Catalyst

This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Shulagna Dasgupta, a fellow podcast host who spent over two decades at Accenture on human capital, talent, and operating models, most recently as vice chair advising CEOs through major transformations. She left this past June to launch her podcast, AI-isms, and to found Ochin, an AI advisory firm helping organizations navigate transformation. Tammy and Shulagna tackle the question so many leaders are sitting with: if your organization went tech-first, automated hard, and treated people as an afterthought, can you actually recover? Shulagna's answer is yes. She argues that for the first time, value and human advantage aren't in opposition. Her prescription for making that pivot: get explicit about intention, replace fear with real psychological safety, and above all, get CXOs hands-on building with AI themselves rather than just prompting it, since that's what shifts how they design programs for everyone else.

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Shulagna Dasgupta 

Ochin

AI-isms Podcast 

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In this special episode recorded in front of a live audience at Nexus 2025, Tammy is joined by Sean Jantzen, VP of Software Engineering at UPS. Sean brings over 24 years of experience at UPS, where he’s risen from intern to leader, helping transform one of the world’s largest logistics companies into a digital powerhouse. Tammy and Sean discuss his coaching mindset, AI adoption strategies and the challenges of innovating with legacy systems. Sean also talks about how his background in team sports informs his coaching mindset and explains why shipping early and small can lead to fewer bugs and faster delivery.

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Sean Jantzen

Scaling responsible AI: With Noelle Russell

Only the curious will thrive: Top takeaways from Nexus 2025

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This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Rita Soni, a social entrepreneur and one of the leading voices on impact sourcing, an intentional, inclusive talent strategy she's helped shape since the term was coined during her time as CEO of Nasscom Foundation. She later brought that expertise to Everest Group as a principal analyst, and is now building Grand Resolve, a nonprofit that's co-creating standards to make digital services more responsible and inclusive. Tammy and Rita dig into what impact sourcing actually looks like on the ground, from Televerde's outbound call centers inside a women's prison to Vindhya Info Media in Bangalore, where a workforce built around people with disabilities has outpaced expectations on retention and quality. The throughline: "good for people" and "good for business" aren't competing goals. 

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Rita Soni

Nasscom Foundation 

Everest Group's Impact Sourcing

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This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Tanarra Schneider, founder of Rebel 75, for a conversation about building healthier, more human workplace cultures in the age of AI. Tanarra's path here wasn't linear, she led design at Fjord and Accenture, helped shape culture at Activision Blizzard, built one of the first streaming cooking school platforms, and even detoured through culinary school. She traces her drive to push back on broken systems to her mother, who always stood up for other people, and to her own instincts as a risk-taker who has never fit neatly into one box. She and Tammy dig into the sharp difference between a "chaos monster," who knocks things over out of ego, and a true rebel, who acts from a broader sense of "we." That same distinction shapes her read on AI's arrival in the workplace, which she sees as having been inserted squarely in the middle of human relationships, quietly replacing the context and conversation that used to happen between people. She makes the case that organizations need to slow down for the right reasons, not just to cut costs, if they want to rebuild trust, and that service design has become the discipline this moment badly needs. 

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Tanarra Schneider 

Rebel75 

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This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by not just any executive coach — she's welcoming her very own executive coach onto the podcast. Anna Pool is an executive coach, author, and President of Executive Savvy, and has been working with Tammy for years. Anna shares her non-traditional background: 20 years living and working in an ashram, where she devoted her life to yoga, meditation, and enlightenment. She explains how this experience informs her practical approach to presence, nervous system regulation, and resilient leadership. She and Tammy also discuss why so many leaders are stuck in chronic stress today. Anna introduces the concept of the red, green, and blue zones, and teaches simple ways to return to the green zone before reactive decisions take over.

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Anna Pool 

Daniel Goleman - Emotional Intelligence 

A ten-minute meditation on reconnecting with the Green Zone led by Anna 

Anna’s latest Linked In article on the Red Zone

Let Go - Sanskrit/English chanting written and produced by Anna

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This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Tucker Burhans, Data Engineering Supervisor at Corning and a finalist for the Next Generation Leadership Award at the Manufacturing Leadership Council Awards Gala. Tucker traces his journey from competitive swimming and pre-med to data engineering, with a love of problem-solving serving as a common thread throughout. He shares his leadership philosophy in an era of rapid technological change and AI: success means championing others and helping them succeed. Having entered the workforce just as AI was beginning to take hold, Tucker offers a unique perspective on both the challenges and opportunities it presents. He discusses the importance of critical thinking and domain expertise when implementing AI, as well as the need to balance new technologies with human judgment. Tucker also shares his personal AI story and how he’s using it to support his newfound passion for gardening. 

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Tucker Burhans 

Corning 

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This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Adam Zaouague, Automation & Data Specialist at Reata Engineering & Machine Works and a finalist for the Next Generation Leadership Award at the Manufacturing Leadership Council Awards Gala. Adam traces his path from a high school CNC machining program to being recruited by Reata's owner (at the age of 17!) and eventually leading the company's engineering department. He reflects on why trust and emotional intelligence matter as much as technical skill when leading others, then turns to AI, arguing that as machines take on more of the workload, intention and focus become the real differentiators.  He shares Reata's philosophy of slowing down to speed up, the internal AI tool the company is building to let subject matter experts create their own solutions, and how integrity and teamwork remain the values that hold it all together. 

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Adam Zaouague  

Great CEOs are Lazy 

Tomo 

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This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by NTT Data’s Chief Strategy Officer Roli Agrawal for a conversation about implementing technology that works for everyone. Roli shares about her upbringing in India and how the privileges and discriminations she experienced made her passionate about fighting inequities. Roli shares her perspective on how bias creeps into AI systems, and what leaders can do to catch it early. They discuss what a responsible AI framework — trusted, ethical, secure, fair, and sustainable — looks like in practice, and why building datasets that reflect society is both a moral and a business imperative. 

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Roli Agrawal 

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This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Craig Vaughan, Executive Managing Director and Global Head of AI Go-to-Market at NTT DATA, three months into the role. Craig traces his path from studying architecture at Cornell through an MBA at Wharton and a master's in business analytics from NYU Stern, then through go-to-market roles at SAP and a decade leading AI and gen AI practices at Accenture. He and Tammy dig into how leading diverse, cross-functional teams and moving at AI's breakneck pace aren't in tension but actually reinforce each other. They also discuss what drew Craig to NTT DATA's culture, the partnerships with OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Mistral that are shaping how the company delivers for clients, and how to keep AI adoption human-centric so workers are repurposed rather than replaced.

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Craig Vaughan 

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This week on Catalyst, Tammy is joined by Kevin Thimjon, President of the Arrow McLaren IndyCar Team, who oversees the business side of one of the sport's most storied organizations, from finance and commercial strategy to administration. Kevin traces his path from public accounting through a series of private equity-backed CFO roles and into the CEO seat, describing each stop as a new tool added to his belt for better leadership. He and Tammy dig into what it takes to lead a team through a high-profile driver lineup change while staying focused on finishing the current season strong, the constant tension between running a profitable operation and chasing wins on the track, and the philosophy behind Arrow McLaren's partnership approach, where the goal isn't landing new sponsors but making every partner feel like the standard everyone else should be measured against. By the end of the conversation you’ll be searching for McLaren’s papaya orange merch!

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Kevin Thimjon 

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