Agile Amped Podcast - Inspiring Conversations Accenture | SolutionsIQ

Simon Hayward is an honorary professor at Alliance Manchester Business School in the UK and author of The Agile Leader and Connected Leadership. He is also Global Lead for Leadership and Culture at Accenture’s Talent & Organization/Human Potential practice. In this episode, Hayward outlines challenges before leaders who seek to engage people in radical change – often the case in large-scale agile transformation. COVID has undoubtedly had a hand in worker expectations, and it offers leaders the opportunity to move their business from being just connected to becoming “omni-connected.”
“When organizations combine the digital and technological with the human and cultural, then that combination becomes particularly powerful. And leaders have a disproportionate impact on the way the culture operates and the behaviors in the organization.”
Accenture’s William Rowden hosts.
Learn more:
- Accenture Research "From Always Connected to Omni-Connected" https://www.accenture.com/cr-en/insights/strategy/organizational-culture

Julian Mancia is interested in helping humans get out of their own way, specifically when it comes to business innovation. As a Director of "What If! Innovation," part of Accenture, Mancia is excited by nebulous projects that might terrify others. For example, helping companies break into the competitive snack market or doubling growth in five years. How does he do it? With adaptive strategies.
Accenture’s Allia DeAngelis hosts.

Lisette Zounon is passionate about building quality into everything she does. A quality engineering leader with over 15 years of experience, Zounon is agile at work and at home, whether she’s planning her wedding or helping teams deliver excellent products. Her stories inspire the person in each of us that wants to make the world a better place in big ways (e.g., bringing breast cancer care to rural West Africa) and small (e.g., mentoring a young female professional on the verge of quitting the industry).
Accenture’s Ryan Keawekane hosts.
Learn more:
- https://www.zsquare4thecure.org/
- #UpYourConfidence podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upyourconfidence/id1518304276

The world of work has irreversibly changed. As the CEO for Institute Agility, Neville Poole is actively making space for people-centric work experiences. Physical workplaces now serve to bring people together to do what they cannot do remotely: connect, align on values and be creative. What’s more, people want their work to be meaningful, especially the next generation of workers. Neville shares her experiences both as an executive in Tech as well as a mother of two teenage girls with big dreams.
“This generation places a lot of value on impact… and impact doesn’t mean increase revenue by 20% or work 40 hours a week.”
Accenture’s Ryan Keawekane hosts.
Learn More:
• “Getting to Equal: Gender Parity in the Workplace” with Neville Poole https://open.spotify.com/episode/2mptreWZWjhtiBlYMQdMid?autoplay=true
• https://instituteagility.com/

Agile began in software but has evolved to impact every part of the business. Now business agility is seen as a way for organizations not just to create better products but also to run more effectively overall — regardless of what comes their way. Our guests discuss the evolution to business agility as we see it today.
Jason Novack is the global lead of the Accenture Business Agility practice (formerly Accenture | SolutionsIQ), and Evan Leybourn is the founder and CEO of the Business Agility Institute. They share what they are seeing in the world both from a business perspective (a greater interest in bringing agility into governance and portfolio management) and a human perspective. As Leybourn puts it, “We spend more time working than any other part of our life … If work isn’t one of the best parts of our life, that’s a waste of human potential.”
Accenture’s William Rowden hosts.

Who do you turn to to celebrate or to commiserate? When Apriel Biggs started her career 15 years ago, she didn’t have a community of agilists who shared her experiences, other Black and Brown people to share her highs and lows with. So Biggs started Blagile, an organization dedicated to elevating Black and Brown voices in agile. In this episode, she shares her journey and the help she got along the way in hopes of inspiring young agilists today.
Accenture’s Alalia Lundy hosts.
Learn more:
- Blagile.com
- Reach out to Apriel Biggs if you would like to guest on the Blagile podcast at hello@blagile.com.