A Geek Leader Podcast - inspiring technical and creative leaders around the world

About Deb Deb Coviello is an advisor, author, podcast host, and Founder of Illumination Partners, a consulting firm for CEO’s navigating change. A trusted partner to C-Suite Leaders, Deb brings 30+ years of experience and strategy in Quality and Operational Excellence roles combined with her 20 years in the Flavors and Fragrance industry to support her clients as they work together to identify, assess, and solve the issues that are preventing their business growth. Certified as Lean and Six Sigma Blackbelt in Process Improvement, she has developed powerful programs devoted to helping CEO’s identify emerging leaders, understanding “People’’ are your greatest tool in your toolbox. Deb is a board member of Women in Flavor & Fragrance Commerce, (WFFC), an avid Curler with the Cincinnati Curling Club, a mother of three and resides in Cincinnati Ohio with her Husband Dan of 32 years. The CEO’s Compass helps you systematically identify your team’s current blindspots and determine seven key areas you need to focus on to get back on track in days - not months. A recent study showed nearly 60% of leaders feel depleted at the end of day. This feeling is a key indicator of burnout and makes it difficult to lead and inspire others. If you’ve ever experienced that restless exhaustion, you know why CEOs are among the most likely candidates for experiencing job frustration and burnout. Today We Talked About Deb's background Ego Creating Safety for the team Communication Start the conversation Share your data Here's the risk / Opportunity Here's the magnitude Meetings People Development One-on-ones Knowing your business partners / customers building trust   Connect With Deb Website Linkedin The CEO’s Compass Drop in CEO Podcast Facebook Twitter Instagram Leave me a tip $ Click here to Donate to the show I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again! A2 Hosting I’ve been using A2 Hosting for several years.  They offer state of the art SSD hosting for all of their plans.  Their sites are super fast and easy to setup.  I rarely need support, but when I was migrating my sites to a larger plan I used their support services and they were phenomenal.  I highly recommend A2 hosting for all of your hosting needs.  And I also recommend everyone to have a personal website. If you’re in technology and looking for a job and don’t have your own website, I probably wouldn’t hire you.  Just sayin’. Please use my affiliate link when signing up. https://www.ageekleader.com/a2

About Ari Ari was born and raised in Bali. Growing up in an island that’s surrounded by anything/everything tourism, she thought her only choice was to be like everybody else. But then she discovered the design world. Ari dropped a full scholarship to Bali’s prestige tourism school so she can enroll to an art school and learn graphic design. In 2011, Ari moved to Chicago to pursue her dream of becoming a female entrepreneur. After Ari got married, with her husband they started their company, Chykalophia to help businesses establish strong brand pillars and online experiences. Today We Talked about Starting a business Ari's background Young and Dumb Mentors Working with your spouse Boundaries Starting a business Meetups LinkedIn, Event Bright, etc. Connect with Ari Twitter LinkedIn Website Personal Website Book I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again! Leave me a tip $ Click here to Donate to the show A2 Hosting I’ve been using A2 Hosting for several years.  They offer state of the art SSD hosting for all of their plans.  Their sites are super fast and easy to setup.  I rarely need support, but when I was migrating my sites to a larger plan I used their support services and they were phenomenal.  I highly recommend A2 hosting for all of your hosting needs.  And I also recommend everyone to have a personal website. If you’re in technology and looking for a job and don’t have your own website, I probably wouldn’t hire you.  Just sayin’. Please use my affiliate link when signing up. https://www.ageekleader.com/a2

About Claudia Claudia Miller is a sought-after Career Coach and she's helped her clients land fulfilling jobs in less than 90-days all while getting on average a 54% in salary increases ($30k-$140k). She also partners with companies and organizations in identifying rising stars within their organizations and providing strategic insights and support in developing a leadership and talent pipeline with a focus on Women and Women of Color. Due to her efforts, she's worked with Top Fortune 500 Clients and has been featured multiple times in Forbes, MSNBC, Thrive Global, and Business Insider put her in their top global list of Top Innovative Career Coaches. Today We Talked About Career Coaching Landing a new job You don't need to meet all the qualifications Resume?  Cover letter? Achievements and Metrics Avoid soft skills Lead with a story Customize cover letter and resume for the job. Start networking Do the job you want... before you apply Focus on Outcomes and Achievements LinkedIn Profile Don't take on Jobs with the Salary or the Title Free Giveaway: $10k Salary Negotiation Script Connect with Claudia Instagram LinkedIn TikTok Leave me a tip $ Click here to Donate to the show I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again! A2 Hosting I’ve been using A2 Hosting for several years.  They offer state of the art SSD hosting for all of their plans.  Their sites are super fast and easy to setup.  I rarely need support, but when I was migrating my sites to a larger plan I used their support services and they were phenomenal.  I highly recommend A2 hosting for all of your hosting needs.  And I also recommend everyone to have a personal website. If you’re in technology and looking for a job and don’t have your own website, I probably wouldn’t hire you.  Just sayin’. Please use my affiliate link when signing up. https://www.ageekleader.com/a2

About Sangeeta Sangeeta Krishnan is an engaging business intelligence and analytics leader who possesses a winning blend of subject-matter expertise and practical experience from a variety of industries. Most recently, she joined Bayer as North American Analytics Lead for mass sales. She has worked with Fortune 500 organizations, not-for-profits, and everything in between, helping various organizations build their operations and monetizing data products from the ground up. Krishnan is a public speaker, content creator having articles published in industry journals, and was recognized as a Finalist of the Women in IT Awards 2018 (USA) in the Data Leader of the Year category. She is the author of Thriving in a Data World (Business Expert Press, December 2022).   Today We Talked About Sangeeta's background Data Analytics Use Case Driven Data Success in Using Data Data Literacy Data Governance Automation What to do with it? AI? Team Building Diversity Building a Culture Connect with Sangeeta Book LinkedIn Website Leave me a tip $ Click here to Donate to the show I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again! A2 Hosting I’ve been using A2 Hosting for several years.  They offer state of the art SSD hosting for all of their plans.  Their sites are super fast and easy to setup.  I rarely need support, but when I was migrating my sites to a larger plan I used their support services and they were phenomenal.  I highly recommend A2 hosting for all of your hosting needs.  And I also recommend everyone to have a personal website. If you’re in technology and looking for a job and don’t have your own website, I probably wouldn’t hire you.  Just sayin’. Please use my affiliate link when signing up. https://www.ageekleader.com/a2

About Mona Falkon CEO and Co-founder Mona Akmal is a product and engineering veteran who builds resourceful, kind, and output-driven teams that create and scale success-enabling products. With a passion for crafting elegant solutions to technically difficult problems, she has grown teams, businesses, and many products at Microsoft, Amperity, Code.org, and Zulily. The impact of Mona’s work includes ramping from $0 to $11M in ARR and 15 household brands as happy customers at Amperity; from 10M to 100M students learning computer science on the Code. org platform; and from 1M to 1B docs in the cloud with OneDrive and Office. Today We Talked About Mona's background Data Useful data Automation Positive Emotional connection with tasks Impact to the business of automating a task cost of errors Task must be low cognition or must have lots of data for ML training AI Wars Root cause analysis Leadership Cult Leaders Authenticity Servant Leadership NO MANAGERS - Everyone is an individual contributor Highly Collaborative projects No performance review Feedback training Challenger Program Connect with Mona LinkedIn Website I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again! Leave me a tip $ Click here to Donate to the show A2 Hosting I’ve been using A2 Hosting for several years.  They offer state of the art SSD hosting for all of their plans.  Their sites are super fast and easy to setup.  I rarely need support, but when I was migrating my sites to a larger plan I used their support services and they were phenomenal.  I highly recommend A2 hosting for all of your hosting needs.  And I also recommend everyone to have a personal website. If you’re in technology and looking for a job and don’t have your own website, I probably wouldn’t hire you.  Just sayin’. Please use my affiliate link when signing up. https://www.ageekleader.com/a2  The expert guest was booked via The Expert Bookers, www.expertbookers.com

About Andreas Andreas is a highly skilled software engineer and entrepreneur with a passion for app development and team building. In 2008, he co-founded Madewithlove, an app development company where everyone, including management, is proficient in code. In addition to their role as a co-founder, he has also served as CTO for several startups. As a firm advocate of data and knowledge sharing, he often contribute to open-source projects and speak at industry conferences. He is also the co-author of Free Range Management. Today We Talked About Andreas background Software Development Leading Knowledge Workers CTO in residency Engineering job market Brownfield development help Leadership Retrospectives, One-on-ones, etc. Responsible Engineers... the five Whys. Free Range Management Giving Space Retrospectives Building Trust Ask people to prepare upfront One-on-ones Write it out... Connect with Andreas Twitter LinkedIn Book Website   I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again! Leave me a tip $ Click here to Donate to the show A2 Hosting I’ve been using A2 Hosting for several years.  They offer state of the art SSD hosting for all of their plans.  Their sites are super fast and easy to setup.  I rarely need support, but when I was migrating my sites to a larger plan I used their support services and they were phenomenal.  I highly recommend A2 hosting for all of your hosting needs.  And I also recommend everyone to have a personal website. If you’re in technology and looking for a job and don’t have your own website, I probably wouldn’t hire you.  Just sayin’. Please use my affiliate link when signing up. https://www.ageekleader.com/a2

About Louwki Louwki’s entire career has been devoted to serving companies’ technical needs. After earning his Master Network Engineer qualification, he became a technical trainer for Torque-IT, and shortly after this, he was promoted to Technical manager. Louwki then joined Tronic Trade Technology Holdings and served as Technical Manager. He then spent over a decade at Netsurit starting as a Senior Technical Consultant. He worked his way up to Head of Support at Netsurit and was part of the executive committee. Following a 3-year stint at Dimension Data as a Service Improvement & Enablement Manager and part of the GSC Management team, he re-joined the Netsurit team in 2017 to help grow the US business. Louwki enjoys playing Ice-hockey and spending summer weekends on the boat. He also loves spending time with his wife, Yolandie, and son, Logan. Today We Talked About Louwki's background Outlook for Security Awareness Cyber Security Leadership Awareness Common Mistakes MFA - Multi-Factor Authentication Dmarc for email Get an Awareness Partner Microsoft Secure Score Security must be proactive Privacy Concerns Digital Transformation Automation Shadow IT Microsoft Productivity Score Free Risk Assessment Connect with Louwki Website LinkedIn Leave me a tip $ Click here to Donate to the show I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again! A2 Hosting I’ve been using A2 Hosting for several years.  They offer state of the art SSD hosting for all of their plans.  Their sites are super fast and easy to setup.  I rarely need support, but when I was migrating my sites to a larger plan I used their support services and they were phenomenal.  I highly recommend A2 hosting for all of your hosting needs.  And I also recommend everyone to have a personal website. If you’re in technology and looking for a job and don’t have your own website, I probably wouldn’t hire you.  Just sayin’. Please use my affiliate link when signing up. https://www.ageekleader.com/a2

About Jen Jen Hope is an executive and leadership coach for startup leaders. With a background as the Vice President of Marketing for multiple high-growth startup companies, Jen understands the complexity of startup leadership. She leverages data and evidence-based tools that accelerate growth and scale individual and collective leadership. A self-kindness and mental health advocate, Jen is passionate about creating safe spaces for women and non-neurotypical leaders in startup and corporate leadership. Clients will tell you that Jen provides systems and habits that improve life and leadership. They love the sharp insights, structure, compassion, and accountability that come from Jen’s coaching process. Jen’s client list includes Tenable, Oracle, Altana.ai, TOMBOYX, DocuSign, Relayr, BlueJacketeer, and Uplevel. When Jen's not working, you can find her cooing over dogs, running the hills of the PNW, and singing all of the songs that play in her local grocery store and CVS. Today We Talked About Leadership Coaching Radical Candor - Kim Scott non-negotionables Getting back to it, when you fall off the trail Empathy... its a skill Sympathy vs Empathy Tough Love Kindness A 7 year journey for overnight success Waterfall Habits Self-care for leaders Take back some control   Connect with Jen LinkedIn Website Instagram Leave me a tip $ Click here to Donate to the show I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again! A2 Hosting I’ve been using A2 Hosting for several years.  They offer state of the art SSD hosting for all of their plans.  Their sites are super fast and easy to setup.  I rarely need support, but when I was migrating my sites to a larger plan I used their support services and they were phenomenal.  I highly recommend A2 hosting for all of your hosting needs.  And I also recommend everyone to have a personal website. If you’re in technology and looking for a job and don’t have your own website, I probably wouldn’t hire you.  Just sayin’. Please use my affiliate link when signing up. https://www.ageekleader.com/a2

About Keri Dr. Keri Ohlrich has led an impressive career as an outcome focused business executive in her 20+ years working in the HR field. She is the CEO and co-founder of Abbracci Group, the co-author of the book, The Way of the HR Warrior and the co-host of the podcast reCHARGE® Your Life. Dr. Ohlrich has been featured in HR and business industry articles, interviewed on multiple podcasts and spoken at numerous events in the United States and internationally. Throughout her career, Dr. Ohlrich has held leadership positions at a variety of organizations ranging from start-up to Fortune 500 companies. In her previous roles she has created and implemented HR processes, redesigned the talent function for an organization serving 25,000 global employees, led change management for a new business strategy, and overhauled the Human Resources department. Her broad areas of expertise include leadership coaching, talent management, culture change, performance management, organizational development, workshop facilitation, and employee engagement and development. At the heart of Dr. Ohlrich’s work is to improve the environment of organizations which in turn improves the lives of employees. Whether it is coaching and training leaders, performing cultural assessments or helping develop HR professionals into HR Warriors, she wants all to reach their potential. Keri also loves to help outside of the business world as a volunteer for Voices for Children as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) and at Scholar Match. Both non-profits are focused on helping children reach their potential. Keri is honored to serve on the board of UNA-USA Coachella Valley whose mission is to support the work of the United Nations. Keri is proud that Abbracci Group belongs to the National Small Business Association (NSBA) and is certified as a women-owned business by Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) as well as a women-business enterprise by the County of Los Angeles. Dr. Ohlrich is certified in change management methodology and organizational and personality assessments. She obtained her PhD in Human Development and Organizational Systems from Fielding Graduate University. She holds an MS in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University, an MS in Global Human Resources from Loyola University Chicago, and a BS in Psychology and Business from Carnegie Mellon University. Keri resides in Southern California with her husband, son and two Dachshunds. Today We Talked About Keri's background Psychology in 4th grade Why building a relationship with HR is important Check-ins Being Proactive Teambuilding Consistency Communication Expectations Happy Employees Setting Goals On-boarding Individual Leadership Recognition Ego Connect with Keri LinkedIn Website Book Leave me a tip $Click here to Donate to the show I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again! A2 Hosting I’ve been using A2 Hosting for several years.  They offer state of the art SSD hosting for all of their plans.  Their sites are super fast and easy to setup.  I rarely need support, but when I was migrating my sites to a larger plan I used their support services and they were phenomenal.  I highly recommend A2 hosting for all of your hosting needs.  And I also recommend everyone to have a personal website. If you’re in technology and looking for a job and don’t have your own website, I probably wouldn’t hire you.  Just sayin’. Please use my affiliate link when signing up. https://www.ageekleader.com/a2

About Alex Alex is the CEO and Co-founder of Insquad, the platform to build remote development teams. He believes that the future of work is in remote teams – and this notion will radically change the world as it will bring opportunity and talent closer to each other. Alex launched Insquad one year ago because he faced challenges hiring senior tech talents for his previous startup. He tried staffing services, but there were expensive and did not give a lot of value to him as a startup. So he decided to solve this problem and help the startup community as well as offer great opportunities to the talents in underprivileged countries. Now, Insquad holds an 80%+ interview-to-hire rate and worked with over 300 tech startups Alex is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor — 10+ investments in IT companies all over the world — Forbes council member, and Alchemist mentor. In the past 10 years, he has created several successful startups in industry areas that he had no experience in before — FinTech, outsourcing, HRTech, and food service. He is passionate about making new tech products and services and helping distributed teams achieve their goals. Alex met with Bill Clinton and Queen Elizabeth in Moscow’s high school. Outside of work, he’s a father of 3, plays tennis and regularly participates in amateur tournaments. Alex is the CEO and Co-founder of Insquad, the platform to build remote development teams. He believes that the future of work is in remote teams – and this notion will radically change the world as it will bring opportunity and talent closer to each other. Alex launched Insquad one year ago because he faced challenges hiring senior tech talents for his previous startup. He tried staffing services, but there were expensive and did not give a lot of value to him as a startup. So he decided to solve this problem and help the startup community as well as offer great opportunities to the talents in underprivileged countries. Now, Insquad holds an 80%+ interview-to-hire rate and worked with over 300 tech startups Alex is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor — 10+ investments in IT companies all over the world — Forbes council member, and Alchemist mentor. In the past 10 years, he has created several successful startups in industry areas that he had no experience in before — FinTech, outsourcing, HRTech, and food service. He is passionate about making new tech products and services and helping distributed teams achieve their goals. Alex met with Bill Clinton and Queen Elizabeth in Moscow’s high school. Outside of work, he’s a father of 3, plays tennis and regularly participates in amateur tournaments. Today we Talked About Alex's background Remote Development Hiring Challenges Current State of Tech Talent Team building with remote workers The importance of remote work Calls "not" about work Onboarding remote employees Connect with Alex Website LinkedIn Twitter Leave me a tip $ Click here to Donate to the show I hope you enjoyed this show, please head over to Apple Podcasts and subscribe and leave me a rating and review, even one sentence will help spread the word.  Thanks again! A2 Hosting I’ve been using A2 Hosting for several years.  They offer state of the art SSD hosting for all of their plans.  Their sites are super fast and easy to setup.  I rarely need support, but when I was migrating my sites to a larger plan I used their support services and they were phenomenal.  I highly recommend A2 hosting for all of your hosting needs.  And I also recommend everyone to have a personal website. If you’re in technology and looking for a job and don’t have your own website, I probably wouldn’t hire you.  Just sayin’. Please use my affiliate link when signing up. https://www.ageekleader.com/a2