Esther Aguilera is President and CEO of the Latino Corporate Directors Association (LCDA), which convenes Latino directors and executives at the highest levels of corporate leadership.

She’s a proven leader who brings a 30-year record of successfully executing strategic business plans to drive organizational effectiveness, growth, and impact. 

In her current role, she influences some of the most powerful companies by bringing together accomplished executives at the pinnacle of corporate governance to advance diversity in the boardroom.  

In our interview today, Esther and I discussed diversity and why having a diverse board can lead to better decision-making and overall company growth.

Key takeaways from our interview:

• Diverse boards provide diverse perspectives that can help companies thrive
• Qualifications for board membership involves specific educational focus areas, including P&L leadership 
• Why boards should reflect their employee and customer base as well as adapt to future demographic trends

Relevant Links:

Website: https://latinocorporatedirectors.org/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esther-aguilera-lcda/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClqCZ6TV0k7gUtgMS0kTQ0w 

Jake Jacobs has spent 35 years consulting leaders of diverse industries including technology, hospitality, entertainment, and finance. Having worked with 96 organizations from small nonprofits to Fortune 50 enterprises, he has implemented numerous change initiatives from culture change, mergers and acquisitions, and leadership transitions.

In this interview, we discuss the challenges companies face when navigating change initiatives and strategies to lead sustainable change management implementations.

Key Takeaways from today’s interview. 

• Change must be combined with continuity to be sustainable.
• Rather than focusing on “what’s in it for me?” consider engaging the team in a process of developing a collective future to determine what’s great for the whole organization.
• Employees are often on board with change if they feel heard during the process. If some individuals seem opposed to change, engage them in the process to understand those perspectives and find solutions.

Connect with Jake

• Website – www.jakejacobsconsulting.com
• LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertjakejacobs/

Stephen Kohler, is an intuitive founder and CEO. He is a university of Chicago MBA trained executive with P&L experience who led global marketing and strategy departments for several blue chip & industry leading brands such as Weber, Kraft, and Shure.

Stephen founded Audira to help people find clarity, direction and purpose in their work. He talks about Audira and discusses why they believe the most powerful foundational leadership skill is listening.

Key Takeaways from today’s interview. 

• How the pandemic has shed light on why it’s important for organizations to truly listen to their employees. 
• Embracing the digital culture of working from anywhere.
• Why it’s important for organizations to be clear on what they stand for and believe in. 
• Employee engagement, and how involving employees in decision making will help retain great talent. 

Connect with Stephen

Website – https://audiralabs.com/ 

Personal LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-kohler-989010a/ 

Company LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/audiralabs 

Twitter – https://twitter.com/audiralabs  

Phoenix Jackson is an award-winning social entrepreneur, tech investor,

author, and speaker. She’s also the founder and Chief Communications Officer of Phoenix Effect, a 16-year-old global Public Relations and Marketing firm. 

Passionate about empowering her clients to be influential through entrepreneurship, Phoenix has worked with many small business owners, nonprofits, professional athletes, entertainers, authors, speakers, and politicians in helping them manifest their business goals.

Our social media environment has made it more common to see companies face disparaging conversations on social media. In our interview, we discussed how companies could effectively handle negative press from social media and strategies to avoid facing these issues in the first place.

Key takeaways from our conversation today include:

• Why social media has exacerbated an existing cultural trend of spreading negative stories before confirming accuracy.
• Tips for assessing risk when navigating politically charged company decisions.
• Best practices for responding to negative reviews and angry customers. 

Connect with Phoenix Jackson

Linkedin

Twitter

Instagram

Company Website

Personal Website

Gina Schreck is the founder of SocialKNX, a digital marketing & social media management agency and the owner of two coworking spaces, The Village Workspace and BarnWorx in Centennial Colorado. She’s been ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top B2B marketers to follow in 2019 and 2020.

On today’s episode of Corporate CPR, Gina shared the most impactful strategies for strengthening your company’s social media presence and avoiding digital media faux pas. During our discussion, we touched on topics such as:

• Choosing the best voice and style for your social media content
• Which companies should be active on social media and why
• Factors to consider when deciding the optimum content marketing budget
• The best time to start using social media for business branding

This episode is fast-paced and full of impactful nuggets of information for companies ready to refine or expand their social media strategy.

Connect with Gina

Website

Facebook

LinkedIn

Twitter

Instagram

Dan Prince is a life-long technologist and expert in the modern software development lifecycle.

He’s the founder and CEO of Illumisoft, a custom software development company that provides healthcare solutions with a human-centered approach. He’s also a team-player that opts for simplicity over perfection, and people over processes. 

In our interview today, Dan and I discussed the importance of building strong relationships with clients in order to truly understand their needs. And with customer satisfaction as a key indicator of how effective your business processes are, Dan and his team always conduct an analysis at the end of projects in order to learn and grow from their experiences. 

Connect with Dan. 

Website

LinkedIn

Twitter

Dr. Eric Daimler is an authority in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. 

With over 20 years of experience in the field, he has co-founded six technology companies and is currently the founder and CEO of Connexus AI; A company spun out of MIT that addresses the most significant unsolved problem in computer science.  

As a frequent speaker, lecturer, and commentator, Daimler empowers communities and citizens to leverage AI and robotics for a more sustainable, secure, and prosperous future. 

Having experienced AI in the broadest possible perspective from academia to business and policy, Dr. Eric has a unique outlook from which to consider the potential problems concerning the future of AI and help frame the debate about possible solutions.

In our interview today, Dr. Eric and I discussed why it’s vital that we all embrace the use of technology in our lives and businesses. We discuss the pros and cons of different database solutions alongside how organizations can fix common problems related to data. 

Other topics Dr. Eric and I cover include:

• Why data is the foundation of the future
• The future of fintech in relation to data. 
• Policy and protection: how we can keep our data secure. 
• Learning to be precise when dealing with databases. 
• Categorically organizing our data. 
• Stacking automation in business processes. 

Relevant Links

Website

LinkedIn

Twitter

Ted

Ron Karr is a sales success expert who has helped leaders on six continents eliminate risk, gain buy-in and achieve better results faster with the Velocity Mindset. In addition, his presentations and advisory services have generated over a billion dollars in incremental revenues for his clients. 

Ron is the author of five books, including his latest, The Velocity Mindset, and the bestselling book Lead, Sell or Get Out of the Way. In addition, Ron facilitates the Chief Revenue Officer Mastermind Group made up of CEOs and VP’s building high-performance sales cultures.

This podcast interview discussed the hurdles sales leaders face in achieving their goals, especially amidst economic shifts and changing environments. According to Ron, the best sales results come from uncovering customer motivations to find opportunities to become valuable — this often negates competitive forces that can often distract our gaze.

We also dive into the importance of sales benchmarking tools, growth mindset, and strategies for B2B companies to build new customer relationships.

Relevant Links:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

Instagram

LinkedIn

Dr. Troy Hall is an award-winning culture strategist, speaker, best-selling author, and talent retention expert. He has been featured on the Today Show, ABC, Beyond the Business Radio Show, and CEO world. His book Cohesion Culture discusses how leaders can create safe workplaces where employees feel valued and share mutual commitment. In addition, he has provided executive counseling to leaders, founders, and CEOs throughout his career who benefited from his experience and assistance in achieving their desired outcomes.

In this podcast interview, Dr. Troy discusses ways organizations can create a healthy working environment through culture, vision, alignment, camaraderie, and healthy workplace cultures. Almost every company has a culture problem. One of the ways to avoid significant cultural challenges is hiring people who share the company’s values. Although culture evolves through time, you can set the groundwork and establish the parameters and expectations upfront. 

For Dr. Troy, one of the things that organizations should look at when hiring is behavior and conduct. Understanding the behavior of employees can help minimize cultural problems. If you allow individuals to be harmful in the work environment, then the root of the culture problem is you and not the environment itself. Therefore, it’s crucial to actively observe behaviors, training, support, and communication at your company.

Relevant links:

Website

LinkedIn

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram