Kim, Wesley and Ernest respond to feedback from the last episode that they needed to articulate more clearly their ideas for alternatives to top down management structures.

After a hiatus, the Radical Respect podcast has returned for the fall of 2025. In other exciting news, Kim’s co-host from Season One, Ernest Adams, is back and joins Kim and Wesley as co-host of Season Four. Ernest is an executive from Nike, Danaher, Ralph Lauren and Ford Motor Company. Wesley has led developer relations and been a community manager at a number of tech companies. Kim is the author of Radical Candor and Radical Respect.

This season, the three will discuss leadership challenges facing organizations large and small. Plus, they have a series of interesting guests lined up. 

In this kick-off episode, Kim, Wesley and Ernest talk about what they have been up to in the last few months and the state-of-play in the corporate world.

Kim and Wesley welcome entrepreneur, investor and author, Ellen Pao. They talk about what inspired Ellen and her co-founders to start Project Include nearly 10 years ago.  Historically, many firms have some sort of "bias busting" training session and then feel as though they have checked the box on this complicated topic.  It has become especially challenging in recent years with notable pushback against diversity initiatives.  The good news is there are still organizations that see it as a strategic advantage to their company's performance.  

Ellen points out how critical it is to get CEO ownership from the get go.  Many diversity initiatives fail because it is delegated to a mid-level staff person who is not empowered to make any changes.  So as a starting point, Project Include, will not engage with a company unless the CEO attends the planning meetings.  One early effect they noticed was many CEOs feel pressure to "know everything about everything" and yet most knew very little about how to run a successful diversity program.  So, part of the CEO coaching and buy in is to get them comfortable at not being the expert in this particular area.  They would push CEOs to evaluate their diversity efforts as any other business project: What is working well and what is not, who is on the team, what are their metrics, what tools are they using, etc.  Then, use this information to adjust as necessary. 

About Ellen Pao:

Ellen Pao is the treasurer of the board of directors at Data & Society. She is the former CEO of reddit and the co-founder and CEO of the award-winning diversity, equity, and inclusion nonprofit Project Include. A long-time entrepreneur and investor, she is the former chief diversity and inclusion officer at the Kapor Center and a former venture capitalist for Kleiner Perkins and Kapor Capital. Her 2017 memoir, Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, was shortlisted for the Financial Times and Mckinsey Business Book Of The Year.

https://www.ellenkpao.com/

Today, Wesley and Kim welcome Elizabeth Blass, an executive with 15+ years of experience in Customer Success organizations in a variety of fields.  They discuss Leadership in general and specifically, how it can be hard to receive feedback as a leader when you do something that unintentionally causes offense.  How do you discover that it happened in the first place and then, what can you do to address the situation?  Kim and Elizabeth point out that it is important to accept criticism in public gracefully, though that can be incredibly hard in the moment. 

About Elizabeth Blass.  

Elizabeth is a two time Chief Customer Officer with 15+ years of global leadership experience in the technology sector.  She has built and led Customer Success teams for companies such as Verizon, CME Group and TrustArc.  She is currently the Chief Customer Officer for Karbon. 

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

Kim also mention DARVO during the episode.  Here is a link to explain more.  
https://www.jjfreyd.com/darvo

Kim and Wesley speak with WeAreLATech founder and podcaster Espree Devora about her experience as young tech founder.  Espree talks about how her early passion for technology, art and business and how this set the foundation for her future endeavors.  While she did not know or even understand the traditional rules of how to start a business or how to raise funds, she did not let that deter her drive to succeed.  She let her strong, creative vision be her North Star and guide her day to day decisions making.  She also discusses how to manage energy as a founder, especially when one can feel they are never doing enough.  It's important, though difficult, to "sit in the discomfort" and "don't close our own doors of opportunity".  

About Espree Devora:

A prolific podcaster since 2013, Espree Devora aka “the girl who gets it done” is a force in the Los Angeles tech scene, founder of WeAreLATech and championing  Women in Tech globally, she’s also a founding member of the Audio Collective  the hybrid live-audio creator community.  Host of multiple podcasts and one of the first Clubhouse icon faces, Espree has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Harper’s Bazaar, Inc and more.

https://espreedevora.com

Today Kim and Wesley welcome Shalini Shybut. In recent years, non-profit organizations have worked very hard to hire leaders of color who reflect the communities they serve.  Kim and Wesley discuss with Shalini the additional challenges and pressures faced by leaders of color at non-profit organizations, especially the "entitlement gap".  Why do these leaders sometimes struggle to thrive?  What can be done to help them succeed?

Link to Shalini's essay where she talks about her learnings in more detail.

About Shalini Shybut: 

Shalini is an executive coach, consultant and entrepreneur in Washington DC with two decades of expertise in education, nonprofits and the private sector. Shalini has sat in a variety of seats, starting her career as a teacher in New York City and moving on to serve as a consultant to public and private (Fortune 500) organizations, a school system leader in Washington DC, a board member at multiple nonprofits, and, most recently, a philanthropist at DC’s largest education funding organization. Across these experiences, Shalini has consistently worked to shift systems to increase the equity of opportunity (and outcomes) for the most marginalized communities, and empowered people and teams to get there. Currently, Shalini is an executive coach supporting leaders, especially leaders of color, at the most senior levels of mission-driven organizations, in navigating complex systemic challenges, with a particular focus on how race, gender and power play into leadership. She also established a leadership cohort for DC nonprofit CEOs who identify as people of color. Shalini received her coaching training from the Teleos Leadership Institute, where she completed a PCC-level Coach Development Program, and has also been trained on Coaching Through Trauma by the Center for Trauma and Leadership.

Kim and Wesley welcome Amy Gallo the author of "Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People)".  They all tell stories about working with someone especially difficult and what they learned from these situations.  They also review some of the archetypes from Amy's book: the know-it-all, the tormentor, the political operator, the insecure boss.. to name a few.  Amy discusses how to navigate these situations, even when to salvage something valuable when there is quite a bit of power asymmetry and leaving is not an immediate option. 

About Amy Gallo:

Amy Gallo is a workplace expert who writes and speaks about effective communication, interpersonal dynamics, gender, difficult conversations, and feedback. She is the best-selling author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People) and the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict, as well as hundreds of articles for Harvard Business Review.  She also co-hosts a podcast called "Women at Work".  

www.amyegallo.com/about

Today, Wesley and Kim welcome Susan Fowler Rigetti.   She talks her experiences at Uber as a young software engineer and the challenges when dealing with bad behavior.  What can you do when you try to speak up when the internals systems are setup up to protect the "high performers"?  They discuss what to do when the culture of the company is not aligned with your personal values and how to speak truth to power without blowing up your career.  Susan also mentions her prior life experiences in "terrible life situations" made her ready to stand up for herself.  

Susan received high media attention in 2017 for taking a stand to speak out against the leadership at Uber about the harassment she was experiencing while working early in her career as a software engineer at Uber.

About Susan Rigetti
Susan is a novelist, journalist, screenwriter, and the author of three books.  In 2017, Susan's blogpost about her experience as a software engineer at Uber sent shockwaves through the industry.  She went on to write a critically acclaimed memoir, called Whistleblower.  She is also the author of a novel, Cover Story.  She has written for The New York Times, TIME Magazine, Slate, Vanity Fair, and have been an editor at PhilPapers for nearly a decade.

www.susanrigetti.com

There's no doubt that mental health in the workplace has become increasingly destigmatized in recent years. While conversations about its importance have now become commonplace, they can fall flat if people don't know how to engage in these conversations effectively. In this episode of the Radical Respect podcast, Kim and Wesley speak with Melissa Doman, who unpacks her playbook for how to talk about mental health at work without messing up. 

about Melissa Doman:

Melissa Doman, MA is an Organizational Psychologist, Former Clinical Mental Health Therapist, & Author of Yes, You Can Talk About Mental Health at Work (Here’s Why And How To Do It Really Well). Melissa works with companies across industries around the globe – including clients like Google, Dow Jones, the Orlando City Soccer Club, Microsoft, Salesforce, Siemens, Estée Lauder, & Janssen. She’s spoken at SXSW and has been featured as a subject matter expert in CNN, Vogue, NPR, the BBC, CNBC, Inc., and in LinkedIn’s 2022 Top 10 Voices on Mental Health.

Athletics and the workplace are alike in their reliance on strong teams, where the health and performance of each group hinge on individual contributions. In this episode of the Radical Respect podcast, Kim speaks with athletic consultant Dr. Kensa Gunter. Drawing on her experience in the sports world —  consulting with coaches, trainers and athletic administrators — Dr. Gunter explores how leaders can cultivate an organizational culture that allows every individual to thrive.

about Kensa Gunter:

Dr. Kensa Gunter is a licensed psychologist and a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) who works at the intersection of mental health, performance, well-being, and culture and is committed to humanizing conversations about mental health. She holds leadership and service roles in various professional organizations and through her private practice, she provides counseling and consultation services to individuals, teams, and organizations.

drkensagunter.com