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Excellence Outlook Series by the Excellence at Work Podcast In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence Outlook Series, Rachel Cooke, COO of Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Ryan Craig, Chief Human Resources Officer at Elevance Health, about how artificial intelligence is challenging traditional leadership assumptions and changing the skills employees need to succeed.  Craig is a global HR leader recognized for building strong teams, shaping inclusive cultures and aligning talent, skills and technology with business strategy. At Elevance Health, he is helping prepare employees for an AI-enabled future through initiatives such as the Enterprise Skills Academy, which earned a Gold Brandon Hall Group™ HCM Excellence Award®. The organization has also received recognition for its new associate experience.

Excellence Outlook Series by Excellence at Work Podcast   In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence Outlook series, Mike Cooke, Chairman and CEO of Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Ronda Bazley Moore, Chief Talent and Culture Officer at Aptiv, about why internal mobility depends on leadership behavior, organizational culture and a commitment to developing employees beyond their current roles. The conversation previews their upcoming panel discussion on the Internal Talent Marketplace at the Brandon Hall Group™ HCM Excellence Conference, January 26–28 in West Palm Beach, Florida.   Ronda leads talent and culture at Aptiv, where organizational values are embedded in hiring, leadership development and performance management. She believes internal mobility is central to the employee value proposition and that every employee should have the opportunity to develop their capabilities and reach their full potential. Her approach emphasizes coaching, continuous feedback and preparing talent for opportunities that extend beyond immediate business needs.

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence Outlook podcast, Mike Cooke, Chairman and CEO of Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Marthin De Beer, Founder and CEO of BrightPlan, about the hidden costs of employee financial stress and why financial wellness deserves a place in every organization's workforce strategy. The conversation previews their upcoming fireside chat at the Brandon Hall Group™ HCM Excellence Conference, January 26–28 in West Palm Beach, Florida. After a career leading large technology organizations, Martin founded BrightPlan following a personal experience that revealed how deeply stress affects physical and mental health. Recognizing financial insecurity as a major source of that stress, he built a company focused on helping employees make better financial decisions. Today, BrightPlan operates in 50 countries and serves 11.7 million employees, combining AI-powered financial coaching with access to human fiduciary advisors.

Financial wellness is at an inflection point. Employee demand for near-term financial guidance has nearly doubled in two years, AI has reset what employees expect from any digital experience, and organizational change (restructuring, M&A, AI-driven role uncertainty) is creating financial stress patterns that generic content and annual webinars were never built to address. Meanwhile, the bar for what counts as a credible platform has moved: buyers are no longer satisfied with education alone; they're demanding evidence of actual behavior change.

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence Outlook Series podcast, host Rachel Cooke, CEO of Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Taylor Williams, Manager of Corporate Training, Learning and Development and Engagement at Haskell, about how artificial intelligence is challenging traditional leadership assumptions and reshaping the relationship between technology, trust and human connection. Their conversation explores why leaders must become more comfortable admitting what they don't know, how organizations can build psychological safety around AI adoption and why transparency, authenticity and human judgment remain essential as technology becomes more deeply embedded in the workplace.

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence Outlook podcast, host Mike Cooke, Chairman and CEO of Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Tammy Saunaitis, Chief Human Resources Officer at the University of Maryland Medical System, about the leadership mindsets, cultural barriers and development practices that determine whether organizations can successfully unlock their existing talent. Their conversation explores why managers sometimes unintentionally restrict career mobility, how servant leadership can create stronger succession pipelines and why developing future leaders requires the courage to give talented employees opportunities beyond their current roles.

Excellence Outlook Series - Episode 3 In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work podcast, host Rachel Cooke, CEO of Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Connie White, Chief People Officer at Altos Labs, about what it takes to build a high-performing organizational culture as artificial intelligence transforms how people work, collaborate and make decisions. Their conversation explores a critical challenge for business and HR leaders: How can organizations capitalize on AI's extraordinary potential while preserving the trust, psychological safety and human connection that enable employees to thrive? From rethinking productivity to strengthening employee engagement, Connie shares why the fundamentals of effective leadership are becoming even more important as technology advances.

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence in Practice podcast, host Mike Cooke, Chairman and CEO of Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Rachel Walter, Chief Innovation Officer at ansrsource, about why successful business transformation requires more than new technology. Their conversation explores how co-creation and trust drive enterprise-wide change, why AI should amplify human capabilities rather than dictate how people work and what organizations must do to develop the next generation of leaders. Walter draws on her experience in enterprise learning, performance improvement and innovation, including ansrsource's award-winning work with Hilti to address the operational complexity of global training delivery. She shares how organizations can rethink workflows, accelerate experimentation and introduce AI without losing the human judgment, curiosity and business understanding that make transformation successful.

Excellence in Practice Series  In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work podcast, Mike Cooke, Chairman and CEO of Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Natalie Zahorska, Executive Head of Talent Supply Chain Practices and Programs at NTT DATA, about transforming employer branding into a globally connected, data-driven talent acquisition strategy. Their conversation examines how NTT DATA unified fragmented recruitment marketing activities across more than 70 countries, strengthened its employee value proposition (EVP) and achieved significant improvements in candidate engagement, hiring efficiency and the overall talent experience.

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work podcast, Heidi Grecsek, Managing Director, Human Capital Management at Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Mahesh Kumar, Founder and Managing Director of TraineryHCM, about the widening gap between what employees do and how organizations define and compensate their work. Their conversation examines the impact of AI on job responsibilities, the difference between a heavier workload and a bigger role, and how HR leaders can make fair, evidence-based compensation decisions. Mahesh brings more than 15 years of experience advising organizations on HR technology, job evaluation and compensation processes. His consulting work helped shape CompBldr, a platform designed to connect job descriptions, job architecture, evaluation and compensation planning. Heidi brings a leadership and HCM perspective to the discussion, exploring the difficult conversations managers and employees face as roles evolve

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work podcast, host Rachel Cooke, CEO of Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Melia Coury, Associate Director at BTS, about what it takes for a sales kickoff to change what sellers and their leaders do once they return to the field. Melia is BTS's product owner for Commercial Kickoffs, Meetings and Summits and has led global leadership transformation and sales enablement programs that combine business simulations, AI-enabled practice and coaching. She also co-leads the BTS Women's ERG, and a background in acting and improvisation shapes how she coaches leaders to communicate authentically. BTS earned 72 Brandon Hall Group™ HCM Excellence Awards in 2026, and Melia was involved in many of the projects that were recognized.

Excellence Outlook Series:    In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work podcast, David Forry, SVP at Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Kelly Stuart-Johnson, VP, Global Learning at VML, about why change initiatives stall after the announcement and what learning leaders can do to bring people along. The conversation previews their fireside chat, Driving Successful Organizational Change and Transformation, at the Brandon Hall Group™ HCM Excellence Conference, January 26–28 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work podcast, Mike Cooke, CEO of Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Alex Campos of Vensure Employer Solutions about the entrepreneurial philosophy behind Vensure's remarkable growth, its unconventional acquisition strategy and the opportunities artificial intelligence creates for small and midsize businesses. Their conversation explores how organizations can expand without sacrificing customer relationships, why employee trust matters during acquisitions and how AI could reshape productivity, entrepreneurship and the future of work. Campos shares his journey from immigrating to the United States from Cuba as a child to becoming a technology entrepreneur and helping build a global employer-services organization. He discusses Vensure's 118 acquisitions in eight years, its approach to retaining entrepreneurial ownership and its investment in AI specifically designed for human capital management.

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work series, host Heidi Grecsek, Managing Director of Human Capital Management at Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Lisa Calicchio, Chief Human Resources Officer at WCG, about how organizations can bring employees, contractors, specialists and AI agents together into a single working system. The conversation previews Calicchio's breakout session, Orchestrating Capabilities Across the Extended Enterprise, at the HCM Excellence Conference on Tuesday, January 26, at 3 p.m. Calicchio has spent her career moving between business operations and HR at companies that include Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Covance, Wyndham Worldwide and GAF. At WCG, a clinical research services and technology company, she works where heavy regulation, scientific specialists and new AI tools meet every day. Her leadership team had watched a demonstration of a new AI-enabled product the day before the recording, which gave her a fresh example to draw on.

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work podcast, host David Wentworth, Managing Director for Learning and Talent at Brandon Hall Group™, talks with Matt Paretsky, Learning and Development Project Manager at VPS Learning, about a leadership skill that rarely gets its own spotlight in development programs: the willingness to take an informed risk and move forward without every answer in hand. Paretsky's background includes years of work in risk management and business continuity planning outside of learning and development, and that experience shapes how he approaches leadership training today. He also draws on his time working alongside successful leaders and business strategists, as well as a current client project that is extending communication and emotional intelligence training well beyond the management ranks.