same ideas can emerge simultaneously around the world through entanglement, and the observer always makes a difference in any situation. The current rush to develop technology without pausing to assess consequences is a deliberate tool to prevent thinking, driven by fear of competition. However, her fourteen years of experience helping companies recover from financial trouble demonstrated that moving away from competition models and focusing on genuinely serving market needs creates sustainable, prominent players who work together with customers and local communities.

Everyone has a theory for fixing American soccer after the World Cup exit. Parents. Pundits. Ex-players. Talking heads on every panel. All-star teams. Corporate-backed academies. Pro/rel. I've heard them all — and I used to nod along too.Then I ran them through a framework I built to test whether an idea actually creates value, or just sounds good while moving money around.What I found changed how I look at every "solution" being pitched for US soccer right now. I break it all down in this episode — and I don't think you'll hear these ideas the same way again.

Summary In this episode, Andy sits down with Attia Qureshi, a coach and negotiation expert who is co-author, with John Richardson, of Never Settle. There's no shortage of great negotiation advice out there, yet in real conversations with real stakes and real emotions, that advice often fails to turn into action. This book tackles that gap between insight and habit. Attia shares why emotions are not a distraction from negotiation but central to it, why getting clear about what you actually want is harder than it sounds, and how we leave value on the table without realizing it. You'll hear practical stories, from resetting a difficult relationship with a glass of lemonade to expanding the pie in a salary negotiation, plus small daily exercises for building resilience to rejection and learning to say no in a way that strengthens relationships rather than damaging them. If you're looking for practical, doable ways to become a more confident negotiator and influencer, this episode is for you! Sound Bites "You can get more by caring about what the other person needs and building a strong relational foundation." "People are not born amazing negotiators. They develop that skill over time, just like people are not born confident." "You have to practice that small step out in the real world where the stakes are low and build that skill day after day, month after month." "You and I have probably already negotiated half a dozen times today." "When someone gives us something, we want to return the favor." "New studies now show that 90 to 95% of decision-making comes from unconscious emotional processing." "So many of us quit before we even start." "But if we do have a goal and we do prepare for the conversation, our likelihood of success is double." "A good negotiation doesn't always mean getting 'yes' at the end of it." "I always tell my students, people can almost always help you. It depends on if they want to or not." Chapters 00:00 Introduction 02:06 Start of Interview 02:17 Growing Up: Early Lessons in Conflict 07:10 Negotiation and Confidence Are Skills, Not Personality 08:04 Life Is Full of Everyday Negotiations 10:30 Why Negotiation Training Often Fails 12:30 Resetting a Difficult Relationship 17:20 Influence vs. Manipulation 22:33 Emotions, Fear, and Building Resilience 28:00 Using the Emotion Wheel 29:36 Getting Clear on What You Really Want 33:39 Expanding the Pie: Creating Value 40:50 The Power of Saying No 47:27 Teaching Kids to Negotiate 51:23 End of Interview 51:55 Andy Comments After the Interview 55:22 Outtakes Learn More You can learn more about Attia and her work at AttiaQureshi.com. For more learning on this topic, check out: Episode 157 with Dr. Robert Cialdini. Known as the godfather of influence, his name came up several times during today's discussion, making this a great follow-up. Episode 412 with Scott Walker. A former Scotland Yard hostage negotiator who shares a lot of practical lessons about influence. Episode 385 with Vanessa Patrick. She wrote one of the best books on how to say no, a fitting companion to today's conversation. Chat with PMeLa You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her. Join Us for LEAD52 I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks! Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast! Talent Triangle: Power Skills Topics: Negotiation, Influence, Leadership, Project Management, Reciprocity, Emotional Intelligence, Resilience, Saying No, Stakeholder Management, Relationship Building, Value Creation, Confidence The following music was used for this episode: Music: Quantum Sparks (Full Version) by MusicLFiles License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license Music: Tropical Vibe by WinnieTheMoog License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

On this episode, Jonty Yamisha, CEO of Axxonsoft, draws on a career that has spanned private equity underwriting, operating partner roles and the CEO seat to explain what gets lost when investors, operators and portco leaders don't speak the same language—and how to close that gap.Hear how the "what needs to be true" reframe transforms a top-down financial mandate into a shared problem-solving conversation, and why building a unified data taxonomy across marketing, sales and finance is the unglamorous prerequisite to any coherent value creation plan. Then learn how Jonty's three-factory model—delivery, customer success and go-to-market—uses the customer journey as connective tissue to align teams that otherwise default to blaming each other.The information contained in this podcast is not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, investment advice.

Before leading value creation at Brightstar Capital Partners, Chris Nicolini served as an Army officer, ran large-scale manufacturing operations, and led transformation efforts at General Electric. Today, he brings those lessons to founder-led businesses navigating growth, talent challenges, AI adoption, and operational change.Topics:AI Implementation at PE firmsBuilding a Repeatable Hiring PipelineIntegration Best PracticesStrategy as Alignment, Not Just a PlanRestructuring Frameworks ...and so much more.Top TakeawaysSuccessful AI adoption starts with problems, not tools. At Brightstar, AI initiatives start with a business problem. During AI hackathons, teams identify a bottleneck, repetitive task, or inefficiency, then spend the day building a solution around it. The biggest AI wins come from eliminating friction and repetitive work, rather than accumulating more tools.Build a hiring flywheel, not a hiring process. Chris grew a maintenance team from 2 to 25 people by building a hiring system that consistently recruited electrical and mechanical engineers from the Naval Power Training Unit. The lesson: scalable hiring comes from building a repeatable talent pipeline, not filling roles one at a time.Strategy only works when the team is aligned. Many leaders mistake strategy for a plan. The real test is whether the team understands where the company is going, why it matters, and what role they play in getting there. A brilliant plan without buy-in is just a document.Understand the cause before cutting the cost. When performance declines, many companies immediately look for expenses to cut. Chris argues the better approach is to first understand why those costs exist. Some expenses are inefficiencies. Others directly support revenue generation, customer retention, or growth. Cut the wrong one, and you can make the problem worse.About Brightstar Capital PartnersBrightstar is a middle-market private equity firm that invests in founder-led businesses across business services, industrials, government services, and tech. The firm works closely with management teams on growth, talent, operational transformation, and AI adoption, combining hands-on operational expertise with emerging technologies to create value across the portfolio.Investors & Operators is brought to you by 51 Labs51 Labs is a marketing agency for the lower middle market. We offer full-service digital marketing for PE, portfolio companies, IB, VC, hedge funds.AGM Support, Video, Marketing Strategy, Brand Identity, Web Design & Development, LinkedIn Strategy & Execution & more400+ videos100+ projects#1 content creator on LinkedIn in the lower middle market

Can platform modernization really create business value, or are enterprises still missing the bigger picture?In this episode of XTraw AI, Raghu Banda speaks with Ahmed Munir as part of the special 3 part series Architecting the Autonomous Enterprise, exploring why technical modernization must be connected to measurable business outcomes.Why platform modernization alone does not automatically create enterprise valueHow engineering KPIs and business KPIs often become disconnectedWhat it takes to move from technical enablement to true value engineeringYou can reach @ Ahmed MunirMy LinkedIn @ Raghu BandaOur Website @ XTraw AI

Glenn Hunzinger, PwC's US Health Industries Leader, speaks with Dan Farrell, PwC's Health Services Deals Leader, about the forces shaping health services dealmaking in 2026. Despite ongoing reimbursement uncertainty, rising medical costs, and operational pressures, investors continue to deploy capital into assets with strong fundamentals and clear value creation opportunities. The conversation explores where capital is flowing, how AI is influencing investment decisions, and what dealmakers should prioritize in the second half of the year. Discussion Highlights: Resilient health services deal activity despite reimbursement uncertainty and rising medical costsInvestor focus on operational resilience, earnings durability, and clear value creation pathwaysContinued momentum in physician medical groups and behavioral health organizationsAI's growing role in diligence, operational performance, and value creation strategiesIncreased activity in portfolio optimization, carve-outs, and strategic capital allocationKey priorities for dealmakers navigating growth and value creation in the second half of 2026Speakers:Glenn Hunzinger, US Health Industries Leader, PwCDan Farrell, US Health services Deals leader, PwCFor additional insights on the health services deals landscape, check out our Health services: US Deals 2026 midyear outlook available now: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/health-industries/library/health-services-deals-outlook.htmlFor more information, please visit us at: https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/health-industries/health-research-institute/next-in-health-podcast.html.

In this episode, we speak with Jan Bruennler, Managing Partner, and Visar Shabi, Portfolio CTO at Bregal Milestone, a leading European growth equity firm investing in fast-growing, mission-critical software businesses across Europe. With approximately €2.3 billion of capital and more than 60 investments completed since inception, Bregal Milestone provides growth capital and operational support to help build market-leading software companies. The firm is part of Bregal Investments, a leading global investment platform with over €24 billion in assets under management. As software companies navigate a rapidly evolving technology landscape, Jan and Visar discuss Bregal Milestone's approach to value creation, including how the firm supports portfolio companies through technology, product, and AI expertise. Jan co-founded Bregal Milestone and is a member of its Investment Committee, overseeing the firm's AI initiatives. As Portfolio CTO, Visar works closely with portfolio companies on technology, product, and AI strategy, drawing on prior experience at Bain & Company and Brainlabs. Bregal Milestone was recognized as a Top Growth Equity Firm of 2025 and Top Private Equity Firm of 2025 by GrowthCap. I am your host, RJ Lumba. We hope you enjoy the show. If you like the episode, click to follow.  

On this episode, Christian Chauvet, Partner at Lee Equity, shares how vertical focus creates a structural advantage in healthcare and financial services investing—and what it takes to build and scale founder-led businesses in highly regulated, service-intensive industries.Hear how a people-process-systems playbook drives organic growth across healthcare and financial services portfolios, why boots-on-the-ground referral networks are a critical and often underutilized growth lever in community care and why many founder-led businesses have attractive CAC economics but are systematically underinvesting in growth. Learn how AI is enabling providers and advisors to spend more time on high-value work—and how to think about tech enablement as a value creation lever rather than a technology roadmap item.The information contained in this podcast is not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, investment advice.

The future of market access belongs to organizations that plan years in advance. In this episode, Steve Mather, Global Practice Lead of Strategy and Insight at Lumanity, explains why pharmaceutical companies must prepare now for major market access changes coming in Europe and beyond. He highlights that Joint Clinical Assessments for rare disease assets, beginning in 2028, will require earlier planning, stronger governance, and more integrated evidence-generation strategies. Steve also discusses the complexity created by varying country-specific care pathways, limited comparators, and the growing importance of real-world evidence in rare disease development. Across policy shifts like JCA, IRA, MFN, and new European pharmaceutical legislation, the central message is clear: organizations that anticipate earlier will be better positioned to succeed. Tune in to hear how the future of rare disease market access is being reshaped, and why companies that prepare earlier will have a major strategic advantage! Resources: Connect with and follow Steve Mather on LinkedIn. Follow Lumanity on LinkedIn and explore their website! Learn more about this series we're doing with Lumanity here:  https://lumanity.com/commercialization-podcasts/

Welcome to episode #1040 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation). Long before artificial intelligence became the dominant business conversation, Sangeet Paul Choudary was helping leaders understand another profound shift in economic power: the rise of platforms. As the co-author of Platform Revolution, founder of Platform Thinking Labs, advisor to global corporations and governments, and a respected thinkers on digital business models, Sangeet has spent years studying how technology changes the sources of competitive advantage and reshapes entire industries. His latest book, Reshuffle - Who Wins When AI Restacks The Knowledge Economy, extends that work into the age of artificial intelligence, exploring what happens when the expertise, judgment and know-how that once lived inside individuals and organizations increasingly migrates into software systems. In this conversation, Sangeet explains why AI represents far more than a productivity upgrade. He argues that every major technological shift changes what is scarce, and when scarcity changes, value moves with it. Drawing on examples ranging from Kodak and Netflix to cloud computing, software platforms and global supply chains, he explores why some organizations adapt while others become trapped by the assumptions that made them successful in the first place. The discussion also examines the changing nature of economic power, the growing importance of digital sovereignty, the future of knowledge work, and the risks of assuming that today's business models will survive tomorrow's technological realities. Throughout the conversation, Sangeet offers a framework for understanding not just what AI can do, but how leaders can rethink their organizations, industries and careers when the foundations of value creation are being rewritten in real time. Enjoy the conversation… Running time: 1:00:47. Hello from beautiful Montreal. Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts. Listen and subscribe over at Spotify. Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Thinking With Mitch Joel. Feel free to connect to me directly on LinkedIn. Check out ThinkersOne. Here is my conversation with Sangeet Paul Choudary. Reshuffle - Who Wins When AI Restacks The Knowledge Economy. Platform Thinking Labs. Platform Revolution. Follow Sangeet on X. Follow Sangeet on LinkedIn. Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction to Sangeet Chaudhary and Reshuffle. (02:51) - The Impact of Technological Shifts on Value Creation. (05:51) - Understanding Architectural Constraints in Business. (09:07) - The Role of Supply Chain in Innovation. (12:10) - AI's Influence on Software and Business Models. (14:56) - Navigating Uncertainty in AI Adoption. (18:04) - The Future of Economic Power and Sovereignty. (21:00) - Cultural Shifts in Power Dynamics. (23:53) - The Mechanisms of Change in AI and Business. (26:52) - The Balance of Sovereignty and Dominance. (29:46) - The Future of Work in an AI-Driven Economy. (32:44) - The Broader Implications of AI on Society. (36:40) - Conclusion and Reflections on Reshuffle.

In Part 2 of this conversation, Scott Snider and Renee Russo shift from vision to execution by focusing on rhythm, the operating discipline that brings strategy to life. Renee explains that even the strongest vision will fail without consistent habits, structured communication, and accountability. From weekly meeting cadences to clear scorecards and data driven decision making, she outlines how rhythm creates alignment, surfaces issues early, and drives execution across every level of the business. The conversation also explores the human side of rhythm. From fostering trust and open dialogue in meetings to building social capital through intentional employee engagement, Renee highlights how culture, discipline, and connection all work together. When done right, rhythm not only improves performance, but strengthens teams, reduces complexity, and creates a more resilient, scalable organization. This episode builds on the foundation of vision and shows how disciplined execution is what ultimately turns strategy into long term value. ============================================ Hear how Exit Planning Institute talks about Rhythm: https://exit-planning-institute.org/the-annual-exit https://blog.exit-planning-institute.org/employee-engagement-value-driver Hear more from Renee Russo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-russo-riseupbc/ https://exit-planning-institute.org/mastering-the-market ============================================ Want to learn more? Go to: https://exit-planning-institute.org/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/exit-planning-institute Connect with Scott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-snider-epi/ #ExitPlanningInstitute #ScottSnider #Podcast #PlanAccordingly ============================================ SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/exit-is-now-plan-accordingly-with-scott-snider/id1663050204 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0iXzdvQN1ApWPOk3rVytFR ============================================ About Scott: Scott Snider is the President of the Exit Planning Institute (EPI) and the Operating Partner of Snider Premier Growth, a small family investment company. At EPI, Scott is responsible for the strategic direction of the organization along with overseeing the company's operations and chapter development. Since joining EPI, Scott has expanded the organization regionally, nationally, and globally, providing a transformational educational experience to advisors from all specialties across the globe. Scott Snider is a nationally recognized industry leader, growth specialist, and lifetime entrepreneur. Two of Snider's biggest talents: market penetration and rapid growth strategies. As the operational and strategic leader of EPI, Snider thrives on helping advisors learn how to educate clients, achieve market distinction, and deliver real results.

Episode DescriptionMary Rachide, Managing Director at ICV Partners, and Bob Hund, Operating Partner at Oridian, join Sean Mooney, Lloyd Metz, and Doug McCormick to explain how operating executives help turn private equity value creation plans into results. They discuss how operating partners engage in diligence, align with founders and deal teams, and support portfolio companies through execution without losing trust. The conversation also covers process discipline, management assessment, stakeholder alignment, and the art of knowing when to coach versus when to push. This is a practical look at how modern private equity firms build better businesses—hit play.Episode Highlights1:52 - Mary Rachide's path from McKinsey and executive roles into PE operations3:33 - Bob Hund's engineering, manufacturing, and process background before Iridium6:45 - How operating partners support diligence, strategy, and execution9:59 - Aligning founders and investors around realistic value creation plans18:52 - Using process assessments to identify risk and unlock improvement opportunities26:50 - Mary's “glue, grease, grit, and glitter” framework for operating partner impact41:06 - Why the best operating executives take joy in helping others succeedFor more information on the podcast, visit bestbutneverfinal.buzzsprout.com and embark on your journey to private equity excellence today.Visit us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/best-but-never-final-podcast/Visit us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/bestbutneverfinal/For information on Oridian Capital Partners, go to https://oridiancapital.com/For information on ICV Partners, go to https://www.icvpartners.comFor information on BluWave, go to https://www.bluwave.net

In This Episode of Business Lunch: We explore how business owners can maximize their exit multiples by focusing on clarity, positioning, and structure in the final months before a sale. It challenges the instinct to chase new revenue at the last minute and emphasizes the importance of risk management, revenue segmentation, and deal structuring.Chapters:00:00 Introduction to Maximizing Exit Multiples00:28 Common instinct: Grow Sales Before Exit01:01 The Counterintuitive Reality of Final Months01:16 Value Creation vs. Value Realization02:12 Why Bigger Is Not Always Better02:39 Stage Your Business Like a House Sale03:07 Revenue Growth Can Hurt Valuation04:13 Buyers Pay for Risk, Not Just Revenue05:07 Profitability Over Vanity Metrics06:03 Segmenting Revenue Streams07:02 Risk and Multiple Application08:07 Proving Cash Flow and Profitability09:28 Bridging EBITDA to Cash Flow10:37 The Importance of Clean Financials11:05 The Dangers of Adbacks12:35 Building Trust and Eliminating Risk13:09 Working Capital and Its Hidden Dangers14:39 Defending Against Working Capital Manipulation15:40 Deal Leverage and Competitive Tension17:09 Staging Data and Buyer Competition18:37 Optimizing Deal Structure and Tax Planning20:20 Key Takeaways: Clarity, Proof, and Structure21:30 Applying These Principles to Your Career22:16 Conclusion: Fix the House, Not Just Build ItConnect with me on social:TikTok: Check out my TikTok HereInstagram: Check out my Instagram HereFacebook: Check out my Facebook HereLinkedIn: Check out my LinkedIn HereSubscribe to my YouTube

What does great leadership look like when AI is moving faster than most organizations can keep up? To answer this important question, I spoke with Joshua Gould, the CEO of thebigword, a global language technology and services company, where he helped grow the business from $6M to over $100M in revenue. In 2021 he sold the business to a large US based PE firm and continued on as CEO, where he has led a $20m technology investment into AI and automation.This episode tackles the challenge of leading in an Ai-driven world, examining why level-headedness, prioritization, and empathy are more vital than ever. The discussion surfaces candid insights on how leaders can cut through tech-driven noise, return to first principles, and make decisions that truly serve their teams and customers.During our conversation, Joshua shares real-world examples that bring the risks and rewards of AI adoption to life, from transforming pricing and market share strategies to reshaping entire job roles. Josh does not shy away from hard truths, exploring the necessity of honest conversations even when the answers are unpredictable or uncomfortable.For leaders searching for actionable advice on how to steward organizational culture, empower employees, and future-proof their businesses, this episode offers a blueprint grounded in candor, resilience, and a commitment to doing good.What You'll Learn- How to cultivate level-headedness amidst noise.- Prioritize ruthlessly: It's the antidote to overwhelm.- Use technology to serve your values.- Building a culture of adaptation and co-creation.- Why the best leaders lean into transparency and courage, even when It's scary.- Empathy remains irreplaceable in an Ai-driven world.Podcast Timestamps(00:00) – Welcome to the Podcast(03:10) - Essential Leadership Qualities in the Age of AI(06:16) - Fundamentals Versus Hype: How to Make Sound Decisions(10:27) – Effectively Leading Through AI Advancement(12:39) - AI as a Pricing Weapon Rather Than a Productivity Tool(19:20) - Navigating Job Impact and Workforce Concerns with AI(24:09) - Courageous and Transparent Leadership in Disruption(29:29) - Leading Culture Change Amidst AI Fear and Resistance(34:38) - Grounding Adoption in Mission and Strategic Participation(41:00) - Preserving Critical Thinking and Avoiding AI Overreliance(48:03) - Empathy, Humanity, and Leadership in an AI FutureKEYWORDSPositive Leadership, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology-Driven World, Level Headedness, Market Fundamentals, Fear-Based Decision Making, Prioritization, First Principles, Job Disruption, Upskilling, Employee Anxiety, Courageous Leadership, Transparency, Culture Change, AI adoption, Empathy, Critical Thinking, Executive Decision-Making, Value Creation, CEO Success

Outperformance in private equity is no longer defined by leverage or multiple expansion; disciplined value creation will be the decisive factor in future investment success. In this episode, AD Bhatia, Robin Ligon, and Jason Phillips are joined by CVC’s John Kelleher to discuss the key shifts in today’s PE environment and share five moves firms are making in response. The path to transforming value creation requires a more disciplined playbook: structured re-diligence, holistic transformation under a dedicated transformation leadership, stronger operating-team talent, and the use of AI as a portfolio-wide accelerator. Related Insights 2026 Global Private Markets Report How private equity is using M&A integrations to overcome headwinds Beating the odds: How private equity firms can improve exit prospects McKinsey Strategy and Corporate Finance on LinkedIn McKinsey Transformation on LinkedInSupport the show: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/mckinsey-strategy-&-corporate-finance/See www.mckinsey.com/privacy-policy for privacy information

The next stage of market value is private, argues Laura Rippy. She talks about the trail of breadcrumbs venture capital investors left behind as money piles into SpaceX and Anthropic. Laura offers her advice for investors interested in IPO trends and ways to gain exposure to these companies. ======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day.Subscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/ About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about

This week on the Do Good to Lead Well podcast, I sit down with bestselling author Eric Ries for a timely and thought-provoking conversation about leadership, mission, and the growing crisis of short-term thinking in business.Eric first transformed the entrepreneurial world with The Lean Startup. In his latest book, Incorruptible, he tackles a new challenge: why so many organizations lose sight of their purpose, compromise their values, and drift away from the very mission that made them successful in the first place.Together, we explore why many traditional business “best practices” are no longer serving leaders, employees, or society — and what it takes to build organizations that can withstand the pressures of short-term performance, protect trust, and stay anchored in their values over time.Through powerful stories, real-world examples, and surprising data, listeners learn how organizations can defend their mission, outlast competitors, and resist the economic “gravity” that pulls so many companies into compromise. From redefining profit as human flourishing to making trust and love into competitive advantages, the episode offers a blueprint for building companies that not only succeed financially, but endure.Whether you're a founder determined to preserve your mission, or an executive seeking to build a culture of integrity, this episode is packed with practical guidance and inspiration. Tune in to discover what it truly means to become an incorruptible force for the good of your business and the good of humanity.What You'll Learn- The perils of “best practices.”- Corruption isn't just a crime – It's losing your purpose.- How the moral logic of capitalism has been lost.- Redefining profit: Maximizing human flourishing.- Mission (not money) makes companies endure.- Trust and love are competitive advantages.- Governance isn't boring. It's your organization's DNA.- Does growth kill mission? The risk is real. The reality does not have to be.- You can build incorruptible companies: An evidence-based business case.Podcast Timestamps(00:00) - A Special Topic and Guest(01:49) - From the Lean Start-up to Incorruptible(04:07) - Defining and Diagnosing Corruption(08:32) - The Moral Logic of Capitalism and Value Creation(13:03) - Redefining Profit and Human Flourishing(19:15) - Mission Drift and Protecting Organizational Purpose(22:01) - Outliers: Exceptional Companies and New Best Practices(25:29) - Financial Gravity, Longevity, and Employee Ownership(30:00) - Trust as Organizational Currency(34:23) - The Long Term Stock Exchange and Long-Termism(35:20) - Love, People-First Leadership, and Real Competitive Advantage(41:23) - Governance, Board Dynamics, and Creating Incorruptible Organizations(44:46) - Lessons from Case Studies: Zita Cobb and Beyond(49:16) - Closing Reflections and Practical ResourcesKEYWORDSPositive Leadership, Incorruptible, Integrity, Do Good to Lead Well, Long Term Thinking, Effective Governance, Market Reform, Lean Startup Method, Company Culture, Avoiding Short Term Thinking, Corruption, Capitalism, Value Creation, Shareholder Primacy, Business Ethics, Corporate Mission, Profit Redefinition, Human Flourishing, Stakeholder Alignment, Organizational Trust, Financial Gravity, Mission Controlled Companies, Organizational Character, CEO Success

This episode is sponsored by Cinven and KPMG Private equity firms are accustomed to navigating change, but operating partner teams in particular have had to become more agile in recent years. As volatility becomes the new normal – from macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty to AI-related disruption – operating partners need to continuously reassess the value creation levers they are pulling to drive portfolio company growth, while also building resilience across their portfolios. This, in turn, is leading sponsors to reimagine their operating partner teams, in terms of structure and skill sets, as well as the way in which they engage with portfolio company management. In this episode of Private Equity Spotlight, Louise Fordham, head of special projects for private equity at PEI group, sits down with Sam Williams, managing director of strategy and investment insights at international private equity firm Cinven, and Paul Pan, private equity leader for the deal advisory and strategy practice at KPMG, to discuss the future outlook for value creation strategies.

Learn more about Refrigeration Mentor Customized Technical Training Programs at www.refrigerationmentor.com/courses Join the Refrigeration Mentor Hub here In this episode, I'll explains how technicians can stand out in refrigeration job interviews. I'll share tips on building confidence, developing a troubleshooting mindset, and communicating technical processes step by step, including fundamentals like superheat, subcooling, wiring diagrams, controls, and compressor diagnostics. Many companies hire for attitude, reliability, and problem-solving more than years of experience, and knowing how to demonstrate work ethic, professionalism, business-minded value and asking strong questions will put you ahead of the pack when it comes to competing for a refrigeration technician job. In this episode, we cover: (00:48) Job Interview Mindset (02:24) Building Trust Through Honesty (04:04) How to Talk Technical Confidently (07:25) Job Interview Preperation (11:39) Communicating Stepwise (15:07) Value of Showing Ambition (19:23) On-Call Work Ethic (25:10) Asking Smart Questions (28:58) Professional Reputation Helpful Links & Resources: Episode 256. Career Tips for New Technicians Episode 224. The Key To Finding New Career Opportunities as a Technician Episode 169: Leadership Insights: Work Ethic and Value Creation with Scott Farley of The Arcticom Group  

Most internal audit functions are still operating like it's 2010. In the first episode of Embark's new GRC series, Adam Olsen is joined by Allison Bradshaw, Principal and head of Embark's GRC and Internal Audit Services practice, to make the case for a fundamentally different model. The conversation covers what modern IA looks like, how to build the right delivery structure, and how CFOs can measure real return on investment.In this episode:Why compliance-checkbox IA is leaving significant value on the table, and what a risk-based, consultative function looks like insteadCo-sourcing vs. outsourcing: a practical framework for deciding which model fits your organization's size, complexity, and risk profileHow data analytics and AI are shifting IA from sampling transactions to testing entire populations in near-real timeThe emerging demand for IT audit, cybersecurity, and AI governance capabilities, and why most teams can't hire for all of itA framework for measuring IA ROI: prevented costs, recovered value, process improvements, and stakeholder confidenceA real-world co-sourced engagement example where a single year yielded over $1.6M in identified losses and fraud

Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Alex Hayward, Executive Fellow, Family Offices and Private Capital at London Business School. Alex is a seasoned expert in Family Offices, with extensive experience building, reviewing, and optimizing Family Offices across the UK, Europe, the US, Dubai, and Australia. Over the past 15 years, he has analyzed more than 100 Single Family Offices, evaluating their structures, operations, and investment strategies. Alex draws on this broad experience to lead London Business School's work on value creation within Family Offices, examining how leading Family Offices develop their strategy, operations, and culture to support long-term growth. Alex also serves as an independent director to a Family Office in London, supporting a third-generation multi-billion family. Alongside this role he chairs the Family Office Community at Said Business School, University of Oxford, Ownership Project 2.0. Alex is a long-time friend and collaborator of FOX and a valued alumnus of the FOX team. Alex has done significant research into the importance of organizational culture among investment management, and its significance in explaining and driving performance of investment teams. He tells us what his research shows and highlights what both clients and members of investment teams can learn from it. We then focus more narrowly and look at the role of culture within family offices. Alex shares his views on how culture contributes to the value creation at the family office and the ability of family office teams to drive meaningful outcomes for their principals. Impact is frequently among the top objectives that family members seek to pursue individually or collectively with the support of their family office. Alex talks about his work and research on the effect of family office culture on the family's impact strategy, and the ability of family members to find and follow their individual pathways for self-realization and impact. Alex has also studied the effect of grief on the ability of families to make decisions and achieve growth. He shares his findings on how grief and other emotions impact UHNW family strategies and their collective activities within the family enterprise, including investing, philanthropy, social impact, etc. Enjoy this insightful conversation with one of the foremost academics and practitioners in the family wealth and family office space.

As we work on some new episodes for you, we'll be re-running some old favorites from the archive. Please enjoy this episode from back in February with Will Ulrich, the co-CEO of Presidio Petroleum. Summary:For most companies in the oil industry, drilling new wells is a major part of their business strategy. Today, we're highlighting a firm that's taking a very different tack. Will Ulrich has served as co-CEO of Presidio Petroleum alongside his partner Chris Hammack, since founding the company in 2017. Presidio's mission is to generate the oil industry's best return on capital by delivering the industry's lowest operating expenses, highest profitability and best emissions profile — all without doing any drilling. Today, Will shares Presidio's unique approach to value creation, their upcoming plan to go public via business combination, and the reasons why they're optimistic for the future. Highlights:Founding Presidio (1:57)Going Public (4:45)The end of the 'Capital Intensive Shale Era' (7:06)Institutional Backing (8:58)Dividend (10:46)Private Equity (13:58)Reducing Operating Costs (17:21)Field Incentive Plan (20:55)Stable Well Production (22:30)Hedging (23:42)CapEx (25:43)Acquisition Strategy (27:23)5-year Outlook (29:17)Links: Will Ulrich LinkedInPresidio LinkedInPresidio WebsiteICR LinkedInICR TwitterICR Website Feedback:If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, joe@lowerstreet.co.

While the podcast team is taking a Radical Sabbatical, Kim is interviewing authors of the books that have had a big impact on her in the past two years. In this episode she's speaking with Eric Ries about his new book, Incorruptible, Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great.   All too often, founders start a company and hire an incredible team dedicated to building a company that will solve an important problem and leave the world better off.  Then they get a taste of success and life is good.  But all too often, the bankers and lawyers swoop in and the demands to “maximize shareholder value” set in.  More often than not, the company succumbs to the gravitational pull of mediocrity–or worse.  Compromises are made, rationalizations abound, and after a while people start to wonder “how did this happen?!”   Eric has thought deeply about how to structure companies so that they can remain true to their purpose and achieve great financial results.  In his interview with Kim, he shares his extensive research on companies, both contemporary and some many decades old, who have been able to make this work.   Background on Eric Ries: Over the last two decades, Eric Ries's ideas about continuous innovation, long-term thinking, governance, and market reform have reshaped company building and management practices. He is the creator of the Lean Startup method and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup, The Leader's Guide, and The Startup Way. As a founder, Eric has put his own ideas into practice with the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE); Answer.AI, an AI R&D lab; Virgil, a legal services startup; and IMVU. On The Eric Ries Show, he talks with world-class technologists, thought leaders, and executives building for the long-term. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and three children.  His new book, Incorruptible, will be released in May of 2026.   CHAPTERS (00:00) Introduction to Eric Ries and His Work (01:31) The Motivation Behind 'Incorruptible' (04:28) The Dark Side of Business Practices (05:08) The Haunting Story of Vectura and Philip Morris (12:58) The Consequences of Corporate Governance (15:20) The Historical Context of Corporate Purpose (18:37) The Evolution of Corporate Purpose (22:07) The Impact of Purpose-Driven Companies (25:33) Understanding Financial Gravity (30:55) The Unconscious Forces in Corporations (34:43) Resisting the Pull of Mediocrity (39:14) Navigating Power Dynamics in Organizations (40:04) The Naivety of Value Creation (41:05) The Dilemma of Founder Control (42:34) Building Institutional Protections (43:36) Costco's Governance Fortress (45:57) The Cost of Governance Ratings (47:58) The Challenge of Public Companies (51:08) Taking Action for Ethical Leadership Connect with the Radical Candor team: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices