Hives + Vibes + Tribes

In this episode of Hives + Vibes + Tribes, I am speaking with Lori Sussle Bonanni.

Lori Sussle Bonanni is the founder of elssus, LLC, a multi-disciplined communications consulting firm. Lori builds and grows companies’ reputations thereby increasing awareness, business results and credibility. Think of her as a nontraditional publicist for companies as early as startups and as established as Global 500s.

While working at multinational agencies and media companies, she always found herself working at the in-house startup and/or on the team breaking down silos.This dynamic helped fuel her entrepreneurial spirit, creating the perfect foundation for the launch of elssus.

This adventure loving human was candid and honest about how her experience working at media giant NBC is an example of how the workplace culture can vary from division to division and its not always the way we see it splashed in the headlines. And when she told the story of her solo sabbatical to 6 South American countries, I could help but be just a bit envious of her having chucked everything to follow a dream.

In this episode of Hives + Vibes + Tribes, I am speaking with Jonas Altman.

Jonas Altman is a Canadian-British speaker, writer, and entrepreneur on a mission to make the world of work more human. As the founder of award-winning design practice Social Fabric, he creates learning experiences to elevate and grow leaders at the world’s boldest organizations.

Altman coaches leaders on culture change, speaks regularly at conferences about the future of work and travels the globe learning about the changing nature of work. He is part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship faculty at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business. His chronicles have appeared in The Guardian, Quartz, The Telegraph, and The Sunday Times.

My conversation with Jonas weaved in and out of life and work with a few laughs along the way. We dove into his various businesses and of course, the release of his new book Shapers, Reinvent the way you work and change the future. Talking to him was like sitting down for coffee with an old friend who's so generous with advice and anecdotes it makes you feel like you never want it to end.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

In this episode of Hives + Vibes + Tribes, I am speaking with Michal Levison.

Michal Levison is a speaker, engagement expert, the author of two Amazon five-star cookbooks and a leader in the Growing Healthy Communities revolution. She and her team empower individuals, businesses and communities to reconnect to food, cook together and return to the communal meal in order to achieve more fulfilled, productive, healthy and happy lives.

Michal really helped me understand the power of food and how it can connect us. She has some wonderful insight about how that concept can be brought into the workplace enabling organizations to connect more deeply, translating to increased collaborative experiences and even spiking productivity.

It was lovely to get to know this creative and inspiring human. I can't wait to be able to put some of her strategies into place at my own workplace.

In this episode of Hives + Vibes + Tribes, I am speaking with Celia Arias

Celia helps early stage entrepreneurs and small businesses to create deeper impact and grow revenue be leveraging easy workflows and processes that are best suited to their goals. She truly loves making all of the pieces of the machine work together and believes that investing in the right processes (instead of spending more money on marketing) is the way to 10x growth.

The conversation with Celia was all over the map - literally! She was born in Argentina, raised in the US and returned to her home country to work and learn more about the ways other cultures do business. My favorite part of the interview is her insight to how Tango and business relate - a story that I hope to hear again someday soon on a Ted Talk stage! It was lovely to get to know this human a little better and hope you love her as much as I do!

In this episode of Hives + Vibes + Tribes, I am speaking with Alison Coward.

Alison Coward is the founder of Bracket, a consultancy that helps ambitious, forward-thinking teams to build high-performing, collaborative cultures. She is a strategist, workshop facilitator, coach, trainer, keynote speaker and author of “A Pocket Guide to Effective Workshops”.

Alison works across corporates, start-ups, agencies and public institutions and her client list includes Google, D&AD, Barclaycard, Wellcome and Channel 4. With over 15 years’ experience of working in, leading and facilitating creative teams, Alison is passionate about finding the balance between creativity, productivity and collaboration so that teams can thrive and do their best work together.

Alison and I had a wonderful conversation about the facilitation work she does with teams and It was great to hear her perspective on what makes an effective facilitator and how the good one's usually make it look easy. Her idea that design thinking principles, based upon human centeredness and empathy, are not just for creative producers is a perspective I have always shared. I loved hearing the path that brought Alison to found Bracket and especially admire the work she's doing.

In this episode of Hives + Vibes + Tribes, I am speaking with Jessica Vibberts.

Jessica Vibberts, is the Founder and CEO of Full Potential Ventures, an innovative leadership development and talent-strategy firm dedicated to strengthening mission-driven work. She has devoted her life to growing authentic and brave leaders and organizations, focused on the people who bring great ideas and powerful impact to life. Her two decades in roles as COO, CEO, and her favorite: Chief People Officer, in fast-growing, entrepreneurial companies, readied her to launch her own venture to speak to the lack of effective resources available to grow and sustain the incredible talent and drive found in purpose-driven companies.

Jessica is someone I have come to admire, not only for her bravery to choose real life adventures that connect her deeply to other places and cultures, but for her incredible talent to bring together incredible leaders and leave them feeling even more prepared to lead with greatness. Her sweet spot (some would say among many) is to work with mission driven organizations as they transition when a founder is stepping down. She even explains beautifully what she believes are the 3 distinct pillars that exist in building and maintaining culture in the workplace.

It's not the first time I've sat down with Jessica to talk life work and everything in between - and I sure hope it's not the last.

In this episode of Hives + Vibes + Tribes, I am speaking with Kate Carney.

Kate Carney is an experienced business consultant, lawyer and strategic advisor. Today, she helps scale businesses and empower female founders with game-changing ideas. Her mission is to help more female founders cross that $1mm mark in revenues and create sustainable businesses. She takes a founder-centric approach to performance, focusing on leadership, talent and organizational design. She believes the alignment of these critical areas results in a culture that supports sustainable growth. Kate works with her clients to help them transition successfully from Founder to CEO, to develop and engage their teams, and to facilitate innovation and collaboration.

With Kate's extensive background working in the world of law as well as big finance I couldn't help but really want to dig into the culture of male-dominated industries as I spent 20 years working in the same type of environment. We talked about East Coast vs West Coast culture differences in the firms that she worked as well as her thoughts on why many Founders find transitioning into the CEO role when the company scales is not an easy task. All this and much more came from this lovely conversation with Kate. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

In this episode of Hives + Vibes + Tribes, I am speaking with Kelly Lynn Adams

Kelly is an Executive & Lifestyle Coach, Faciliator & Speaker focusing on stress management strategies for luxury fashion & retail brands in order to improve their overall bottom line. Her mission is to help others redefine success and manage stress in an effective & efficient way. She has helped multi-billion dollar, multinational brands, like Gucci, DKNY, Kenneth Cole, Kate Spade, Bed Bath & Beyond and Robert Half just to name a few.

Kelly and I spent some time discussing the path taken to her current work as a coach and how battling burnout and hospitalization helped to inform how she wanted to move forward, as well as the importance of constant self evaluation and continuing to do the inward work.

Kelly layed down her top 3 top tools to manage stress in the workplace - tools that may seem basic but make all the difference. I'm grateful for the time spent with Kelly Lynn Adams during the episode. I can't wait for you to hear it!

In this episode of Hives + Vibes + Tribes, I spoke with Merritt Minnemeyer. As the Founder & Creator of Master of One Coaching, Merritt helps scrappy start-up founders transform into powerful leaders of purpose-driven movements. After years of teaching arts-based strategies in under-served communities, her interests pivoted to social justice and leadership development with youth and adults. Since then she has developed and implemented a wide array of programs in venues ranging from private corporations to government agencies, schools and districts, law enforcement, higher education, nonprofit organizations, and elected officials. Merritt and I were able to dive into a deeper discussion about the generational differences in how people show up in their lives and work and how taking advantage of lessons learned in our multiple career pivots can help to educate the younger generations to integrate a whole life approach to the work they are putting out into the world. It was such a pleasure getting to know Merritt. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

In this episode of Hives + Vibes + Tribes, I am speaking with Kerrian Fournier. Kerrian is the CEO & Founder of Vybrante Ventures, a certified Executive Coach as well as a sought after speaker on the topics of team effectiveness, human capital, innovation, and building a vibrant corporate culture. We had a great conversation about how important energy is when it comes to the workplace we inhabit and the mindsets we should tap into to be successful. She even dove in a bit deeper about two very specific types of energy we tend to experience, both in and out of the workplace. I really enjoyed learning more about the work that Kerrian is putting out into the world and hope you get a few juicy bits out of it too!