Unicorn Leaders

In episode 19, Andre dives into how he found his way into creating a socially impactful business while sharing valuable lessons and principles that he embraced on his journey to success as a leader. 

From letting go of micro details to building high performing teams and influencing decision making processes, discover some actionable insights that will transform your leadership approach and help you create a meaningful impa...

In episode 18,  Jonah Midanik shares his journey and experience in a growth mindset of recognizing that ‘what got you here won’t get you there. He has been lucky enough to have seen the startup journey from a variety of perspectives: as a successful bootstrapped founder/CEO, having helped launch new corporate divisions at BigCo, and as the founder/CEO of Limelight, a Venture backed company.  Jonah currently spends his time helping ...

Jeanette Dorazio, CEO of Leadpages, a no-code website and landing page builder. She has had various executive-level positions at leading organizations, including Oracle, 8thBridge, Verifone, and Solera. Jeanette’s passion comes from breaking down barriers and championing the inclusion and success of women in STEM fields as female leaders in tech.

In episode 17, Jeanette lays out how to reach the next level of your leadersh...

On this episode we look at organizational systems and how to think when designing the organizational structure. Realizing that it should not be designed from a people centric place but rather around the needs and direction of your business. It’s important to be mindful when you do design around people and whether it is sustainable long term. 

Krista shares the top two reasons to consider when looking to expand a team.  Fir...

Kyle Racki, the co-founder and CEO of Proposify, Kyle helps thousands of businesses remove the bottleneck of proposals and get more visibility into the close. 

In true serial entrepreneur form, Kyle also co-host his own podcast, The Racki and Symes Podcast, where he discusses ideas and strategies to push through growth.

Kyle got his start in marketing and design, and ran a digital agency for over five years before...

Natalie Furness, CEO of RevOps Automated and Revenue Operations Consultant shares her journey and learnings along the way onto remote work and falling into the world of operations.

She speaks of finding your people through value alignment for both the work you do and the work environment you prefer. Though she’s the biggest remote work proponent, she acknowledges that its’ not for everyone and a reshuffling can and should ...

Chris Williams, former VP of HR at Microsoft has over 40 years of experience building and leading teams.

Through his journey, starting from installing car stereos and while being pulled into firing employees because of his people skills, to eventually transitioning to a computer science and going on to start a consulting business before selling it to Fox Pro before eventually starting his work with Microsoft. At Microsoft ...

Florent Schmahl, Chief of Staff of highly purposeful agtech company, Growcer, shares his journey and learnings along the way as he shifted his work from being focused on developing hard skills to now pursuing purposeful work.

Over the years he’s has time to gather his insights on finding the work that drives you and how important it is in today’s labour market pressures.

Despite this, Florent’s advice releases tha...

Today we have Shawna Stewart on the podcast, VP of People and Operations at Railz Financial. Shawna is truly a people-focused leader, she has extensive background in psychology and organizational behaviour and experience involving performance management, full scope operational effectiveness, succession planning, employee engagement and talent development. 

I’m so excited for you to listen to her episode because this was on...

Laura Mindorff is the brilliant COO at Wicket. Laura has developed years of experience under her belt and shares her very tactical advice on how to create effective culture through things like rituals, culture champions, and what metrics to watch out for to check-in on your progress.

I’m so happy to bring you this conversation because of Laura’s purposeful and relentless approach to constantly prioritizing culture and fost...

In episode 9,  Julia gives us insight into how she uses her humane recruiting approach to create a reputable employment brand that plays big dividends both inside and outside the company.

She offers actionable tips on how to initiate trust on a team, how to lead the recruitment process to attract candidates with best practices, and how to show up in with an effective employer brand no matter the labour market conditions.

Shawn MacDonell shares his unconventional story of saying yes to experiences from sports coaching, to facilitating tools for teaching in Columbia, to branding strategy, to professional coaching, to founding a creative agency.

He speaks to how all of these offered him the experience of not being afraid of conflict and instead reframing it to curiosity and exploration. To understand why people make certain decisions and enco...

What does leadership mean to you?

Ex-Shopify Chief Talent Officer Brittany Forsyth, used to think it was the same thing as management. 

Over the years and various leadership roles she realized it means creating a following and driving that following towards a common shared goal. 

In episode 7 she gives us insight into how she recognized her natural leadership tendencies and how they helped her land differ...

“If you are building a talent strategy that’s based on a sample you saw online or a great book you read, you will not match what your business needs and so I think whenever I’m doing any kind of talent strategy or when I was consulting I was always asking people “what’re your business goals” and it was shocking to me where I would look then at the talent strategy and I couldn’t see the business connect.  I couldn’t see the EVP (the...

Have you ever been in a position where you didn’t feel proud of what you were doing in your career? Has your chosen field ever caused you emotional distress?

Sam Witherspoon is the founder and CEO of IMRSV Data Labs, a company dedicated to increasing the safety and security of Canada and its allies through the effective, transparent use of data.

In episode #5, Sam talks about how important it is to not chase money for the sake of mak...

We often have the preconceived notion that leaders have to treat everyone the same in order to be fair. However in truth, managers need to respect everyone’s individual needs and motivators.

On episode #4, Cassy Aite, the co-founder and CEO of Hoppier, shares how different values, environments and involvement can influence your employees’ motivation in the workplace. 

Cassy also discusses the importance of being genuine with your emp...

Did you know that 70% of employee retention is based on their manager and no other factor? People don’t leave jobs, they leave managers.

Aydin Mirzaee  is the co-founder and CEO of Fellow.app, a meeting productivity platform that helps organizations have fewer, better meetings.

In this episode Aydin talks about how managers can influence team performance and shares his thoughts on why he thinks getting advice can be dangerous.

‍He als...

When you’re busy fighting for survival is there any room for growth?

‍When any failure means disaster, the stakes are too high for you to take risks — this means you’ll always choose the safe route.‍

Craig Handy leads a Global Revenue Operations team at Shopify, a fast growing startup, and he is also the founder of Jameson Strategies, his own RevOps consulting firm. He’s most passionate about how we can use psychology and human perfo...

“We ultimately believe that it’s our role as leaders, as coaches, to find out what about that individual is going to make them fulfilled and be able to achieve their best outcomes in both work and in life and in order to do that you have to be radically committed to that employee.”

- Michael Johnson

Do managers always have a negative reaction when a cherished employee decides to leave their team or even their comp...