Shawn Sissenwein has spent almost thirty years building systems, community, and confidence, starting on a family farm and moving into nearly three decades of Business Central and NAV implementation work. In this episode, she talks about founding Weekend Power Platform, co-authoring a book with Kim Cogiton, and now building her first AI Copilot Agents in full view of her community. Shawn shares what she learned from an agent that didn't work the first time, why requirements matter more than the technology itself, and why she believes you don't have to be the loudest person in the room to build something that matters.

Takeaways

• Shawn's first AI Copilot Agent failed because the requirements weren't clear going in, not because the technology couldn't handle it
• Weekend Power Platform started from a friend's offhand suggestion and grew into a real, dependable community built on shared learning
• Even after decades of implementing software, Shawn has found that plenty of experienced people are still nervous about what AI means for their work
• A single solo conference session became the turning point that changed how Shawn saw herself as a speaker
• Her core message for listeners: you don't have to be loud to build something that matters, you just have to start and be willing to learn out loud

👉🏻Contact information for Shawn Sissenwein

Weekend Power Platform: https://weekendpowerplatform.com/podcast/

WeekendPower Platform on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-sissenwein-994543389/

Shawn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-sissenwein/

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Yuliya Kuklina didn't grow up dreaming of a career in tech. She grew up in Siberia dreaming of driving a bus. Her path to becoming a Microsoft Dynamics and Odoo consultant wound through finance, teaching, nail technician work, and luxury retail, and through TechFluent Academy, long before technology entered the picture. 

In this episode, Yuliya talks with Kate about moving to the United States, learning to trust her own timeline, and why she believes no experience is ever wasted.

Takeaways:

•  Your past jobs aren't unrelated to your future ones. They're the foundation for them.

•  It's never too late to start over, no matter your age or where you're starting from.

•  Mentorship and community can carry you through the hardest transitions.

•  Success isn't just a salary number. It's waking up glad to go to work.

•  Curiosity, more than a five-year plan, is often what leads to the right career.

Contact Yuliya Kuklina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuliya-kuklina/

TechFluent Academy: https://techfluentacademy.org/

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Episode Description

Katie Erickson spent a decade as a journalist-turned-content marketer inside the Microsoft Business Central and Biz Apps world. She survived a revolving door of bosses, watched AI move into her lane, and kept showing up. Then her position was eliminated after ten years. In this conversation, Katie talks honestly about what it means to build your identity around something that can go away and what it looks like to actually live the belief that your job does not define you. She shares what a year of near-constant family crisis taught her about vulnerability and trust, how faith has been the thread that holds everything together, and why flexibility is a skill you build through the hard stuff, not something you either have or you don't. Real, grounded, and exactly the kind of conversation Coffey Talk is for.

Takeaways

• Your job title is not your identity. And when the job goes away, you find out if you really believed that.
• Flexibility is a skill, not a personality type. It is something you learn through the hard chapters, not something you were born with.
• Know your priorities before the hard thing happens. Faith, family, and knowing what you will not let go of are what keep you grounded when everything else shifts.
• Vulnerability is not weakness. Some of Katie's closest friendships came from a year when her family was in crisis and she had to let people in.
• Being behind the scenes is a real role with real value. The work that makes everything flow does not always get the credit, but it is what holds things together.

👉🏻Contact information for Katie Erikson

https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-erickson-42371383/

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In this episode of Coffey Talk, Kate sits down with Danielle McNamee, who leads the ERP Partner Channel at Versapay. Danielle shares openly about navigating life's hardest seasons, including her experience with infertility and IVF, and how those experiences deepened her empathy, reshaped her leadership, and changed the way she shows up for the people around her. They dig into the frenemy dynamic in the Microsoft partner ecosystem, what it really means to lead with authenticity, and why vulnerability is not a weakness, it is the thing that makes trust possible. If you have ever felt like you were carrying more than you could let on, this one is for you.

TAKEAWAYS

• The hard seasons you go through do not just shape you personally. They make you a more empathetic, more effective leader.
• Empathy is not a soft skill. It is a strategy that builds the kind of trust that drives real results in partnerships.
• The frenemy dynamic is real in the Microsoft ecosystem, and the people who navigate it best lead with an abundance mindset and genuine relationship.
• Vulnerability creates safety. When you share your story, you give other people permission to share theirs.
• You cannot do it all alone. Building the right support system is not optional, it is the whole game.

👉🏻Contact information for Danielle McNamee

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-mcnamee/

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Episode Summary

Khaled Nassra has never done things the conventional way. He spent his career in go-to-market leadership, founded Enki Consulting, and then eight months into his marriage, he and his wife Emma packed up and hit the world. Thirty cities across Europe and North America. No plan. Just the decision to step outside.

In this episode, Khaled and Kate dig into what that journey has actually taught him: about discipline, identity, community, and what it means to belong somewhere when home is still being figured out. Khaled shares his immigration story, the six-and-a-half-year wait that brought his family to Vancouver, and what it felt like to arrive in a new country and have to rebuild from scratch. He talks about the difference between setting a table for others and actually making sure everyone has a seat, the blind spots that even well-intentioned leaders carry, and what it looks like to run toward the things that scare you just a little. If you've ever felt like a newcomer, in a room, in a city, in your own life, this one is for you.

Key Takeaways

• Your roots aren't a place. They're the internal anchors you carry with you wherever you go.
• Discipline isn't about being hard on yourself. It's about checking in every day and asking: Am I still on my mission?
• Welcoming others requires more than an open door. Sometimes you have to go out and pull people in.
• What you see as a weakness, whether an accent, a non-linear career, or a life full of context switches, might be your greatest asset.
• Building community means being honest about who isn't at the table and asking why.

👉🏻Contact information for Khaled Nassra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/khalednassra/

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Episode Summary

In this episode of Coffey Talk, Kate sits down with Gina McGlamry, channel manager at TrueCommerce and a well-known relationship builder in the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem. What starts as a conversation about conference culture and showing up authentically as a brand ambassador takes an exciting turn into one of the richest leadership conversations Coffey Talk has had.

Gina talks about what it means to truly own your role -- the accountability, the internal advocacy, the responsibility of being the face of your company in a relationship-driven industry. Kate shares what she's been learning about knowing when to step back and let her growing team find their own footing. Together they get into mentorship in a real way: not the polished version, but the kind that happens in hallways and on quick calls when someone needs help navigating something they haven't seen before.

The conversation moves through failure, recovery, and the leaders who make you better because of what they do in the hard moments -- not just the easy ones. Kate shares a story about bombing a pitch and the leader who responded not with disappointment, but with three words that changed her: 'but did you die?' Gina opens up about a call that went sideways, what she learned from it, and the kind of leadership culture that makes growth possible.

They close with what Kate calls 'the becoming' -- the ongoing, imperfect process of turning into who you're meant to be, not who everyone expects you to be. This one goes somewhere unexpected and earns every minute.

Key Takeaways

• Being a brand ambassador isn't just a conference role. It's an everyday accountability to the partners, customers, and teammates who are counting on you to show up.
• Mentorship isn't a program. It's a practice -- and knowing when to offer advice vs. when to just listen is a skill that takes years to develop.
• Good leaders create room for failure. Stepping in every time doesn't protect your team. It delays their development and eventually burns you out.
• Confidence in your own expertise isn't arrogance. At some point, you've earned the right to trust what you know without over-justifying it.
• The becoming is real: failure, pivots, and even the conversations that go off-script are part of how we grow into who we're meant to be.

👉🏻Contact information for Gina McGlamry

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gina-mcglamry-95b890149/

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EPISODE SUMMARY

Mel Wilhelmi has never had a master plan. And that's exactly the point. In this episode, Kate sits down with the Sr. Director of Marketing and Strategic Growth at Sunrise Technologies, a Microsoft Dynamics partner, for a conversation about what it actually looks like to keep saying yes to the most interesting thing in the room.

Mel's career started at 16 at a job fair she wasn't even there for. She picked retail because it would give her the most real-world applicability. That one decision in 1991 wound through a microbiology degree, 17 years at Sally Beauty moving through programming, project management, and AX implementations, and eventually to Sunrise, where she's been a consultant, a trainer, and now the head of marketing. The thread through all of it? Curiosity.

This conversation covers career pivots, the role of community in professional growth, what it means to push through fear, and why the skills that look unrelated on paper are usually the ones that set you apart.

TAKEAWAYS

• Curiosity is a career strategy. Mel didn't map out her path. She followed what was most interesting, most challenging, and most worth her energy.
• The skills that look unrelated are usually the ones that set you apart. Biology to programming. Retail to consulting. Every detour connected.
• Fear is real and you push through it anyway. Mel draws a direct line between box jumps and career pivots.
• Community matters most to the people who didn't have it. Mel shows up for others because she remembers what it felt like when nobody showed up for her.
• Find your fulfillment and pursue it responsibly. You don't need the whole map. You just need the next right direction.

👉🏻Contact information for Melissa Wilhelmi

LinkedIn: :https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissawilhelmi/

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Episode Description:

Shirley Grimes describes herself simply as a mom just trying to make it - but that description doesn't begin to cover the ground she's covered. In this Mother's Day episode of Coffey Talk, Shirley shares a story that starts in a car, winds through a psychology degree, a grief-fueled cross-country drive, and an accidental entry into the Business Central world through an order-entry job at a golf company in Panama City Beach.

What Shirley didn't expect was to find a career she loves, a community that embraces her, and a platform to do what she was always wired to do: give others the same small but life-changing investment that her aunt once gave her.

Kate and Shirley talk about the invisible weight of conference mom guilt, raising daughters to lead with faith over fear, letting go of a plan when something better is waiting, and why the tech community might be exactly the right place to change the trajectory of kids aging out of foster care.

This one will stay with you.

Takeaways:

1. Your background doesn't set the ceiling — it can be the very thing that propels you forward.
2. The people who shaped us most often had no idea the magnitude of what they were doing.
3. Mom guilt around professional growth is real, valid, and worth naming out loud.
4. Faith over fear isn't a platitude — it's a daily decision, especially when life forces a pivot.
5. The tech community has a unique and largely untapped opportunity to mentor and reach foster youth.

👉🏻Contact information for Shirley Grimes
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shirley-grimes-90818214b/

Thanks for tuning in to Coffey Talk with Kate Coffey-Bacon!
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Jenn Rinfret has lived a lot of lives. She was a runway model in Milan at 17, a single mom rebuilding from scratch, a survivor of a serious car accident, and the founder of a business that helped seniors navigate technology with dignity. Today she is the Commercial Lead for Americas at Seer 365 in the Microsoft channel — and through every chapter, empathy has been her north star.

In this episode, Jenn and Kate dig into what it really means to lead with empathy in leadership and in life, the difference between a gamble and a calculated risk, and why the seniors Jenn worked with taught her more about showing up for people than any leadership course ever could. This is a conversation about resilience, reinvention, and what keeps you going when life just keeps coming.

Key Takeaways:

1. Stepping outside your comfort zone is where the best things begin — the discomfort is the point, not the problem.
2. Empathy is not a soft skill. It is a leadership strategy, and it shows up in how you take the time to understand the why behind someone's behavior before reacting.
3. There is a difference between a gamble and a calculated risk. Knowing the difference changes how you make decisions and how you move forward.
4. The seniors Jenn worked with — spies, war survivors, people carrying extraordinary stories — are a reminder that wisdom is everywhere if you slow down enough to notice it.
5. Reinvention is not a one-time event. It is something you choose over and over again, and it gets a little easier every time you do it.

👉🏻Contact information for Jenn Renfret

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennrinfret/

Thanks for tuning in to Coffey Talk with Kate Coffey-Bacon!
Real people. Real stories. Conversations that stir something in your soul.
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Kevin Armstrong has spent decades at the intersection of technology and growth, and in this episode of Coffey Talk, he pulls back the curtain on what it actually takes to win in today's marketplace. From his early days at Xerox to scaling companies, leading transformations, and now driving AI strategy at FinListics, Kevin shares the principles that have kept him in the room through every market shift the last 30 years has thrown at him.

This is a conversation about curiosity, preparation, perspective, and what it means to show up as both a competitor and a good human. If you're navigating change, building your career, or just trying to figure out your next move, this one's for you.

Key Takeaways

1. Curiosity is a strategy, not a personality trait. The people who keep asking questions are the ones who stay relevant.
2. Preparation is the differentiator nobody talks about enough. The practice-to-performance ratio in sales is broken, and it's costing people deals.
3. Know thyself. Your value equation is unique to you, and the sooner you understand what you bring to the table, the sooner you can own it.
4. Tell them something they don't already know. That's how you build a perspective worth having in the room.
5. Time kills all deals, and that goes well beyond sales. Responsiveness is a discipline that compounds over a career.

👉🏻Contact information for Kevin Armstrong

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/armstrongkevin/

Episode Referenced: The Currency of Life: Understanding Time ~ with Brad Prendergast and Kate Coffey-Bacon

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-currency-of-life-understanding-time-with/id1835167771?i=1000738109865

Thanks for tuning in to Coffey Talk with Kate Coffey-Bacon!
Real people. Real stories. Conversations that stir something in your soul.
☕ Subscribe and join the Coffey Talk community.
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👉 Visit us at CoffeyTalkPodcast.com