Most companies measure L&D ROI with two things: course completion rates and "how did you feel about the course" surveys. Josh Cutler says both are nearly worthless

With 20+ years in learning design, starting in the chaos of the New York City school system, Josh became known as the person companies call when all their traditional L&D approaches have failed.

In this episode, he explains exactly why most corporate training is broken, why AI avatars are penny-wise and pound-foolish, why you should hire teachers instead of HR people for your L&D function, and how he accidentally became the world's leading HR Super Connector — making hundreds of strategic introductions every single day through a system built entirely on quality, quantity, and speed.

About Ready Set Exec: Founded by Managing Partners Patrick Shea and John Pezoulas, Ready Set Exec is a premier North American executive leadership recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Operations. We replace hiring chaos with a repeatable process, boasting an average time-to-hire of 39 days and a 100% placement success rate.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro: Who is Josh Cutler?

03:29 Continuous Learning vs. Episodic One-Off Training

07:48 Why Off-the-Shelf LMS Modules Are a Waste of Money

11:48 Learning Strategy First, Platform Selection Second

18:40 The Reality of AI in L&D: Where It Actually Helps

23:03 The Measurement Gap: Completion Rates vs. Behavioural Change

38:04 Executive Networking: Your Net Worth is Your Network

43:21 The True Cost of Toxic Workplaces on the Bottom Line

Connect with Ready Set Exec:

• John Pezoulas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpezoulas/
• Patrick Shea LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-jm-shea/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadySetExec
• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6clqPWbF2yFRlsFUOXY0CO?si=UuOAbZeiQMKpgSjV5Od5_g
• Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-set-exec-the-podcast/id1837951413

Connect with Joshua Cutler :

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

In the 1970s, CEO pay was roughly 100 times the average worker's salary. Today it's over 1,000 times. And most companies still can't clearly explain to their own employees what their total rewards program even means.

Raj Sinha has spent 20+ years advising CEOs, CHROs, and boards across life sciences, financial services, and technology on exactly how to fix this and what happens when organizations don't.

In this episode, Raj breaks down the full landscape of executive compensation, global pay strategy, the new SEC administration's impact on ESG and DEI disclosures, why performance management is riddled with normative bias, and what it actually takes to build a pay structure that survives shareholder scrutiny and wins the war for talent.

About Ready Set Exec: Founded by Managing Partners Patrick Shea and John Pezoulas, Ready Set Exec is a premier North American executive leadership recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Operations. We replace hiring chaos with a repeatable process, boasting an average time-to-hire of 39 days and a 100% placement success rate.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro: Who is Raj Sinha

14:19 Compensation Strategy: What Percentile Should You Target?

19:00 CEO Pay Ratios and the New Era of Excess Pay Risk

28:00 2026 SEC Shifts: Changes to DEI, ESG, and Disclosures

31:23 Career Path: From Mid-Level to Global Rewards Executive

34:00 The Goal-Setting Framework: Threshold, Target, and Maximum

40:03 The Reality of AI in Total Rewards

43:11 Global Comp Strategy and Cross-Cultural Awareness

Connect with Ready Set Exec:

• John Pezoulas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpezoulas/
• Patrick Shea LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-jm-shea/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadySetExec
• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6clqPWbF2yFRlsFUOXY0CO?si=UuOAbZeiQMKpgSjV5Od5_g
• Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-set-exec-the-podcast/id1837951413

Connect with Raj Sinha:

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/rajcsinha

Marketing leaders are being laid off at record rates in 2026. Philip Kushmaro has watched it happen for 15 years across hundreds of companies - and he knows exactly why.

The problem isn't the marketers. It's a fundamental misalignment between what marketing actually does and what CEOs think they're paying for.

In this episode, Philip breaks down the real state of the marketing job market, why brand is now the only moat that can't be copied overnight, what to do when you lose your job, and why he and his wife are building Maguire, a lifestyle tech brand and AI-driven motherhood operating system, to solve one of the most underserved crises in the world.

About Ready Set Exec: Founded by Managing Partners Patrick Shea and John Pezoulas, Ready Set Exec is a premier North American executive leadership recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Operations. We replace hiring chaos with a repeatable process, boasting an average time-to-hire of 39 days and a 100% placement success rate.

Chapters: 0:00 Why marketing leaders are getting fired right now 07:56 Brand as the only moat left in a world where tools get copied overnight 29:31 Going from operator to founder: what Philip learned doing it the hard way 40:31 Advice for new marketing grads in 2026 41:39 Generalist vs. specialist: the right path 45:21 Why does AI still need a minimum of three people on a marketing team 48:36 The gig economy reckoning: losing benefits, security, and the social contract

Connect with Ready Set Exec:

• John Pezoulas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpezoulas/
• Patrick Shea LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-jm-shea/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadySetExec
• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6clqPWbF2yFRlsFUOXY0CO?si=UuOAbZeiQMKpgSjV5Od5_g
• Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-set-exec-the-podcast/id1837951413

Connect with Philip Kushmaro:

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

In 1999, the Fortune 25 was the most powerful list of companies on earth.

By 2024, 21 of those 25 companies were gone shrunk, acquired, or irrelevant. Only four survived. Mark L. Vincent has spent 25 years studying what separates the leaders who build something that lasts from those who don't. As executive advisor, founding member of the Sage Group Collective, and author of the newly released book The Maestro Effect, he breaks down the four elements every founder must orchestrate to hand their business off with full value intact - and what happens to the ones who don't.

In this episode, we go deep on succession planning, the three turns of a leader, why C-suite isolation is a growing crisis, what boards get dangerously wrong about their own role, and why short-termism is quietly destroying the institutions we're trying to build.

About Ready Set Exec: Founded by Managing Partners Patrick Shea and John Pezoulas, Ready Set Exec is a premier North American executive leadership recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Operations. We replace hiring chaos with a repeatable process, boasting an average time-to-hire of 39 days and a 100% placement success rate.

Chapters:

0:00 - Intro: Who is Mark L. Vincent?

01:48 It's Not About Retirement It's About Orchestration

07:55 The Four Key Elements of the Maestro Effect Framework

14:15 The Three Turns of a Leader

20:44 Continuity Planning vs. Succession Planning

25:00 The Relationship Equity Problem When Top Performers Leave

37:38 C-Suite Isolation: "Every Promotion Means Fewer Friends"

58:06 Advisory vs. Fiduciary Boards: The Distinction That Changes Everything

Connect with Ready Set Exec:

• John Pezoulas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpezoulas/
• Patrick Shea LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-jm-shea/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadySetExec
• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6clqPWbF2yFRlsFUOXY0CO?si=UuOAbZeiQMKpgSjV5Od5_g
• Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-set-exec-the-podcast/id1837951413

Connect with Mark L. Vincent:

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

#SuccessionPlanning #LeadershipLegacy #TheMaestroEffect #CEOAdvice #BoardGovernance #ExecutiveLeadership #BusinessPodcast #Podcast2026 #LeadershipDevelopment

Most founders think HR is just hiring and firing. Adam Reidel has spent 25 years proving that belief is one of the most expensive mistakes a growing company can make.

As a senior People & HR executive who has built HR organizations inside fast-growing, complex companies from startup to scale, Adam breaks down exactly what happens when founders treat HR as an afterthought and what it takes to fix it before it breaks the business.

In this episode, we cover the first 90-day playbook for a broken HR function, why salary compression quietly destroys morale, how to scale globally without creating compliance disasters, the real state of DEIB in 2026, and why ageism is now the most common hiring discrimination nobody talks about.

About Ready Set Exec: Founded by Managing Partners Patrick Shea and John Pezoulas, Ready Set Exec is a premier North American executive leadership recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Operations. We replace hiring chaos with a repeatable process, boasting an average time-to-hire of 39 days and a 100% placement success rate.

Chapters:

0:00 - "HR is just hiring and firing" 07:50 Where High-Growth Companies Get HR Infrastructure Wrong 15:38 The Seat at the Table: Why Reporting to Finance Kills HR Impact 22:16 Global Expansion: Compliance Risks Across Borders 27:20 How to Corporatize a Founder-Led or Family-Owned Business 41:03 Ageism: The Most Common Hiring Discrimination Right Now 53:28 How AI is Changing the HR Job Search

Connect with Ready Set Exec:

• John Pezoulas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpezoulas/
• Patrick Shea LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-jm-shea/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadySetExec
• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6clqPWbF2yFRlsFUOXY0CO?si=UuOAbZeiQMKpgSjV5Od5_g
• Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-set-exec-the-podcast/id1837951413

Connect with Adam Reidel:

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

#HRStrategy #PeopleOps #HumanResources #StartupHR #HRLeadership #CompensationStrategy #DEIB #AgencyGrowth #BusinessPodcast #Podcast2026 #ScalingCulture #GlobalHR #HRCompliance #MentalHealthAtWork #FutureOfWork

What if your best sales tactic wasn't a CRM sequence or a LinkedIn ad but a tin of gourmet cookies?

Corey Quinn was CMO at Scorpion when the company grew from $20M to $200M in annual recurring revenue. He spent $3 million a year sending gifts to cold prospects and generated a 10% send-to-appointment rate when cold calling gets sub-1%.

In this episode, he breaks down everything he learned about building a category-dominating brand, escaping founder-led sales, preparing for an acquisition, and why the marketing rules most founders follow are killing their business value.

About Ready Set Exec: Founded by Managing Partners Patrick Shea and John Pezoulas, Ready Set Exec is a premier North American executive leadership recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Operations. We replace hiring chaos with a repeatable process, boasting an average time-to-hire of 39 days and a 100% placement success rate.

Chapters:

02:10 Category kings: why one brand wins 70-80% of any market 08:59 What percentage of revenue should go to marketing? 13:12 Cost per acquisition: the right way to measure marketing 24:56 Gift-based outbound: $3M/year on cookies and what happened 37:37 What multipliers PE firms will pay (and why) 48:44 The two forks: commodity vs. premium consultative path 51:13 Will AI eliminate the entry-level sales grinder?

Connect with Ready Set Exec:

• John Pezoulas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpezoulas/
• Patrick Shea LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-jm-shea/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadySetExec
• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6clqPWbF2yFRlsFUOXY0CO?si=UuOAbZeiQMKpgSjV5Od5_g
• Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-set-exec-the-podcast/id1837951413

Connect with Corey Quinn:

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

#B2BMarketing #AgencyGrowth #ContentMarketing #MarketingStrategy #GiftBasedOutbound #CategoryKing #Specialization #AgencyMandA #FounderLedSales #ExitStrategy #BusinessPodcast #Podcast2026 #MarketingKPIs #EnterpriseValue #AnyoneNotEveryone

Only 31% of US employees are engaged at work, an 11-year low. The other 70%? Checked out, actively disengaged, or job-hugging while waiting for something better. It's costing the global economy $8.9 trillion a year. And the root cause almost always traces back to leadership and communication.

Linda Carlisle is a seasoned communications strategist and founder of Comm.Ext, where she helps organizations navigate their most critical moments from shaping culture and employer brand to guiding teams through M&A integrations, reorgs, and high-impact change. With decades of experience leading internal and external comms, Linda specializes in turning strategy into clear, human-centred messaging that keeps employees informed, aligned, and engaged.

In this episode, Linda breaks down why most companies are getting communication completely wrong, why the trend back to command-and-control leadership is going to cost companies dearly, and what the real difference is between a culture problem and a communication problem.

About Ready Set Exec: Founded by Managing Partners Patrick Shea and John Pezoulas, Ready Set Exec is a premier North American executive leadership recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Operations. We replace hiring chaos with a repeatable process, boasting an average time-to-hire of 39 days and a 100% placement success rate.

Chapters:

01:32 The Full Employee Lifecycle

05:22 Why Command-and-Control Leadership Fails

08:50 AI's Impact on the Talent War

13:29 Intentionally Designing Company Culture

21:53 Empathy During Crisis and Layoffs

39:48 Fixing the 70% Disengagement Epidemic

Connect with Ready Set Exec:

• John Pezoulas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpezoulas/
• Patrick Shea LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-jm-shea/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadySetExec
• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6clqPWbF2yFRlsFUOXY0CO?si=UuOAbZeiQMKpgSjV5Od5_g
• Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-set-exec-the-podcast/id1837951413

Connect with Linda Carlisle:

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

#employeeengagement #companyculture #internalcomms #HRleadership #leader

Most people think webinars are boring. Ryan Ross thinks they're the most underrated growth engine in business, and he's got Mark Cuban and the founder of Netflix on his webinar roster to prove it.

As Head of Marketing at BrokersBlock and author of Benefits with Friends, Ryan has spent over a decade helping professionals in highly regulated industries build authority, trust, and a real pipeline from content that most people ignore.

In this episode, we break down how to turn one webinar into 30 pieces of content, why CE-approved events triple your registrations, how to get celebrity guests to say yes, why you should stop calling yourself an influencer, and how the Dream 100 framework could change the way you think about your entire market.

About Ready Set Exec: Founded by Managing Partners Patrick Shea and John Pezoulas, Ready Set Exec is a premier North American executive leadership recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Operations. We replace hiring chaos with a repeatable process, boasting an average time-to-hire of 39 days and a 100% placement success rate.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro: Who is Ryan Ross?

1:42 Webinars as a growth engine: The Tree of Life framework

6:21 The celebrity guest framework: how Ryan got Mark Cuban

8:51 CE-approved webinars: why they triple your registrations

13:43 Post-webinar nurture: turning attendees into pipeline

18:00 Best practices: length, polling, Zoom settings, and landing pages

31:38 Focus, delegation, and saying no as a founder

38:33 The Dream 100: why niching down beats going broad

44:06 Why known brands win in a down market

44:54 Benefits with Friends: writing a business novel to learn an industry

50:32 How Ryan used AI to write the book (and where it helped most)

Connect with Ready Set Exec:

• John Pezoulas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpezoulas/
• Patrick Shea LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-jm-shea/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadySetExec
• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6clqPWbF2yFRlsFUOXY0CO?si=UuOAbZeiQMKpgSjV5Od5_g
• Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-set-exec-the-podcast/id1837951413

Connect with Ryan Ross:

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

CEO posts generate 7x more impressions than company pages. Most CEOs aren't posting. That gap is costing them trust, talent, and revenue.

Alan McLaren is the co-founder of Strata Originals, the leadership branding firm that has coached more than 600 CEOs to clarify their leadership signal - the way their voice, presence, and perspective land with authority in every room and on every platform. With 30 years in executive roles across public companies, partnerships, and entrepreneurial ventures, Alan helps leaders understand why being felt is more important than just being seen.

In this episode, Alan breaks down everything: why your leadership brand matters more than ever in the age of AI, why 90% of sales reps are doing social selling completely wrong, what the Coldplay CEO scandal teaches us about visibility and values, and how to frame your communication so it builds trust instead of triggering partisan walls.

About Ready Set Exec: Founded by Managing Partners Patrick Shea and John Pezoulas, Ready Set Exec is a premier North American executive leadership recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Operations. We replace hiring chaos with a repeatable process, boasting an average time-to-hire of 39 days and a 100% placement success rate.

Chapters:

00:00 Who is Alan McLaren? 600 CEOs coached, 30 years in exec roles, Strata Originals

01:24 Leadership branding vs. personal branding

06:37 What to do if you're a CEO who hates being in front of cameras

08:00 The basic assets every executive should build to start their leadership brand

15:03 The loneliness of leadership: why even CEOs need mentors and community

22:58 What "leadership signal" actually means in the Mensa CEO story

26:00 How to frame content so it starts conversations instead of creating partisan divides

28:14 Why CEOs should never talk politics online

Connect with Ready Set Exec:

• John Pezoulas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpezoulas/
• Patrick Shea LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-jm-shea/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadySetExec
• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6clqPWbF2yFRlsFUOXY0CO?si=UuOAbZeiQMKpgSjV5Od5_g
• Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-set-exec-the-podcast/id1837951413

Connect with Alan McLaren:

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

#CEO #leadershipbranding #personalbranding #LinkedInmarketing #socialselling #executiveleadership #thoughtleadership #podcast #ReadySetExec #trustbuilding

AI isn't what most people think it is. And the threats it's creating are ones most companies have no plan for.

Dr. Steven Wright is a globally experienced technology strategist, educator, and lawyer with over three decades of leadership across telecommunications, IT, and emerging digital ecosystems. He has contributed more than 50 patents, negotiated international technology agreements, and serves as faculty at multiple universities, driving innovation in AI, network architecture, and technology law.

In this episode, we unpack the full landscape of what's actually happening at the intersection of AI, cybersecurity, law, and ethics - including why politicians can't regulate what they don't understand, the three AI-enabled threats most companies aren't protecting against, and when quantum computing will actually break the internet's current security infrastructure.

About Ready Set Exec: Founded by Managing Partners Patrick Shea and John Pezoulas, Ready Set Exec is a premier North American executive leadership recruitment firm specializing in Sales, Marketing, Human Resources, and Operations. We replace hiring chaos with a repeatable process, boasting an average time-to-hire of 39 days and a 100% placement success rate.

Chapters:

00:00 Who is Dr. Steven Wright?

01:04n The different ethical frameworks and why they matter for AI

05:30 Why calling it "AI" is the problem 07:36 Autonomous vehicles and the trolley problem

11:51 Who pays when an AI makes a mistake?

15:13 Why politicians can't regulate what they don't understand

20:30 Data suppression: how information is censored, hidden, and manipulated at scale

23:36 Deepfakes - CEO impersonation, blackmail, and why your company is the target

31:56 Quantum computing, when is it actually coming, and what will it break?

36:23 Post-quantum cryptography - the Y2K-scale challenge already underway

38:25 Blockchain, the GENIUS Act, and stable coins where crypto law actually stands in 2026

48:23 NFTs, practical blockchain use cases, and what actually worked

Connect with Ready Set Exec:

• John Pezoulas LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnpezoulas/
• Patrick Shea LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-jm-shea/
• Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ReadySetExec
• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6clqPWbF2yFRlsFUOXY0CO?si=UuOAbZeiQMKpgSjV5Od5_g
• Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ready-set-exec-the-podcast/id1837951413

Connect with Dr. Steven Wright:

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

#AI #cybersecurity #deepfakes #datapoisoning #quantumcomputing #blockchain #techlaw #AIethics #podcast #ReadySetExec