What if the accessibility your organization promises its clients had to be true for your own employees too, no exceptions?

In this episode of Elevate, host Joy Fajardo sits down with Angelina Algranti, Vice President, People and Culture at Vision Loss Rehabilitation Canada (VLRC), to unpack what it really means to build an accessibility-first workplace, not just as a client promise, but as an internal standard.

Angelina's path here wasn't a straight line. She built her HR career across broadcasting, manufacturing, public housing, and one of Canada's most recognized charities before landing at Vision Loss Rehabilitation Canada, where about 15% of the workforce is blind or partially sighted. That mix of experience, plus working alongside colleagues who share the lived experience of the clients they serve, gives her a rare, ground-level view of what accessibility actually requires.

Angelina walks through how VLRC builds culture through co-design instead of top-down policy, why accessibility is a non-negotiable line item in every vendor conversation (down to testing 16 different platforms before choosing one), and what changed for her personally the week she learned proper guide dog etiquette. She also gets candid about where she draws the line with AI, and why protecting her own critical thinking matters as much as adopting new tools.

This one's for any HR or IC leader who says they care about accessibility and inclusion, and is ready to actually test that claim against their own systems.

STAY CONNECTED!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linezero/
Website: https://www.linezero.com/resources/podcast

=============================

Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero

Most HR leaders build their careers in one or two industries. Khai Jones has built hers in five, and the thread connecting all of them isn't a framework or a methodology. It's a belief about what people actually need to grow.

In this episode of Elevate, host Joy Fajardo sits down with Khai Jones, incoming VP of Employee Experience at GoDaddy, to explore what it really means to grow people with intention, and what it costs when you don't.

Khai's career spans nearly 20 years and five very different industries: healthcare, manufacturing, global industrial tech, defence, and now tech. She built HR in places most people leaders never see, including nine years at Cummins, where spending time on the factory floor taught her that the people closest to the product are the ones who drive business success. That belief has followed her across 50+ countries and 18,000+ person organizations. And for 20 years, she's quietly run a foundation for at-risk youth alongside every role she's held.

In this conversation, Khai unpacks what intentional growth actually looks like in practice, both as an individual navigating a career and as a leader sponsoring others. She shares the concept of a personal board of directors, why authenticity on a team is the first thing that dies under pressure, and where she thinks human connection fits in a world increasingly shaped by AI.

You'll also hear how she thinks about evaluating EX technology: not just for what it can do today, but whether it can scale with you. This episode is for people leaders and HR professionals who want to lead with more intention, and who believe that growth only happens when someone truly sees you, invests in you, and means it.

STAY CONNECTED!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linezero/
Website: https://www.linezero.com/resources/podcast

=============================

Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero

Great internal communication isn't measured by how many messages you send. It's measured by how much people trust them.

In this episode of Elevate, host Joy Fajardo sits down with Mahsa Joyce, Senior Internal Communications Manager at TextNow, to explore why trust, not technique, is the real infrastructure behind every message that lands.

Mahsa brings a builder's perspective to this conversation. She built TextNow's internal comms function from scratch, connecting HR, marketing, and leadership into one voice for 250 people scattered across time zones, at a company whose actual product is communication. That firsthand experience of starting with nothing but trust and building from there shapes everything she shares here.

Together, Joy and Mahsa explore the "know, feel, do" framework Mahsa uses to communicate through layoffs and reorgs, why she treats managers as the most underused channel in the company, how a single employee survey reshaped TextNow's financial transparency and cut its town halls down to size, and why AI can speed up her drafts but will never replace the gut check the job actually runs on.

If you're building trust from scratch, trying to get leadership to actually invest in internal comms, or just tired of watching your announcements land flat, this episode will leave you with something real to take back to work tomorrow.

__________________________

Want to understand how your own employee experience stacks up?
Book Your FREE Personalized EX Assessment

STAY CONNECTED!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linezero/
Website: https://www.linezero.com/resources/podcast

=============================

Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero

What does it really take to build a workplace where people grow and do their best work, even in one of the most emotionally demanding professions?

In this episode of Elevate, Joy Fajardo sits down with Carla Armstrong, CFRE, Director of Philanthropy at Gulfside Healthcare Services, a five-time Top 100 Workplace in Tampa Bay, to explore what great leadership looks like when the work is deeply human.

Carla shares an unconventional career journey, from training at Juilliard and building a career in dance to leading philanthropy for one of Florida's most respected nonprofit healthcare organizations. Along the way, she reveals the leadership principles that have remained constant: resilience, purpose, trust, and the belief that culture is built through everyday decisions, not company slogans.

Together, Joy and Carla discuss:

• What leaders can learn from the discipline and collaboration of the performing arts.
• How Gulfside has built and sustained an award-winning workplace culture in hospice care.
• Why communication becomes even more important when your workforce is dispersed across locations and serving people in the field.
• The difference between purchasing technology and successfully adopting it.
• How professional development drives stronger technology adoption and employee engagement.
• Leading through multiple generations while preserving purpose and connection.
• The opportunities and limitations of AI in people-centred organizations.
• Why the future of leadership depends on creating the conditions for people to thrive.

Whether you lead communications, HR, IT, employee experience, or an entire organization, this conversation offers practical insights into building cultures where people feel supported, connected, and inspired to do meaningful work. 

__________________________

Want to understand how your own employee experience stacks up?
Book Your FREE Personalized EX Assessment

STAY CONNECTED!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linezero/
Website: https://www.linezero.com/resources/podcast

=============================

Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero

What if the reason your people programs aren't landing has nothing to do with the program itself and everything to do with what you didn't stop to understand first?

In this episode of Elevate, host Joy Fajardo sits down with Desiree Aprekuma, a people and culture leader, to explore what it actually takes to build credibility, earn trust, and drive real change as a people and culture leader.

Desiree has spent 20 years walking into complicated situations such as post-merger integrations, fragmented C-suites, distributed organizations with no culture infrastructure, and building something that actually works. She's been the direct people partner to CFOs, CTOs, CLOs, and chief strategy officers. And across every one of those experiences, the thread is the same: see what's real before you act.

In this conversation, you'll hear how she built trust with executives one customized conversation at a time. How she rolled out a talent cultivation program across five business units by treating internal communications as a true strategic partner and not a broadcast channel. And how she found a low-lift remote connection tool that drove real engagement because she understood what employees actually needed first.

This is the kind of thinking that shapes everything we do at LineZero too. Real time spent understanding what's actually happening with your people before recommending anything.

If you're an HR or IC leader who's tired of initiatives that look good on paper and miss in practice, this one's for you.

__________________________

Want to understand how your own employee experience stacks up?
Book Your FREE Personalized EX Assessment

STAY CONNECTED!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linezero/
Website: https://www.linezero.com/resources/podcast

=============================

Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero

What if the career you were meant to build started with a task you never asked for?

In this episode of Elevate, host Joy Fajardo sits down with Laura McLand, VP of Human Resources at Sun Holdings, to explore what it really means to build HR and a genuine culture of care inside one of the largest franchise organizations in the United States.

Laura didn't start in HR. She was an executive assistant when her CEO handed her a payroll task and told her he believed she could handle it. That one yes set off a 25-year career she built intentionally, one certification and one hard conversation at a time.

Today, she leads a team of 20+ HR professionals overseeing employee experience for 30,000 workers across 13 brands, 1,250 locations, and 32 states.

She inherited a department of one and built it into a fully structured function, while the company was actively growing around her. Laura shares how she earns credibility at the executive level by shifting the conversation from ROI to VOI — value on investment.

She walks through the earned wage access program that put over $106 million directly into employees' hands when they needed it most, explains how she builds mobile-first experiences for a workforce that's never behind a laptop, and talks about what she's actually looking for when she decides someone is worth investing in.

If you lead a people function in a distributed, frontline, or fast-growing organization and you've ever had to fight for your seat at the table, this one is for you. 

__________________________

Want to understand how your own employee experience stacks up?
Book Your FREE Personalized EX Assessment

STAY CONNECTED!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linezero/
Website: https://www.linezero.com/resources/podcast

=============================

Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero

What does it take to move from being brought in at the end to being the first call leaders make?

In this episode of Elevate, host Joy Fajardo sits down with Meghann Klein, Senior Director of Internal Communications at Marriott International's Revenue and Technology Group, to unpack what strategic internal communications really looks like when you earn the title instead of claim it.

Meghann has spent 20+ years walking into functions that weren't being taken seriously and rebuilding them into something the business can't operate without. From healthcare and non-profits to a rebrand at the Entrepreneurs' Organization that lifted communications value by 22%, she's built her career turning comms from a support function into a strategic lens on the business. At Marriott, she led her team through a major restructuring, introduced a business partner model, and rebuilt how internal comms shows up across 140+ countries and nearly a million associates.

In this conversation, Meghann shares the diagnostic questions her team used to rebuild after restructuring, why the Einstein principle is a communicator's best filter, how to earn your way from "phone tree number five" to phone tree number one, and why variable speed (not speed itself) is the leadership muscle women especially need to protect.

This one is for every IC and EX pro who's ever delivered beautiful work no one else saw, and wondered how to get pulled into the room earlier.

__________________________

Want to understand how your own employee experience stacks up?
Book Your FREE Personalized EX Assessment

STAY CONNECTED!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linezero/
Website: https://www.linezero.com/resources/podcast

=============================

Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero

What if the most important question in onboarding isn't "Here's what we do", but "Who are you at your best, and how will you bring that here?"

In this episode of Elevate, host Joy Fajardo sits down with Mary Newville, Director of People Experience at Arctic Wolf, to explore what it really takes to build a culture that makes people feel seen, not just on paper, but at 3,200 employees across six continents.

Mary joined Arctic Wolf in 2020, right as the company entered one of the most intense growth periods in tech, sometimes onboarding 120 new hires every two weeks. She's spent nearly six years building the programs, rituals, and infrastructure that turned a fast-moving wolf pack into a Fortune-recognized great workplace.

What makes her perspective worth listening to isn't just the scale. It's that she's never treated culture as something employees consume; she's always built it as something they steward together.

In this conversation, you'll hear how Arctic Wolf's Pack culture goes from values on a website to real daily behaviour, why their WellWolf Ambassador program filled up almost instantly when they opened applications, and how Mary thinks about where AI belongs in HR and where it probably shouldn't go. There's also a really good story about a Howl on Zoom that you won't see coming.

If you're a people leader, HR pro, or internal communications specialist trying to build something that lasts past the next all-hands, this one is worth your full attention.

__________________________

Want to understand how your own employee experience stacks up?
Book Your FREE Personalized EX Assessment

Explore Arctic Wolf’s Website: https://arcticwolf.com/

STAY CONNECTED!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linezero/
Website: https://www.linezero.com/resources/podcast

=============================

Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero

What if the reason your employee engagement initiatives aren't gaining traction has nothing to do with the quality of your work and everything to do with where you started?

In this episode of Elevate, host Joy Fajardo sits down with Vanessa Lecorps, Vice President of Engagement and Belonging at Children's Aid, to explore what 25 years of culture work across corporate, academic, and nonprofit spaces has taught her about building engagement strategies that actually land with leaders.

Vanessa leads engagement for 2,000+ employees across 42 offices at one of New York City's most storied nonprofits, teaches at NYU, and serves as board president of the Women's Mentoring Network. Her approach is data-driven, cross-functional, and grounded in a simple belief: engagement work only adds value when it's connected to the business problem it's meant to solve.

Together, Joy and Vanessa explore how to start every engagement strategy with the right question, how to close the "say-do gap" that quietly erodes trust, what values in action really look like beyond the poster on the wall, and what the future of personalized employee engagement looks like as AI enters the picture.

If you're an engagement, HR, or Internal Comms leader who wants your work to resonate with leadership and drive real results, this episode will give you a new place to start.

__________________________

Want to understand how your own employee experience stacks up?
Book Your FREE Personalized EX Assessment

STAY CONNECTED!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linezero/
Website: https://www.linezero.com/resources/podcast

=============================

Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero

What happens after the change memo goes out? After the reorg. After the AI rollout. After the town hall.

Most organizations put enormous energy into that one moment. But what they truly miss is everything that comes after.

In this episode of Elevate, host Joy Fajardo sits down with Jessica Smith, Chief People Officer at Reframing HR, to explore what leaders consistently get wrong about change communication and what it actually takes to help employees recover, reconnect, and perform again.

Jess brings a rare combination of perspectives to this conversation. She's led transformation at scale inside companies like Amazon and Meta, experienced a layoff herself, and now dedicates her work to what happens after the disruption. That lived experience shapes everything she shares here.

Together, Joy and Jess explore the signs that change hasn't landed yet, the ANCHOR framework Jess uses to help organizations re-stabilize after big transitions, why middle managers are the most underused communication channel in any change plan, and why the leaders people will remember most from the AI era aren't the ones with the best strategy decks.

If you're rolling out a new tool, navigating a reorg, or just trying to keep your team grounded when everything feels uncertain, this episode will leave you with something real to take back to work tomorrow. 

__________________________

Want to understand how your own employee experience stacks up?
Book Your FREE Personalized EX Assessment

Explore Reframing HR: https://www.reframinghr.com/ 

STAY CONNECTED!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/linezero/
Website: https://www.linezero.com/resources/podcast

=============================

Music: Ramaramaray by Aiyo | Get Up on That Horse by spring gang 
Via Epidemic Sound

©  2026 LineZero