Leadership Recalibrated™

Lori Lalonde
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A Leadership Series from Her Executive Ascent Inc. Leadership Recalibrated™ is a new lens on leadership for the modern era. It challenges outdated leadership advice and explores how women are uniquely positioned to lead in environments shaped by complexity, power dynamics, and artificial intelligence. Forget the recycled “be confident, lean in” playbook. This show gets tactical about what actually works. Each episode explores how leaders are recalibrating around three critical capabilities: Executive Judgment - Making clear, strategic decisions in complex environments.Strategic Influence - Navigating power, visibility, and decision pathways inside organizations.AI Leadership - Shaping how artificial intelligence informs strategy, governance, and leadership. Hosted by Lori Lalonde, founder of Her Executive Ascent Inc., the show features conversations with women who have learned how to operate differently and the decisions that changed the trajectory of their leadership. Leadership Recalibrated™ explores the ideas. Her Executive Ascent™ is where leaders strengthen the judgment, strategic influence, and AI leadership authority required to operate at the executive level. This is leadership for women who are done waiting for permission and ready to rewrite the rules. New episodes drop weekly.

  1. Inclusion Starts With I: How Women Can Shape The AI Era Before It Shapes Them

    4d ago

    Inclusion Starts With I: How Women Can Shape The AI Era Before It Shapes Them

    Most of the technology shaping our world right now was not built with women in mind. The algorithms deciding who gets hired, who gets promoted, and whose ideas get amplified were built largely without us, trained largely without us, and are now being deployed at a scale that is moving faster than most of us can keep up with. The numbers are sobering. 86% of jobs most exposed to AI automation are held by women. Women make up less than 25% of the workforce actually building AI. And the World Economic Forum estimates it will take 123 years to close the gender parity gap worldwide. In 2026, women are still making 83 to 86 cents for every dollar a man earns for the same work. But today's guest is not here to talk about the problem. She is here to talk about what we do about it. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Miri Rodriguez, Founder and CEO of Empressa.ai, the groundbreaking AI platform built on women's lived experiences, trained on women's knowledge, and designed to close the very gaps the technology industry has spent decades widening. After 13 years at Microsoft, where she became one of the company's most recognized storytellers and published the award-winning bestseller Brand Storytelling, Miri left one of the most powerful platforms in the world to build something the industry had never seen before. We get into why AI is either the most powerful tool women have ever had access to or the fastest way to permanently hard-code today's gaps into tomorrow's opportunities at scale, what it actually means for an AI to be built on women's lived experiences and why that changes everything about how it responds, the Empressa Imperial Council and the model that pays women royalties for the knowledge they contribute, how to start closing the gap today, and the rule Miri wants every woman to rewrite before she walks into her next room. This one will fire you up. And it is supposed to. About Our Guest Miri Rodriguez is the Founder and CEO of Empressa.ai, a groundbreaking AI company reshaping the future of work for women. With 13 years at Microsoft, where she evolved from communications and marketing into one of the company's most recognized storytellers, Miri built and led work that changes how organizations connect with people. That body of work became her bestselling book, Brand Storytelling, published by Kogan Page, translated into four languages, and recognized with multiple awards worldwide. Now she is channeling everything she built at Microsoft into something the market has never seen before. Empressa is an AI platform built on women's lived experiences, trained on women's knowledge, and designed to close the very gaps the technology industry has spent decades widening. She is also the author of the book The Women of Microsoft, an advisor to Ragan's Center for AI Strategy, and one of the clearest, most urgent voices on what it is going to take for women to stop adapting to systems that were never built for them and start building the ones that are. Connect with Miri LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/mirirod Website: https://empressa.ai

    54 min
  2. AI Is Not A Strategy: What Leaders Get Wrong About AI Adoption and What to Do Instead

    Jun 14

    AI Is Not A Strategy: What Leaders Get Wrong About AI Adoption and What to Do Instead

    Every leadership team is talking about AI right now. The slide decks are full of it. The board presentations reference it. The press releases announce it. And on the ground, the people actually responsible for building and delivering are quietly panicking because nobody gave them the time, the tools, or the training to actually do it. That gap has a name. And it has a cost. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Heather Gawel, founder of Momentum Product Co. and former VP of Product and Design, to talk about what AI adoption actually looks like inside organizations right now versus how leadership is talking about it. Heather has spent the better part of two decades leading product teams managing portfolios of over $100 million and earlier this year left the corporate seat to go deeper — building an enablement practice specifically around the AI gap she kept running into everywhere she turned. What she is seeing is not what most leaders think is happening on their teams. There is a bell curve playing out inside most organizations right now. At the top, urgency is high. In the middle, leadership is building slide decks and attending demos. And at the IC level, people are on their own time trying to piece together a skill set their organization demanded but never equipped them for. This is a conversation for anyone in leadership who has announced an AI strategy without building the conditions for their people to actually execute on it. And for anyone on the ground who is tired of being told to learn AI without being given the time or support to do it. About Our Guest Heather Gawel is the founder of Momentum Product Co. and a practitioner at the intersection of AI, product, and execution. She started her career in mechanical engineering, moved into product management, and spent the better part of two decades leading product teams across hardware, software, and B2B SaaS — most recently as VP of Product and Design at a San Francisco-based scale-up managing a portfolio of over $100 million. Earlier this year Heather made the move from the corporate seat to consulting, co-founding Momentum Product Co. to fill the AI enablement gap she kept running into — first inside her own organizations and then in every discovery call she took when launching the business. Through Momentum, she runs hands-on AI workshops and enablement sessions for product managers, founders, and cross-functional teams across Waterloo, Toronto, and the US. What makes her perspective different is straightforward — these are not frameworks she read about. These are workflows she uses every day. She is passionate about creating on-ramps for people who want to build with AI, especially women who are new to the AI community. Connect with Heather: Website: momentumproductco.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/heathergawel Build With AI: Tech Worker Edition Heather is running an in-person, hands-on Build with AI workshop in partnership with Communitech on Thursday June 18th in Kitchener, Ontario. Register here: luma.com/08m5ihzdUse promo code RECALIBRATED at checkout to get $50 off of registration.

    46 min
  3. Bold Women, Sustainable Futures: Rewriting the Rules of Leadership for a Changing World

    Jun 7

    Bold Women, Sustainable Futures: Rewriting the Rules of Leadership for a Changing World

    Sustainability is not just about the environment. It never was. At the heart of every climate policy, every economic model, every sustainability report is a deeper question — whose voice is centered, whose leadership is legitimized, and whose values are prioritized. And right now, in 2026, the answers to those questions are moving in the wrong direction. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Supriya Verma, Founder of Sustainability X Magazine and author of the newly released book Bold Women, Sustainable Futures: Leadership Lessons in an Age of Resistance. Supriya has spent a decade at the intersection of sustainability, women's leadership, and systems change — building a platform that brings together the conversations most people keep in separate rooms, and shining a light on the women who are leading through some of the most complex and consequential challenges of our time. This book arrived at exactly the right moment. As DEI commitments are being rolled back, climate accountability is being deprioritized, and a generation of young women is entering a workforce that feels more hostile than the one that came before it, Supriya chose not to be quiet about it. And that decision changed everything about what this book became. This is a conversation for anyone who has felt defeated by how quickly progress can be reversed. And for anyone who needs a reminder that the women who came before us faced resistance too and kept going anyway. About Our Guest Supriya Verma is the Founder of Sustainability X Magazine, a platform she launched in 2016 to bring together environment, economy, society, and politics through dialogue and storytelling. What began as a digital sustainability magazine evolved into a broader space for visibility and recognition, most notably through the Global 50 Women in Sustainability Awards, now celebrating its fifth annual cycle as Sustainability X marks its 10th anniversary. Over a decade of listening to extraordinary women across climate, governance, finance, advocacy, science, policy, and social justice, Supriya began to see patterns that demanded more than celebration. They demanded documentation. The result is her debut book, Bold Women, Sustainable Futures: Leadership Lessons in an Age of Resistance, published in March 2026 during Women's Month and available worldwide wherever books are sold. She is one of the most urgent and necessary voices on what bold, sustainable, and human-centered leadership actually looks like in a world that is actively resisting it. Get Involved: The SustainabilityX® Magazine - sustainabilityx.coBuy the book on Amazon, Indigo, Friesenpress & 50,000+ global retailers.Subscribe to the newsletter for book and tour updates

    51 min
  4. Nothing's Written Down and No One's Talking: Why Most Business Transformations Are Set Up to Fail

    May 31

    Nothing's Written Down and No One's Talking: Why Most Business Transformations Are Set Up to Fail

    Most business transformations fail. Not because the strategy was wrong. Not because the budget ran out. Because nobody wrote anything down and nobody was talking to each other. That is not a dramatic oversimplification. That is what Jessica Caresse White walks into every single time. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Jessica, CEO & Managing Director of her own transformation consulting practice and a woman who built her career inside some of the most demanding organizations in the world — starting with McKinsey, where she learned what it means to be obsessive about the details everyone else dismisses, and continuing through Cisco, Hitachi, and beyond. What makes Jessica different from every other consultant in the room is that she has never been interested in transforming the business alone. She is in the business of transforming hearts and minds. And she has spent her entire career proving that you cannot have one without the other. Jessica does not sugarcoat what transformation actually requires — the people decisions, the AI reality, and the corporate habits that quietly sabotage even the best-laid plans. She has seen it all from the inside and she is not holding back. This is a conversation for anyone leading a team through change right now who suspects the problem is not the roadmap. It is the people. And what happens when no one is paying attention to them. About Our Guest Jessica Caresse is a visionary leader, transformational coach, and the driving force behind J.Caresse & Company, a consulting firm that not only transforms businesses but also transforms hearts & minds. With a wealth of experience across industries, Jessica has built a career on the principles of integrity, innovation, and unwavering determination. Her work at industry giants like Cisco Systems, Hitachi Solutions, and McKinsey & Company was marked by her ability to turn challenges into opportunities and lead teams through complex, high-stakes projects. She is a master at streamlining operations, driving strategic change, and creating environments where both businesses and people can thrive. Connect with Jessica: Website: www.jcaresse.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-caresseConnecting The Dots Podcast: https://www.jcaresse.com/podcastBook a call: https://calendly.com/jcaresse/connect-with-jessica-caresse

    43 min
  5. The Hiring Gaps Nobody Wants to Talk About: Women, Work, and What Needs to Change

    May 24

    The Hiring Gaps Nobody Wants to Talk About: Women, Work, and What Needs to Change

    The hiring process is sending signals to women long before the first interview. In the job posting. In whether the salary is listed or conspicuously absent. In how flexibility is framed or not mentioned at all. Women are reading every one of those signals and making decisions based on what they find. Or more often, what they don't. And the data backs it up. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated, I sit down with Alexandra Tillo, Senior Talent Marketing Consultant at Indeed Canada, who has spent nearly a decade sitting at the intersection of employers and job seekers translating labour market research into insights that the people making hiring decisions need to hear. What she is seeing right now when it comes to women in the Canadian workforce is equal parts progress and friction. And the friction is persistent. This is a conversation for every woman navigating the job market right now, for every leader who wants to understand what their hiring process is actually communicating, and for anyone who believes the only way to change outcomes is to change the system creating them. About Our Guest Alexandra Tillo is a Senior Talent Marketing Consultant at Indeed Canada, where she has spent nearly a decade working at the intersection of employers and job seekers. In her current role, she serves as Indeed Canada's market-facing voice — speaking at industry conferences, executive briefings, and events, and translating labour market data and talent trends into actionable insights for HR and talent acquisition leaders across the country. Before stepping into thought leadership, Alexandra built her career on the front lines of enterprise sales managing national accounts at Indeed with some of Canada's largest employers including Walmart, McDonald's, and Gordon Food Service, and earlier at Oracle where she led bilingual account management across enterprise and mid-market segments in Eastern Canada. Alexandra brings a global perspective to the Canadian hiring market and a clear-eyed ability to connect what the data says with what employers and job seekers are actually experiencing on the ground. She is one of the most informed voices on what the labour market data says about women in the workforce right now. And in this episode, she is not holding back. Connect with Alexandra LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-tillo/Indeed: https://www.indeed.com/Indeed article: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/news/women-flexible-work-benefits-gap

    47 min
  6. Stop Surviving The Room: How High-Achieving Women Reclaim Their Voice, Their Time, and Their Power

    May 17

    Stop Surviving The Room: How High-Achieving Women Reclaim Their Voice, Their Time, and Their Power

    You have been in the room. You have done the work. You have delivered the results. And somehow you still walk out of meetings feeling like you left something on the table. That is not a you problem. That is what happens when high-achieving women are handed a leadership playbook that was never written for them. In this episode of Leadership Recalibrated™, I sit down with Lynsey Mulder — keynote speaker, certified coach, and former SVP at a Fortune 100 company — who spent over two decades inside corporate America before leaving to do something about the leadership advice gap that keeps so many women stuck. Lynsey does not do recycled. She does not do watered down. She comes with frameworks, data, and the kind of honest conversation that most leadership training skips entirely. We get into the invisible work tax that women absorb without even realizing it is happening, why only 20% of people actually know their superpower and what it costs when you are not one of them, the BANK framework and how cracking your own communication code changes everything about how you lead and how you are heard, why no is not a problem to manage but a strategy to master, and what it actually takes to stop conforming to a mold that was never built for you and start leading in a way that is fully, unapologetically yours. This is a conversation for women who are done surviving the room and ready to own it. About Our Guest Lynsey Mulder spent over two decades rising through corporate America to reach the level of Senior Vice President at a Fortune 100 company, and what she learned along the way is that most leadership advice handed to women is either recycled, watered down, or written by people who've never actually been in the room. So she left to change that. Today, Lynsey runs multiple businesses. Her favorite being working with high-achieving women, business owners, and executives who are ready to lead on their own terms. She is a keynote speaker, certified coach, podcast host, and the person your leadership team calls when they need real talk, not a motivational poster. Her frameworks help leaders get clear on what they stand for, how they communicate, and what they refuse to compromise, so they can stop surviving the room and start owning it. Connect With Lynsey Website: https://lynseymulder.com Lead With Spark Podcast: https://lynseymulder.com/podcast

    56 min
  7. The AI Double Standard: Why Women Get Punished for Playing the Game Everyone Said to Play

    May 10

    The AI Double Standard: Why Women Get Punished for Playing the Game Everyone Said to Play

    Everyone's telling women to use AI. Learn it, embrace it, or get left behind. So women do. And then they get penalized for it. In this episode, I dig into the research and I came with receipts. Most importantly, I share some positive stats we don't hear about. If you are a first-time manager trying to figure out how to lead with AI, or a senior leader who's done waiting for the system to catch up, this one is for you. Her Executive Ascent Leadership Programs: https://community.herexecutiveascent.com/pages/program-offerings The Research LeanInhttps://leanin.org/research/ai-women-gender-gap-datahttps://leanin.org/education/what-is-attribution-biasHBShttps://d3.harvard.edu/the-gender-divide-in-generative-ai-a-global-challengehttps://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=66548HK / Peking Universityhttps://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5255039Monday Girlhttps://itbrief.ca/story/canadian-women-report-greater-anxiety-over-ai-at-workUNESCOhttps://www.unesco.org/ethics-ai/en/articles/tackling-gender-bias-and-harms-artificial-intelligence-aiDev Barometer:https://www.bairesdev.com/blog/dev-barometer-q1-2026-ai-accountabilityDeloitte:https://ceo-na.com/technology/women-and-generative-ai-the-adoption-gap-is-closing-fast-but-a-trust-gap-persists/UN Global Compacthttps://unglobalcompact.org/compactjournal/silicon-ceiling-how-ai-risks-rewiring-workplace-inequalityNaturehttps://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/10/ai-llms-age-bias-older-working-women-researchILOhttps://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/03/ai-gender-parity-womens-history-month-jobs/

    28 min
  8. Beyond the Quick Fix: Joana Castro on Food Therapy and Reclaiming Your Health

    Apr 26

    Beyond the Quick Fix: Joana Castro on Food Therapy and Reclaiming Your Health

    We've all been handed the same playbook — eat less, move more, push through. And most of us have followed it faithfully while still feeling exhausted, disconnected from our bodies, and no closer to actually feeling well. Joana Castro has a different theory about why that is. And the answer isn't another supplement, another diet, or another wellness trend. Joana is a food therapy expert and founder of My Own True Balance, who sits at a rare intersection of nuclear medicine, biomedical engineering, and traditional Chinese medicine. After spending years inside the corporate world while quietly rebuilding her own health — following years of being dismissed by the medical system — she built a practice that merges Eastern and Western science in a way that most people in either field haven't managed to do. In this episode, we talk about why the way most women have been eating their entire lives has been working against them, what traditional Chinese medicine understands about the female body that Western medicine is only beginning to catch up to, and why real healing was never supposed to be fast. It was supposed to be steady. This is a conversation about food as medicine, about learning to understand your own body's makeup, and about what it looks like to stop chasing fixes and start owning your energy. About Our Guest Joana Castro is a creative polymath and food therapy expert bridging science, TCM, and holistic health. With a background in nuclear medicine, biomedical engineering, and TCM food therapy; she turned personal health struggles into a mission: helping people to achieve balance through food, so they can truly own their energy.  As Founder of My Own True Balance, Joana helps busy professionals reclaim vitality through food therapy. She specializes in female health (menstrual & menopause), burnout recovery, energy/focus, and digestion—fueled by science, ancient wisdom, and real results. Connect with Joana Linkedin Profile: linkedin.com/in/joanadscastro/Website: https://myowntruebalance.comFood Therapy Session: https://myowntruebalance.com/food-therapy-consultationUse promo code: TAKE10 to receive a 10% discount, valid on your first purchase, on the My Own True Balance website.

    1 hr
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About

A Leadership Series from Her Executive Ascent Inc. Leadership Recalibrated™ is a new lens on leadership for the modern era. It challenges outdated leadership advice and explores how women are uniquely positioned to lead in environments shaped by complexity, power dynamics, and artificial intelligence. Forget the recycled “be confident, lean in” playbook. This show gets tactical about what actually works. Each episode explores how leaders are recalibrating around three critical capabilities: Executive Judgment - Making clear, strategic decisions in complex environments.Strategic Influence - Navigating power, visibility, and decision pathways inside organizations.AI Leadership - Shaping how artificial intelligence informs strategy, governance, and leadership. Hosted by Lori Lalonde, founder of Her Executive Ascent Inc., the show features conversations with women who have learned how to operate differently and the decisions that changed the trajectory of their leadership. Leadership Recalibrated™ explores the ideas. Her Executive Ascent™ is where leaders strengthen the judgment, strategic influence, and AI leadership authority required to operate at the executive level. This is leadership for women who are done waiting for permission and ready to rewrite the rules. New episodes drop weekly.

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