Better Experiences by Design™

On Better Experiences by Design, host Susan Quinn sits down with Toni Ardabell, Chief, Clinical Enterprise Operations at Inova, for a round of rapid-fire leadership lessons on the six things every great leader has to master: people, culture, judgment, courage, change, and self-awareness. The conversation covers servant leadership in healthcare, change management when the old playbook no longer works, and the culture that makes great experiences possible.

The journey started at the bedside as a critical care staff nurse, at a time when Ardabell didn’t know there was anything higher in the hospital than the head nurse. Assignments outside nursing led to chief operating officer of Inova Fairfax Hospital, then 11 years at Bon Secours as CEO of St. Mary’s Hospital, Bon Secours Richmond, and Bon Secours Virginia, before a return to Inova. That path gives her a rare view of how decisions made in the corporate suite land with the people delivering care.

Ardabell’s answers return to one idea: people do their best work when they feel valued, heard, and psychologically safe. That holds in a professional services firm as surely as in a hospital. Her approach to culture, feedback, and change gives leaders a model for building an organization people choose to stay in.

Key Insights

• Why servant leadership, not authority, earns the trust that every great client and patient experience depends on.
• How skip-level conversations, pulse checks, and same-day callbacks keep senior leaders connected to the front line and drive employee engagement in healthcare and beyond.
• What psychological safety in healthcare looks like in practice, starting with one clarifying question: “What would you like from this conversation?”
• How 360 reviews and open invitations to disagree build leadership self-awareness, and why difficult conversations at work become easier when you treat them as kindness.
• What change management in healthcare and beyond requires when today’s experts have to learn everything over again.

If you lead people through constant change and want them to bring their best to every client interaction, these leadership lessons will reshape how you show up for your team.

Better Experiences by Design is a podcast series produced by circle S studio that highlights leaders across a variety of industries dedicated to delivering exceptional brand, employee, and client experiences. © circle S studio, 2026.

In this episode of Better Experiences by Design, Susan Quinn sits down with Brad Beauchamp, President and CEO of Carpenter Co., to talk about how the 76-year-old polyurethane foam manufacturer keeps growing through acquisitions, product innovation, and a culture built on continuous improvement. Carpenter makes the foam inside mattresses, furniture, car interiors, and airplane seats worldwide, yet Beauchamp says the company has intentionally stayed quiet about its own success.

Better Experiences by Design is a podcast series produced by circle S studio that highlights leaders across a variety of industries dedicated to delivering exceptional brand, employee, and client experiences. © circle S studio, 2026.

In this episode of Better Experiences by Design, Susan Quinn sits down with Greg Layton, founder of Chiefmaker, who has spent his career coaching senior executives and elite athletes into their strongest performance. Greg and Susan explore what separates leaders who merely arrive at the top from those who thrive once they get there, from managing overwhelm to building real executive presence.

Greg’s path started in the corporate world, where early promotions gave way to a senior IT leadership role he felt unprepared for. He spent a year immersed in nearly 100 books, then left his job to study high-performance psychology and neuro-linguistics around the world. That reinvention led him into coaching, first with elite athletes and executives, then into founding Chiefmaker, where he now works with C-suite leaders on five continents.

Greg’s approach is refreshingly practical. Rather than chasing titles or credentials, he pushes leaders to define their value with precision, and to protect that value against the number one threat he sees in senior roles: overwhelm.

His framework for executive presence, decades of coaching in boardrooms and locker rooms, and disarmingly simple tools like mind mapping give leaders something rarer than motivation: a way to actually reset.

Better Experiences by Design is a podcast series produced by circle S studio that highlights leaders across a variety of industries dedicated to delivering exceptional brand, employee, and client experiences. © circle S studio, 2026.

The American Dream is easy to celebrate and hard to build. What does it actually take to turn a family business into a $3 billion company without losing what made it worth building?

In this episode of Better Experiences by Design, host Susan Quinn sits down with Matt DeSoto, President and CEO of MITER Brands, to trace the business growth strategy behind one of North America's largest window and door companies. Their conversation covers the hard choices that carried the company through the Great Recession, the courage to set a vision and hold it, and why culture is the only thing that turns a growth strategy into lasting success.

Better Experiences by Design is a podcast series produced by circle S studio that highlights leaders across a variety of industries dedicated to delivering exceptional brand, employee, and client experiences. © circle S studio, 2026.

In this episode of Better Experiences by Design, Susan Quinn sits down with Dr. Garrett Westlake, Executive Director of the da Vinci Center for Innovation at VCU and Google AI Faculty Fellow, to explore how AI is reshaping the competitive landscape and what it actually takes to stand out in a world where the playing field is leveling fast.

Better Experiences by Design is a podcast series produced by circle S studio that highlights leaders across a variety of industries dedicated to delivering exceptional brand, employee, and client experiences. © circle S studio, 2026.

In this episode of Better Experiences by Design, Susan Quinn sits down with Tom Martin—sales strategist, author of The Invisible Sale, and founder of the Painless Prospecting system—to explore why most business development efforts fail and what the science of persuasion reveals about getting to yes more often.

Better Experiences by Design is a podcast series produced by circle S studio that highlights leaders across a variety of industries dedicated to delivering exceptional brand, employee, and client experiences. © circle S studio, 2026.

Why do so many talented leaders struggle to communicate with confidence when it matters most?

In this episode of Better Experiences by Design, Susan Quinn sits down with Eleni Kelakos—speaker coach, author, and former actress known as The Speaker Whisperer®—to explore why executive presence is less about perfection and more about authenticity.

Eleni’s journey began on stage, where she learned firsthand how self-doubt can derail even the most talented performers. After facing constant criticism early in her acting career, she discovered how quickly limiting beliefs can impact performance in high-pressure moments.

Eleni reminds us that great communication is a continuous practice. The strongest leaders keep learning, keep stretching themselves, and continue showing up with intention.

Owning the room isn’t about commanding attention—it’s about using your voice with purpose and helping others do the same.

If you want to communicate with more confidence and lead with greater impact, this conversation is worth your time.

Better Experiences by Design is a podcast series produced by circle S studio that highlights leaders across a variety of industries dedicated to delivering exceptional brand, employee, and client experiences. © circle S studio, 2026.

In this episode of Better Experiences by Design, Susan Quinn speaks with Tom Gayner, CEO of Markel Group, about his perspective on what actually drives long-term success. Rather than a single bold move or a series of strategic pivots, it’s a set of principles, applied consistently over time. 

From learning leadership in his father’s office to helping scale a company to 22,000 people, Gayner’s approach is rooted in curiosity, discipline, and a deep belief in doing right by others.

This episode is a powerful reminder that great companies aren’t defined by what they do — but by how consistently they live what they believe.

Better Experiences by Design is a podcast series produced by circle S studio that highlights leaders across a variety of industries dedicated to delivering exceptional brand, employee, and client experiences. © circle S studio, 2026.

In this episode of Better Experiences by Design, Susan Quinn sits down with John Asbury, CEO of Atlantic Union Bank, to explore what it takes to transform a regional bank into a high-performing challenger brand in a rapidly consolidating industry.

When John joined the bank in 2016, it faced a defining choice: grow with intention or be acquired. Instead of playing it safe, John and his board pursued what he calls “escape velocity” — scaling strategically to compete with large national banks while preserving the responsiveness of a community institution.

But strategy alone doesn’t sustain growth. Culture does.

Better Experiences by Design is a podcast series produced by circle S studio that highlights leaders across a variety of industries dedicated to delivering exceptional brand, employee, and client experiences. © circle S studio, 2026.

In this episode, we sit down with Stephen Steers, author, consultant, and keynote speaker, for a strategic conversation about growth, storytelling, and the value that’s already inside your existing client base.

Stephen breaks down how organizations can find revenue growth without chasing new leads, simply by asking better questions, reframing client conversations, and making storytelling a strategic business practice rather than just a sales tool.

He also explains why curiosity is one of the most underrated engines of growth, how to empower every team member to spot new opportunities, and why “selling less” often leads to more revenue and stronger client relationships.

Better Experiences by Design is a podcast series produced by circle S studio that highlights leaders across a variety of industries dedicated to delivering exceptional brand, employee, and client experiences. © circle S studio, 2026.