Lead Human - A Podcast About the Future of Work By Eli Harrell

Eli Harrell
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Lead Human - A Podcast About the Future of Work By Eli Harrell is a Podcast for Leaders Redefining How People Grow at Work. A space where we rethink how people are developed, how organizations grow through them, and what leadership looks like when humans come first

  1. 1d ago

    EP #12 Katz Zeta: Stop Being the Bottleneck

    In this episode, I sit down with Katz Zeta, Founder and CEO of Katalyst Consulting. Katz has spent more than thirty years in learning and development and consulting, starting with teaching speed reading in 1993, then spending five years at IBM, where her last role was learning services engagement manager. What makes Katz’s perspective distinctive is that she has sat in both chairs. She has advised leaders from the outside, and she has also been the one in the hot seat, including serving as CEO of a social selling tech startup during the pandemic. That mix gives her a rare level of empathy for the people she coaches and a clear view of what good can look like. This is a conversation about what happens when your own strengths become the thing holding your team back, and what it takes to move from doing the work to helping others do it well. We also get into L&D earning a seat at the table, making sure training turns into behavior change, and the role of one-on-one conversations in Filipino workplaces. The moment an investor told Katz she had become the bottleneck, and how that conversation changed the way she ledWhy Katz tells leaders that success has to be redefined when you move from high performer to people leaderA hard truth she shared with a quiet, talented executive, and how it turned him into one of the team’s best performersWhy 20 to 30 percent lecture and the rest practice makes training stick, and what managers must do before and after a programWhy one-on-ones often become a box-ticking chat in Filipino workplaces, and what it takes to have the courageous conversationThe four things Katz believes will stay with human leaders as AI takes on more of the workMake sure to stay until the end to hear Katz’s four things that will always stay with human leaders as AI takes on more of the thinking and executing! We hope you love this episode! If you do, please take time to share this with someone you think would be inspired by it! Connect with Me LinkedInInstagramTikTokFacebook

    EP #12 Katz Zeta: Stop Being the Bottleneck

  2. Oct 14

    EP #11 Romina Orbeta: Adoption Is Emotional Before Operational

    In this episode, I sit down with Romina Orbeta, Tech Director for People & Culture Solutions and Tech Hub Manila Site Lead at PMI. Since 2022, Romina has led a global team running the operations of a major HR systems platform, after more than twenty years with the company across the Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Portugal, Spain, and South Korea. Romina’s leadership story starts somewhere you will not find on a resume. At fourteen she grew up in a monastery, and by sixteen she was responsible for a dormitory of orphan children. That experience shaped a way of leading that puts service, community, and bringing people along at the center, and she has carried it into some of the most complex technology transformations in her company. This is a conversation about what happens when tech fluency and emotional intelligence work together, and why so many change efforts succeed or stall on the human side long before they succeed or stall on the system side. The factory in Malaysia where a six-month system change request turned out to need a bigger font and a single Excel tabWhy Romina says adoption is emotional before it is operational, and what leaders miss when they skip the front lineThe lesson from a global HR platform rollout about owning the downstream impact of decisions made upstreamWhy she tells leaders to give AI a role and keep the voice with the humanA simple habit that gets a room aligned fast: stepping back to explain the context and the whyWhy Filipino professionals can stop worrying about “bragging” and start stating facts about their workMake sure to stay until the end to hear Romina’s message on why sharing your achievements is simply stating facts, and why it helps the people around you! We hope you love this episode! If you do, please take time to share this with someone you think would be inspired by it! Connect with Me LinkedInInstagramTikTokFacebook

    EP #11 Romina Orbeta: Adoption Is Emotional Before Operational

  3. Sep 30

    EP #10 Phil Amores: Hire People Better Than You

    We're gathering data to create a market report: the AI Behavior Benchmark. Add your perspective to the report now: https://emergeph.com/ai-behavior-benchmark/ __________________________ In this episode, I sat down with Phil Amores, VP and Head of People Group at KMC, a 7,000-person organization leading flexible workspaces and global capability center solutions across the Philippines. Phil spent two decades in banking, global transformation, and people strategy before landing here, including leading a performance and reward transformation for HSBC across 50 countries and 200,000 employees. What I appreciate most about how Phil thinks is that he does not separate people strategy from business strategy. For him they are the same thing. That conviction shows up in everything from how KMC replaced abstract value statements with specific measurable behaviors, to their commitment to making every single employee capable of building their own AI agent before the end of the year. This is a conversation about what it actually looks like to disrupt yourself before someone else does it for you. Some of the highlights from this episode: Why KMC replaced value statements with specific, actionable behaviors and what changed because of itThe goal of every KMC employee knowing how to build their own AI agent before year-endWhy being problem obsessed matters more than being solution obsessed in the AI eraThe humility lesson Phil learned leading transformation across 50 countries that he still carries todayThe day he wrote his own corrective action memo and what his boss did with itHow KMC is redesigning roles so AI elevates the human rather than replaces themMake sure to stay until the end to hear Phil's message for HR leaders navigating the emotional weight of AI-driven change in their organizations! We hope you love this episode! If you do, please take time to share this with someone you think would be inspired by it! Connect with Me LinkedInInstagramTikTokFacebook

    EP #10 Phil Amores: Hire People Better Than You

  4. Sep 16

    EP #9 Liza Suarez: To Lead Humans Better, You Have to Be Seen as Human

    We're gathering data to create a market report: the AI Behavior Benchmark. Add your perspective to the report now: https://emergeph.com/ai-behavior-benchmark/ _______________________ In this episode, I sit down with Liz Suarez, Chief HR Officer of the Gothong Southern Group, a Philippine conglomerate spanning shipping, real estate, hospitality, supply chain logistics, and technology. Leading HR across that many lines of business is its own kind of leadership challenge, and Liz has built her entire approach around one conviction: behavior can be shaped, and anything that can be shaped can be measured. What makes Liz's perspective distinctive is where it comes from. She did not grow up watching anyone work in corporate. Her formation came through social sciences, through over a decade in hospitality where she was trained to demonstrate empathy as a measurable skill, and through a long career of building systems that connect the everyday work people do to the values the organization actually stands for. Some of the highlights from this episode: Why soft skills are absolutely measurable and how hospitality trained Liz to prove itThe difference between being personal and making it personal in a performance conversationWhy most leadership programs skip the most important step: self-mastery before leading othersHow Liz uses the Coach Carter framework to develop coaches at every level of the Gothong Southern GroupThe feedback that changed everything: being told she came across as "Little Miss Perfect" and what she did about itHow she trained a chatbot to be her emotional counselor and what that revealed about AI and empathyMake sure to stay until the end to hear Liz's most practical tip for leaders who struggle to show vulnerability and what verbalizing your emotions does for the people around you! We hope you love this episode! If you do, please take time to share this with someone you think would be inspired by it! Connect with Me LinkedInInstagramTikTokFacebook

    EP #9 Liza Suarez: To Lead Humans Better, You Have to Be Seen as Human

  5. Sep 3

    EP # 8 Ryan Buswell: AI Is Not the Terminator: Leading People Through the Biggest Shift in Work.

    We're gathering data to create a market report: the AI Behavior Benchmark. Add your perspective to the report now: https://emergeph.com/ai-behavior-benchmark/ _________ In this episode, I sat down with Ryan Buswell, Co-Founder of Just Press One, a people-first BPO with over 350 team members working remotely across the Philippines. Ryan moved here from the US at 25 with no local experience, no car, no apartment furniture worth mentioning, and a business that had never operated in another country. He landed on a Friday and had his first class of hires by the following Monday. What makes Ryan's story compelling is not just the growth. It is what he chose to build around. From the beginning, remote work was not a pandemic pivot for JPO. It was the business model, designed specifically to give Filipino workers access to high-paying jobs without the two to four hour daily commute that grinds so many people down. That decision shaped everything about the culture he built. This conversation gets into the real stuff: what it cost him to learn how to lead in a culture he did not grow up in, what it felt like to have an early employee tell him straight to his face that he was not cut out for this, and how the story of Irwina from Davao, who put her two brothers through college on her JPO salary, became the clearest answer to why any of it is worth doing. Some of the highlights from this episode: Why Ryan built JPO around remote work from day one and what that has meant for families across the PhilippinesWhat he had to unlearn about American leadership to actually connect with his team hereThe early employee who told him he was not cut out for this and why he is grateful for itWhy replacing someone who automates their own job is the single worst use of AI possibleHow JPO makes Claude utilization visible on a weekly scorecard and what that does for cultureThe practical AI workflows Ryan uses daily as a CEO, from morning briefings to full accounting auditsMake sure to stay until the end to hear Ryan's most practical tips for senior executives who want to get started with AI but do not know where to begin! We hope you love this episode! If you do, please take time to share this with someone you think would be inspired by it! Connect with Me LinkedInInstagramTikTokFacebook

    EP # 8 Ryan Buswell: AI Is Not the Terminator: Leading People Through the Biggest Shift in Work.

  6. Jul 29

    Ep # 7 Peter Ramolete: From Fear to Opportunity: How Peter Leads His Team Through the AI Shift

    Would you like to find out, for FREE, how your company stacks up against the market when it comes to AI adoption and effective AI usage? Take the Benchmark → https://emergeph.com/ai-behavior-benchmark/ ___ In this episode, I sit down with Peter Ramolete, SVP and Managing Director of RealPage Philippines. RealPage is a global provider of software and data analytics to the real estate industry, with AI at the core of how it is transforming workflows across property management and operations worldwide. Peter has spent over three decades in technology, from his early days as a programmer to leading entire outsourcing organizations across IBM, HP, HPE, and DXC. He has navigated big waves of change before. But when AI arrived, even he had to stop, sit with the fear, and deliberately choose a different lens before he could lead anyone else through it. What I find most compelling about Peter is that he did not just talk about AI adoption. He went deep himself first, modeled the vulnerability, and created the conditions for his entire leadership team to learn together without pretending anyone had the answers. That is exactly the kind of leadership this moment is asking for. Some of the highlights from this episode: The three lenses Peter moved through on AI: doom, denial, and the deliberate choice to find opportunityHow he used Claude to shift his own mindset in under a week before bringing the conversation to his teamWhy "human in the loop" is too passive and what "human in the lead" actually demands of leadersThe psychological safety practice that made it okay for senior leaders to ask stupid questions togetherWhy reverse mentoring on AI is one of the most important leadership moves you can make right nowThe one belief he wishes every leader in the Philippines would adopt: it is okay to not know everythingMake sure to stay until the end to hear Peter's take on the biggest gaps holding the Philippines back in AI maturity and what leaders can do about it starting now! We hope you love this episode! If you do, please take time to share this with someone you think would be inspired by it! Connect with Me LinkedInInstagramTikTokFacebook

    Ep # 7 Peter Ramolete: From Fear to Opportunity: How Peter Leads His Team Through the AI Shift

  7. Jul 15

    EP # 6 Alvanson So: What Makes Humans Irreplaceable in the Age of AI

    Would you like to find out, for FREE, how your company stacks up against the market when it comes to AI adoption and effective AI usage? Take the Benchmark → https://emergeph.com/ai-behavior-benchmark/ ___ In this episode, I sat down with Vanson, Former Head of People for Canva Philippines. Canva is one of the world's most widely used design platforms, and the Philippine campus became one of its most important hubs. Vanson spent six years helping shape the culture that made it work. He spent sixteen years in HR before he ever led a team. When the role finally came, it landed mid-pandemic, the team's loyalty still belonged to his predecessor, and there was no playbook for what came next. What he built from that moment is one of the clearest examples I have seen of what intentional, connection-first leadership actually looks like at scale. I have heard Vanson speak a few times before this conversation and he always makes me think differently. This episode was no exception. Some of the highlights from this episode: What the leadership shadow is and why you are casting one whether you intend to or notHow a manager title instantly breaks psychological safety and what it takes to rebuild it every dayThe one piece of advice Mel Perkins gave Vanson in fifteen minutes that took him months to understandWhy great cultures develop natural antibodies that make it hard for the wrong people to thriveWhy attributes matter more than skills in hiring now, and how the talent framework is being rewrittenWhy AI is pushing people to rebuild their relationship with difficulty, and why that muscle matters mostMake sure to stay until the end to hear Vanson's closing message on what it means to schedule life like you schedule work! We hope you love this episode! If you do, please take time to share this with someone you think would be inspired by it! Connect with Me LinkedInInstagramTikTokFacebook

    EP # 6 Alvanson So: What Makes Humans Irreplaceable in the Age of AI

  8. Jun 17

    EP #5 Nicolas Bivero: The Best Remote Teams Aren't Built on Talent Alone

    Would you like to find out, for FREE, how your company stacks up against the market when it comes to AI adoption and effective AI usage? Take the Benchmark → https://emergeph.com/ai-behavior-benchmark/ ___ In this episode, I sat down with Nicolas Bivero, Co-Founder of PenBrothers, one of the fastest-growing outsourcing companies in the Philippines. PenBrothers specializes in building dedicated remote teams of mid to senior level white-collar professionals for international clients, and they have been doing it for over twelve years. Nico is half-German, half-Venezuelan, raised in South America, educated in Switzerland, and has called Manila home for fifteen years. He did not come here to build an outsourcing company. He came to explore a business opportunity for a Japanese shipping company. What he found was a workforce that changed how he thought about people, about teams, and about what it means to build something that actually lasts. What I appreciate most about Nico is that he is a systems thinker who genuinely believes in the long game. And this conversation shows exactly what that looks like in practice, from data-driven onboarding to co-creating change with the people who have to execute it. Some of the highlights from this episode: How the HyperCare onboarding program moved Pen Brothers' client success rate from 50% to 86%Why the cultural gaps between Filipino and Western teams are real, specific, and completely bridgeableThe long-game mindset Nico borrowed from Japanese business culture and why it changes everythingWhy co-creating change with the people who execute it is slower upfront and faster in practiceHow AI is giving their teams more time for humans, not lessWhat it will actually take for the Philippines to keep its best leaders at homeMake sure to stay until the end to hear Nico's ten-year vision for what PenBrothers and the Philippines could look like! We hope you love this episode! If you do, please take time to share this with someone you think would be inspired by it! Connect with Me LinkedInInstagramTikTokFacebook

    EP #5 Nicolas Bivero: The Best Remote Teams Aren't Built on Talent Alone
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Lead Human - A Podcast About the Future of Work By Eli Harrell is a Podcast for Leaders Redefining How People Grow at Work. A space where we rethink how people are developed, how organizations grow through them, and what leadership looks like when humans come first

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