THE HUMAN EDGE

Annastacia Wainaina

The Human Edge is the home for leaders who believe belonging is not a buzzword, but the unshakable human birthright to be seen, valued, and deeply connected. Host Annastacia Wainaina—raised with a deep sense of belonging —challenges today’s leaders to stop treating culture as a strategy and start owning it as a living responsibility. Here, we move beyond inclusion rhetoric and build cultures people fight to be part of and never want to leave—cultures where belonging fuels innovation, loyalty, and real human flourishing. In a world racing toward automation, The Human Edge stands for the truth:

  1. 13h ago

    When High-Pressure Work Hides Psychological Risk | Philip Armstrong

    High-pressure work can hide psychological risk. Dr Philip Armstrong joins Annastacia Wainaina on The Human Edge Podcast for a conversation about men’s mental health, remote work, workplace culture, retention, and the human connection that technology cannot replace. Philip discusses the golden handcuff of high income and low freedom, the pressure some men feel to stay silent, broken sleep, relationships affected by distance, workplace bullying, and what high turnover can reveal about the system around people. The conversation also explores AI and care. Technology can be useful, but it cannot replace legitimate empathy, individual understanding, or the human presence of walking beside someone when life is difficult. This episode is for CEOs, executive teams, CHROs, people and culture leaders, healthcare leaders, and managers responsible for high-pressure workforces. The Human Edge Podcast explores what it takes to lead, care, and create change at the edge of pressure, technology, and human experience.

  2. 6d ago

    "The CEO Is The Greenskeeper" A Founder's Golf Course Theory Of Culture | Julian Fayad

    What actually builds a company culture that survives growth? Julian Fayad, CEO of Loan Options, breaks down his golf course model of culture, why leaders and teams both have to hold the standard, and how real investment in people keeps 40 staff wanting to be in the office. Annastacia Wainaina sits down with Julian Fayad, a jiu jitsu purple belt and host of the Lost and Founders podcast, to talk the greenskeeper theory of culture, unlimited learning investment for staff, flattened hierarchy, where his leadership instinct comes from, and his five pieces of advice for his own children. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/tc7v2erWqUI The Human Edge Podcast explores what it really takes to lead, care and create change at the edge of human possibility.

    "The CEO Is The Greenskeeper" A Founder's Golf Course Theory Of Culture | Julian Fayad

  3. Jul 15

    My Son Had Pneumonia For 8 Weeks. Our AI Solved It In 7 Minutes. | Dwayne Boyes, Doctor Sophia AI

    Two weeks for a booking. A GP who arrived 40 minutes late and spent five minutes with a sick four year old. Eight and a half more weeks of pneumonia. And an AI, sitting unused in his father's own company, that reached the correct antibiotic in a seven and a half minute conversation. Annastacia Wainaina sits down with Dwayne Boyes, CEO of Doctor Sophia AI, part of Medtech AI Group. His company started as Botanical Clinics Australia, a medical clinic, not a tech startup. Five of his six person exec team are non Caucasian, and Dwayne describes his indigenous and tribal upbringing as the lens they are putting on AI. He is direct about what is broken: ramping crises where patients cannot get off the ambulance, roughly 70% of emergency presentations never admitted, and a shortage of 10,000 GPs tracked by 2031 according to the Australian Medical Association. He explains a model where no medical practitioner loses their job, where the career pyramid becomes an hourglass and the workforce grows by a forecast 30%, because automating the 2am prescription is what gives a doctor two hours for the patient who is frightened and needs to be seen. He maps accountability across class 1, class 2B and class 3 software as a medical device. He describes flying into Damascus days after major bombings to trial an AI triage assistant in a hospital where there were no doctors at all. And he gives the sentence he would put in front of every health minister on earth: AI will give us abundance or apocalypse, and which one we get is completely in our control. The Human Edge Podcast explores what it really takes to lead, care and create change at the edge of human possibility.

  4. Jul 9

    Life Matters And People Come First | Saul on Leading Where Every Decision Is Life Or Death

    Walk through the front doors of Medi Response and the first sign you see says: life matters and people come first. Annastacia Wainaina sits down with Saul, global CEO of Medi Response, an organisation delivering pre-hospital emergency care and aeromedical evacuation across the world. His teams run ambulances across South Africa, staff mining, oil and gas sites, and operate in hostile environments including Iraq and Afghanistan. This is leadership shaped by life and death. Saul explains why AI belongs in the medical pack as a tool rather than as the decision maker, and why his clinicians are told to fall back on their training and double check what the algorithm suggests. He describes the escalation pathways where questioning a decision is commended, not punished. He speaks honestly about mental health in emergency care, and how the belief that a practitioner who cries after a scene is weak had to be dismantled. He argues that culture cannot be taught, only cultivated, and that empathy must run from the executive all the way to the person taking the rubbish out at the gate. Then he shares the two stories that made him. The man trapped under a heavy vehicle who died the moment it was lifted, and the lesson that you can prepare every step and still not control the outcome. And the baby he delivered in an ambulance, now an adult walking past him years later. His closing advice: go back to basics, build the foundations, and remember that if you are the most clever person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Find Medi Response at mediresponse.co.za The Human Edge Podcast explores what it really takes to lead, care and create change at the edge of human possibility.

    Life Matters And People Come First | Saul on Leading Where Every Decision Is Life Or Death

  5. Jul 1

    Supply and Demand, Not Self Worth | Jane Anderson on Pricing Power, Personal Brand and Building a Practice That Lasts

    If you have ever undercharged, wondered why your pipeline is dry or felt like your expertise is not being valued the way it should be, this is the conversation you needed years ago.Jane Anderson is one of the world's leading consulting coaches, working with thought leaders, consultants and advisors across more than 40 countries. She is the author of multiple books, a certified speaking professional and a growth strategist whose clients have built some of the most recognised independent practices in their fields.In this episode of The Human Edge, Jane and Annastacia cover: why pricing is a supply and demand question, not a self-worth one. The million dollar problem being solved for $500 and why that has to change. Why you are the non-negotiable and the thing no competitor can copy or undercut. The honest test that tells you if you have a business or a very expensive hobby. How she nearly walked away from everything in 2020, ran a free event instead, had 500 people show up and created over $50 million worth of IP in two days. The difference between an expert and a thought leader, and what it takes to make the shift. And a closing thought that every person sitting on their expertise needs to hear: you have got more in you than you think.Find Jane Anderson at janeanderson.com.au and across social media.he Human Edge is hosted by Annastacia Wainaina, for leaders who believe that how you build matters as much as what you build.If this episode moved you, save it, share it and leave a review.

    Supply and Demand, Not Self Worth | Jane Anderson on Pricing Power, Personal Brand and Building a Practice That Lasts

  6. May 20

    From Stethoscope to System | Dr. Karl Daniel on Healthcare Access, Humanity and Building Tibu Health

    Over 50% of Kenyans cannot access primary healthcare. Most manage their own symptoms until a small condition becomes an expensive emergency. Dr. Karl Daniel decided to change the system rather than keep treating patients one at a time. Dr. Karl is the CEO of Tibu Health Kenya, a company placing minute clinics inside pharmacies to make quality primary care accessible and affordable across Kenya and Uganda. He is a trained doctor with epidemiology training and an MBA, and he leads at the intersection of healthcare operations and human experience. In this episode of The Human Edge, Dr. Karl and Annastacia Wainaina cover: why 50% of Kenyans cannot access primary care and how the system loses people in the cracks. The moment he knew the stethoscope was no longer his most powerful tool. What he learned about leadership from a superintendent in Turkana who told him: you lead and the money will follow. Why humanity is a clinical strategy, not just a value. How belonging in healthcare is clinical, not optional. The minute clinic model and why colocating inside pharmacies keeps costs low without cutting care. What preventive healthcare looks like inside a pharmacy where people already shop. The role of trust in medicine. And what is coming next for Tibu Health including supermarkets, HPV vaccines and audiology services. Find Tibu Health at MMD.Africa or through Good Life Pharmacy across Kenya. The Human Edge is hosted by Annastacia Wainaina, for leaders who believe humanity belongs at the centre of everything they build. If this conversation moved something in you, save it, share it and leave a review.

    From Stethoscope to System | Dr. Karl Daniel on Healthcare Access, Humanity and Building Tibu Health

  7. May 19

    Grief Into Purpose | Dr. Levi Cheruo on Preventable Deaths, Broken Healthcare and Fixing the System From the Inside

    What do you do when the healthcare system that was supposed to save your family fails them, not once, but five times? Dr. Levi Cheruo is the CEO and Founder of Doctors Explain Digital Health Group, a movement democratising healthcare access across Africa through technology, empathy and relentless conviction. Before he built it, he lost his father to misdiagnosis, his fiance to an ignored headache that turned out to be an advanced brain tumor, and four others to conditions that need not be killing anyone in this day and era. From that grief, he made a decision. He could wallow in pity. Or he could do something. He chose to do something. In this conversation with Annastacia Wainaina on The Human Edge, Dr. Levi Cheruo speaks with the kind of honesty and conviction that only comes from someone who has looked the system in the eye and refused to look away. In this episode: The loss of his father, his fiance and four others to preventable deaths, and what that season of grief did to him as a human being. Why he says the healthcare system does two things well, it accelerates your untimely death and then it collects your money. The moment he stopped waiting for the rain and decided to become the rainmaker. How being raised by generous grandparents who cooked extra food for neighbours shaped his belief that every life matters regardless of class. Why he sees his family in every single patient and what that does to how he leads. What AI in the hands of a midwife at a rural clinic can change for the woman on the table at that moment. Why giving birth should not be a death sentence, and how information in the right language saves lives money sometimes cannot. His honest and unfiltered assessment of where Kenya and Africa sit on the digital health journey. And the one sentence he would say to his father and his fiance about what he is building in their memory. The Human Edge is hosted by Annastacia Wainaina, for leaders who believe that equity, empathy and integrity are not soft skills. They are the foundation of everything that lasts. If this episode moved you, save it, share it and leave a review. This conversation deserves to reach more people.

    Grief Into Purpose | Dr. Levi Cheruo on Preventable Deaths, Broken Healthcare and Fixing the System From the Inside

  8. May 6

    Why Joseph Katimbo Refuses to Choose Between Aerospace and Mental Health

    Joseph Katimbo is an aerospace engineer designing aircraft and drones in Kampala, Uganda. He is also the founder of Serene Mind, a digital platform making therapy accessible in African languages at prices people can actually afford.In this conversation we go into what it really costs to build mental health as infrastructure in Africa, why he refused to choose between engineering and therapy, the deal he painfully turned down when the bank was empty, and why he believes no one should have to work alone.This is not a startup story. This is a conversation about what becomes possible when a continent decides to heal.FOLLOW HUMAN EDGE PODCASTAsk

    Why Joseph Katimbo Refuses to Choose Between Aerospace and Mental Health
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About

The Human Edge is the home for leaders who believe belonging is not a buzzword, but the unshakable human birthright to be seen, valued, and deeply connected. Host Annastacia Wainaina—raised with a deep sense of belonging —challenges today’s leaders to stop treating culture as a strategy and start owning it as a living responsibility. Here, we move beyond inclusion rhetoric and build cultures people fight to be part of and never want to leave—cultures where belonging fuels innovation, loyalty, and real human flourishing. In a world racing toward automation, The Human Edge stands for the truth:

Information

  • Creator
    Annastacia Wainaina
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    121
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Annastacia Wainaina
  • Show Website
    THE HUMAN EDGE