The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR

Andy Doyle, Chief People & Agent Officer at Kantar,  joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about Kantar’s agentic HR transformation, why the future workforce will be a mix of humans and agents, and the four dimensions of AI we should be looking at when we think about who benefits from the AI gains.----  Sponsor Links:🔗 Explore the 2026 ​Deloitte Human Capital Trends Report🔗 Schedule a consultation with Manifest🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/mplMPL Links:🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build.----  (09:25) Why There Has Never Been a Better Time to Work in HR(12:25) “What Would You Need to Believe to Take Another 50% Out?”(14:00) Four Big HR Operating Model Changes at Kantar(14:35) Moving From COEs to Business Capability Hubs(15:35) Cutting the Bonus Cycle From 12 Weeks to 8 Days(16:10) Why Kantar Took Business Partners Away From the Business(18:00) Taking Workday Access Away From Business Partners(20:40) Twelve Thousand People and Seventeen Thousand Agents(22:30) Why Technology Has Become Disposable(23:00) HR Building Agents Without the Technology Team(26:45) Why HR Needs Clean Data and Better Foundations(28:10) Rewriting 4,200 Policies for Agents to Read(33:05) Why Leaders Must Build and Role Model Agents(33:45) HR Analytics Agent That Reduced a Monthly Task From One Week to Ten Minutes(35:10) Why Kantar’s TA Team Is Smaller, More Productive and More Engaged(35:35) Sharing the AI Dividend Across Shareholders, Clients, Employees and Society(39:00) Why Kantar Wants 80% From Agents and 20% From Human Judgment(42:15) Why Everything Andy Knew About Change Has Gone Out the Window(47:25) Rethinking the Five-Day Workweek and Vacation Time(52:25) The Practice Andy Would Steal: Product Mindset in HR---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn---- Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.

Luca Oake and Jessica Zwaan joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about building scalable L&D, why onboarding should be outcomes-focused instead of input-focused, and how AI, strong project runways, iteration, and builder mindsets can help people teams move faster.----  Sponsor Links:🔗 Request a demo of Shapes🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/mpl🔗 Learn more about Beqom at beqom.com/mplMPL Links:🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build.----  (08:05) Talentful’s Need for a More Scalable Onboarding Program(13:35) Why L&D Needs to Focus on Outcomes, Not Inputs(14:25) Why Learning Does Not Happen Until Behavior Changes(14:55) How AI Changes the Role of Coaches and L&D Leaders(16:25) Jessie on Using AI as a Tool, Not the Decision-Maker(19:15) Why Jessie’s Upfront Brief Made the Work Faster(20:40) Building a Smooth Runway for a Consultant(22:00) Designing for Outcomes and Scale(23:10) Flexible Operators and Expert Consultants as the Future of Work(25:40) Making the Project a Talentful Priority, Not a Jessie Project(26:45) Why Change Projects Need Strategic Seeding Across the Organization(28:20) How AI Helped Luca Process Interviews, Transcripts and Documents(29:00) Why Fractional Consultants Can Move Faster With AI(30:10) Designing the Onboarding Wireframe in Less Than a Month(35:15) The Complexity of Talentful’s Onboarding Program(38:10) Zooming In Before Zooming Out With Stakeholders(39:35) Building to Iterate, Not Just to Launch(40:10) The Biggest V1 to V2 Change: Four Weeks Down to One Week(42:20) Why MVPs Matter in People Ops(43:15) Why HR Needs Permission to Iterate(45:50) Why Moving Quickly Is No Longer Optional(52:35) Why Feelings Are Data, Not Facts(53:25) Why the Best L&D Is Building---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn---- Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.

Dan Mishin, founder and CEO of Manifest OS and an AI-native immigration law firm, explains how AI is reshaping legal services, global talent strategy, and company building. They explore transparent pricing, creative immigration support, radically autonomous teams, AI agents as coworkers, daily AI learning for CEOs, and why HR leaders must blend people, operations, and product skills.

Laura McGann, Chief People Officer at Prosci, explores the people side of transformation. She explains why change feels relentless, how ADKAR can reveal where people are stuck, and why leaders must confront overwhelm. The conversation also covers AI’s accelerating pace, portfolio-level change, hands-on leadership, manager overload, and deciding what work should remain human.

Olivia Williams, Head of HR at Vercel, builds modern People operations for fast-growing tech companies. She explains Vercel’s dramatic shift from an 11-week review process to a two-week sprint, demos PerfBot’s Slack-based feedback workflow, and explores a 15-factor attrition risk tool powered by Claude. They also discuss HR technologists, AI experimentation, employee experience, and making time to build.

Conor Sweeney, VP and Head of People & Talent at telehealth company Form Health, shares lessons from scaling a fast-growing organization. He explores what culture to preserve or retire, why trust beats consensus, and how leaders protect clinical quality and partnership. The conversation also covers job architecture, compensation, high-impact individual contributors, and the rise of the player-coach manager.

Alexis Fink, an industrial-organizational psychologist, people analytics leader, author, and advisor to OpenAI and Workvivo, explores how AI is reshaping work. They discuss designing organizations beyond reporting lines, inverted-pyramid and hourglass models, human-centered automation, holistic work funding, Microsoft’s transformation, change management, and building influence through momentum rather than persuasion.

Dean Carter, bestselling author, four-time CHRO, and Instill CEO, shares a career shaped by bold pivots. He recalls choosing family over Fossil, purpose over prestige at Patagonia, and finding play in work. They explore trusting your gut, embracing big misses, letting careers emerge, building AI that improves jobs, and thinking two roles ahead.

D.V. Williams, Chief People Officer from Match Group joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why Match is betting on Gen Z talent, how skills are replacing titles as the new currency of work, and how Match is thinking about flexible mentorship and early-career programs.----  Sponsor Links:🔗 Learn more about Beqom at beqom.com/mpl🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/mplMPL Links:🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build.----  (10:45) Why Match Is Betting on Gen Z Talent(12:00) Why Product and People Strategy Need to Align(15:20) How Gen Z Thinks About Work Differently(17:00) How Tinder Improved Engagement and Shifted the Internal Culture(18:20) Becoming Product-Led and Consumer-Focused(19:00) Flattening the Org and Getting Doers Closer to Decisions(23:45) Why Tenure and Title Are Outdated Proxies for Value(24:20) Skills as the New Currency of Work(24:45) Rebuilding Mentorship Around Skill Acquisition(25:20) Flexible Mentorship and the “Tinder for Skill Acquisition” Idea(30:15) How Match Is Approaching AI Internally(31:00) Equipping Employees With AI Without Framing It as Headcount Reduction(31:20) Match’s AI Day and Employee-Led Experimentation(34:00) How Dating Apps Are Evolving With AI and IRL Experiences(35:00) Using AI to Help People Show Up More Authentically on Dating Apps(40:15) Match’s Cross-Functional Rotational Program(41:30) Match’s Internship Program: 20,000 Applicants for 26 Roles(43:35) How the 2026 Rotational Program Is Different From Traditional Programs(45:35) Why Curiosity Beyond the Job Description Matters(48:05) Focusing Development on Skill Acquisition, Not the Next Title---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn---- Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.

Christy Lake, Chief Administrative Officer at Twilio, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about how AI is changing work, why skills, governance, and human judgment matter more than ever, and how Twilio is thinking about remote-first work, employee experience, and curiosity in the AI era.----  Sponsor Links:🔗 Learn more about SixFifty🔗 Explore the 2026 ​Deloitte Human Capital Trends ReportMPL Links:🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build.----  (11:20) The Hardest Thing on Christy’s Plate as CAO(12:00) Why AI Is the Biggest Transformation Christy Has Seen(13:00) Upskilling, Security, Data and Governance in the AI Era(14:30) Why AI Does Not Have a Clear Playbook Yet(15:25) Why This AI Cycle Comes With So Much Fear(17:30) Building a Skills Infrastructure for the Future of Work(18:15) Tasks, Roles and Where Human Judgment Still Matters(19:15) Twilio’s Three-Horizon View of AI Change(25:00) The Task Construct of Work and AI-Able Work(26:00) Why Existing Companies Still Need Org Design and Change Management(29:00) The Future of Employee Experience and the One Prompt Box(31:15) Why UX Will Matter More in the Future of Work(32:00) Why Companies Should Not Move Too Fast Without Human-in-the-Loop Design(33:40) Why People Still Need to Be Seen, Recognized and Thanked(36:00) Why Twilio Stayed Remote First(38:10) Hiring From Anywhere and Becoming a Net Talent Winner(40:45) Remote-First Companies and AI-First Readiness(42:00) AI Burnout, Remote Work and the Pressure to Do More(44:10) Why AI Upskilling Is Becoming Nights-and-Weekends Work(48:05) Why Constant Change Leaves People Without a Sense of Mastery---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn---- Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.