Nonprofit leadership is a creative practice, not a title you master. Executive coach Gary Bagley led New York Cares and now works with the executives and boards holding organizations together.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Gary, board adviser and adjunct professor at Columbia and Baruch, to talk about what nonprofit leadership asks of people when the ground keeps moving.

Gary trained as a musician. A friend asked him to play piano for a kids' musical theater class, and inside he thought no. He said yes anyway and fell in love with it. That yes led to teaching arts in New York City classrooms and eventually to the top job at New York Cares. A seventh grade aptitude test had told him to be a teacher, be a preacher, or be a social worker. He did not know what a social worker was.

He and Ron dig into the gap between the power people assign a nonprofit CEO and the power the job carries. Gary's view is that the most important decisions do not belong to the CEO, and that real preparation means sitting in rooms where people disagree.

They also get into boards. A board governs an entire organization on roughly ten to twelve hours of meeting time a year, and going virtual gave Gary the best attendance he had ever seen without the engagement to match. And the people absorbing the most pressure right now are not CEOs. They are the senior leadership teams one level down.

Tune in to hear why Gary defines trust as the sum of expectations met, and what saying yes to possibility looks like when the moment feels closed.

Chapters:

🎭 02:48 Gary Bagley: from teaching arts in classrooms to running New York Cares

🎹 08:29 The piano favor he almost turned down

💡 12:05 Making one and one equal three, and why leaders have to fail

⚖️ 17:48 The biggest decisions in a nonprofit do not belong to the CEO

🚦 25:48 Somebody put a foot on the gas pedal and never let up

🪑 32:58 The time boards need most is the time they have least

🤝 40:18 Trust is the sum of expectations met

🛟 44:37 Senior leadership teams are getting hit the hardest

🎨 47:17 The Ronderings question: say yes to possibility

Links:

Website: garybagley.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/garybagley

Reach out to Gary Bagley to talk executive coaching, board governance, and succession planning, and follow his biweekly LinkedIn newsletter Bagleyisms for his running notes on leading and managing nonprofits.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo
Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473 

Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com
Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org
Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com
Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org 

Parent engagement advocate Punam V. Saxena failed the gifted test in second grade, and spent the next twenty five years believing she was not smart.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Punam, a TEDx and SXSW EDU speaker who started out teaching special education, for a conversation about what schools miss when nobody asks families what they actually want.

Punam grew up outside Atlanta in the 1970s, the only Indian family in the community. Neighbors asked what tribe they belonged to and how the bindi stayed on her mother's forehead. Her father, the first agricultural engineer of Indian descent hired in this country, once answered that they were Cherokee just to end the conversation. When a second Indian family moved in and their son was also kept out of gifted, Punam's parents told them to go advocate. He got in. He went to MIT.

At 22, with no training, she was put in a self contained classroom of students with autism. Later, teaching students with severe emotional disturbances in Florida, she noticed that not one parent came to her door. The turn came in an IEP meeting, where a mother who had taken two buses and unpaid hours off work sat silent while the professionals wrote goals. Punam stopped and asked what she wanted. The answer was life skills, because her son would graduate in seven years.

She and Ron get into the Puritan foundations still sitting under American schooling, and her dissertation on how second generation Indian American women build a hybrid cultural identity in college.

Tune in to hear why Punam's Ronderings is equity over equality, 100% of the time.

Chapters:

🎙️ 00:11 Welcome to Ronderings, and meeting Punam V. Saxena

🏡 05:14 One Indian family in rural Georgia, and the question about what tribe

📉 10:18 How failing the gifted test made her believe she was not smart

🧩 14:24 At 22, handed a classroom of students with autism and no training

💬 16:36 The parent who took two buses and was never asked anything

🏅 19:22 The next Indian family advocated, and their son got into MIT

🤝 23:21 Why showing up only when there is a problem makes teachers defensive

⛪ 32:32 An education system still built on Puritan ideals

📖 43:25 Her dissertation on being Indian at home and American at school

❤️ 52:37 The Ronderings question: equity over equality, 100% of the time

Links:

Website: punamvsaxena.com

LinkedIn: Punam Saxena

Email: [email protected]

Reach out to Punam V. Saxena for coaching, consulting, and workshops on parent engagement, or to bring her in to speak on what multicultural families need from the schools their children attend.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo
Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473 

Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com
Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org
Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com
Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org 

Educator and community builder Craig Aarons-Martin, founder of the Black Boy Joy Summit, has spent more than two decades doing transformative work in Boston's schools, and he is candid here about the rooms he still gets shut out of and why he keeps building anyway.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Craig, a New Orleans native, longtime school leader, and author, to talk about belonging, masculinity, faith, and what it takes to choose purpose while carrying real weight.

Craig traces his path from a summer school classroom in Louisiana, where a teacher named Miss Madeline handed him a math lesson at thirteen, to Dillard University, to Lesley University and the greater Boston area. He is honest about arriving in Boston over three hundred pounds, "a hundred and seventy-five pounds of that being depression," working his calling while mostly closeted, convinced that showing up fully himself could cost him his license. Ron opens the conversation from his own grief, having just buried his nephew Arnold, and that honesty sets the tone for everything that follows.

The two get into why vulnerability is so hard for men of color, what it means when a father starts learning to emote after forty years of silence, and how Craig built the Black Boy Joy Summit as a space for boys of color to see unsung heroes rather than only celebrities and seven-figure CEOs. Craig also names the harder truth underneath his visible success: a hundred outreach emails and twenty-five sponsorship proposals that went nowhere, and a calling he refuses to abandon.

Tune in to hear why Craig believes the breakdown always comes before the breakthrough, and why taking L's might be the necessary cost of elevation.

Chapters:

🌱 02:46 Craig Aarons-Martin on the journey of becoming

🧭 05:08 More years in the North, but a Southerner first

🤝 07:54 Why he finally said yes to brotherhood in his forties

🫂 12:52 The loneliness young men of color carry behind the feed

🍎 16:31 Miss Madeline, a math lesson, and the moment he became a teacher

💔 21:12 Arriving in Boston at 300 pounds, carrying depression and a calling

🏳️‍🌈 24:32 The double standard of who gets to be out at work

🧱 27:35 Two decades of excellence and the rooms still closed to him

🗣️ 32:15 A father learning to emote after forty years of silence

🏋️ 35:34 What men lock themselves out of when they refuse to connect

👑 40:17 Building the Black Boy Joy Summit for the sons he hopes to have

🎯 44:33 Taking L's on the way to elevation, and the breakdown before the breakthrough

Links:

Email: [email protected]
Website: ccmeducationgroup.co
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/craigcmartin
Linktree: linktr.ee/iamcraigaaronsmartin

Reach out to Craig Aarons-Martin to learn more about the Black Boy Joy Summit and his work building brave, affirming spaces for boys and men of color in education.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo
Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473 

Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com
Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org
Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com
Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org 

Dr. Nadia Lopez banked 156 unused sick days. When she finally got too sick to work, the Department of Education separated her from payroll and told her she could come back to work.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Dr. Nadia Lopez, award-winning educator, best-selling author of The Bridge to Brilliance, and the founding principal of Mott Hall Bridges Academy in Brownsville, Brooklyn, for a conversation about educator wellness, burnout, and what it costs to give a system everything you have.

Dr. Lopez never planned to teach. She trained as a critical care nurse, detoured through Verizon, and was rejected from the NYC Teaching Fellows before a mentor forced them to put the rejection in writing. They could not. She landed in a seventh grade special education classroom in Fort Greene and brought her nursing philosophy with her: know the child before you read the IEP, treat the behaviors and not the label, understand the context before you diagnose the problem.

She talks about asking her students whether they had a library at home and realizing they did not own a single book, while thousands sat unused in school storage rooms. She talks about the Global Teacher Prize taking her to Dubai, Sweden, and Korea, and what those systems understand about sustainability that we do not. She talks about her mentor Karen, who ignored her own symptoms the same way Dr. Lopez ignored hers.

And she talks about the autoimmune diagnosis that ended her principalship, the medical sabbatical the DOE denied her, and the fight to get insurance back so she could have surgery.

Tune in to hear why Dr. Lopez believes leadership is responsibility, not martyrdom, and what her HEART framework asks of leaders who have never once been asked how their heart and spirit are doing.

Chapters:

🩺 02:53 Dr. Nadia Lopez never wanted to be an educator, she was supposed to be a nurse

✉️ 06:56 Rejected by the NYC Teaching Fellows, until a mentor asked them to put it in writing

🏫 11:31 Seventh grade special education in Fort Greene, and the nursing philosophy she brought with her

📕 15:30 The question she asked every student: do you have a library at home

🇬🇹 20:27 Guatemala, the food pantry, and the child nobody knew was struggling

🌍 23:44 The Global Teacher Prize, teaching under a tree, and what other systems understand

❤️ 29:30 The question she asks educators everywhere: how is your heart and spirit

🕯️ 31:26 Karen Giles, glioblastoma, and the signs they both ignored

🚫 41:16 The HEART framework, 156 unused sick days, and the sabbatical the DOE denied

👩‍👧 45:14 Walking away as the lesson she was teaching her daughter about her own worth

📋 50:36 We have attendance protocols for students and nothing for leaders

💭 54:58 The Ronderings question: listen to your body or you become a hypocrite

Links:

Website: www.thelopezeffect.com
Work with Dr. Lopez: www.thelopezeffect.com/workwithme
Socials: @thelopezeffect on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and X

Dr. Lopez coaches women leaders in education on building careers they can sustain, and she is launching a new health and wellness endeavor. Reach out to her if you are leading a school or a system and no one has asked you lately how your heart and spirit are doing.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo
Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473 

Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com
Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org
Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com
Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org 

Julie Chan was a Yale and MIT-trained urban planner building a career in economic development when a spontaneous spiritual awakening opened intuitive abilities she never asked for and could not explain. Today she helps entrepreneurs and executives find their life purpose, and she is on a mission to bring science and spirituality back into the same room.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Julie Chan, founder of Being My Purpose and an intuitive life purpose coach, to talk about what happens when the analytical mind you built your career on suddenly is not the only way you know things.

Julie's path did not start with crystals and channeling. It started with degrees from Yale and MIT, work in healthcare technology, biotech, and small business development, and a very grounded life in New York City. Then the awakening arrived, unbidden, and with it came clairaudience, clairvoyance, and a set of experiences her training gave her no language for. Rather than run from it, she went looking for a framework big enough to hold both the data and the download.

She and Ron get into what it actually means to channel the Akashic Records, why she has written thousands of pages of guidance for clients, and how someone with her background makes peace with abilities that science has not yet caught up to. They talk about purpose as something you uncover rather than invent, the fear that keeps people from expressing it, and why Julie believes healthcare, education, and business are all overdue for a more expansive view of what human beings are capable of.

Ron brings his own curiosity and a little healthy skepticism, and Julie meets all of it with warmth and specificity.

Tune in to hear how a self-described analytical planner learned to trust a way of knowing she once would have dismissed.

Chapters:

🌱 02:05 Julie Chan on leaving urban planning for a life she never planned

🎓 05:30 What a Yale and MIT planner did before the awakening

⚡ 11:20 The spontaneous awakening that opened abilities she never asked for

👂 18:40 Clairaudience, clairvoyance, and learning to trust a new way of knowing

🗂️ 24:10 What it actually means to channel the Akashic Records

✍️ 27:29 Writing thousands of pages of guidance for clients

🧭 34:05 Purpose is something you uncover, not something you invent

😨 41:30 The fear that keeps people from expressing their purpose

🔬 46:15 Why science and spirituality belong in the same room

🏥 48:20 A bigger view of healthcare, education, and human potential

Links:

Website: beingmypurpose.com

Facebook: facebook.com/beingmypurpose

Instagram: @beingmypurpose

Connect with Julie Chan at Being My Purpose to learn more about her work helping entrepreneurs and executives uncover and express their life purpose through intuitive coaching and the Akashic Records.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo
Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473 

Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com
Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org
Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com
Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org 

A high school sports editor watched a fellow editor dismiss a brilliant Black student's writing. The question that moment raised never left him.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Jon Schnur, cofounder of New Leaders and CEO of America Achieves, for a conversation about leadership, education, and economic mobility in the age of AI.

Jon grew up just outside Milwaukee, the son of a mother who co-founded one of the country's first children's museums and the city's first racially integrated preschool. He went to that preschool. So when he later sat in segregated Milwaukee classrooms as a teenage reporter, he already knew another way was possible. That gap between what is and what could be became his life's engine: ask why, then ask what we can do about it.

That question carried him from a Chicago campaign volunteer job (he started as Bill Clinton's airport driver) through seven years in the Clinton administration, advising Al Gore, and co-founding New Leaders, which has since developed 8,000 school leaders reaching more than a million students. Ron has his own New Leaders story, and the two of them trace what made that community what it was.

Then Jon turns to what is next: the good jobs economy, and how states can prepare people for meaningful work as AI reshapes entire careers.

Tune in to hear why Jon believes the future is not something to predict, but something we decide through what we choose to do.

Chapters:

• 🎙️ 00:40 Welcome to Ronderings, and a full-circle reunion two decades in the making
• 🏛️ 04:24 Growing up in Milwaukee, and a mother who built museums and integrated preschools
• 📰 09:39 The high school newsroom moment that turned a sports editor toward education
• 🚗 20:26 From Clinton's airport driver to seven years in the administration
• 🏫 24:19 Why every great school had a great principal, and the idea behind New Leaders
• 🤝 31:15 Twenty-five years of New Leaders, and the people who built the community
• 🌎 38:12 How a search for an executive director led to Barack Obama
• 💼 53:30 The good jobs economy, and preparing people for work in the age of AI
• ❤️ 58:30 The Ronderings question: equal dignity, asking why, and taking action
• 📬 1:00:18 How to reach Jon, and a final word on responsibility over grievance
• 🎧 1:04:36 Closing reflections, and Podcasts That Matter at www.podcaststhatmatter.org

Links:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jon-schnur

America Achieves: linkedin.com/company/america-achieves

Email Jon directly: [email protected]

Reach out to Jon to talk leadership, the good jobs economy, and how states can prepare people for meaningful work in the age of AI. If you are part of the New Leaders community, he is genuinely inviting your ideas on what the next twenty-five years should look like.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo
Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473 

Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com
Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org
Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com
Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org 

George Suttles followed the money. Not for status, for impact, and from inside some of the most powerful funding institutions in the country, he is trying to redesign how philanthropy works.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with George Suttles, Executive Director of Commonfund Institute, Harlem-born and New York City-rooted, for a conversation about power, repair, and rebuilding the system from the inside out.

George traces his path from a father who coached every neighborhood team and a mother grounded in faith and service at Convent Avenue Baptist Church, to direct youth work across the city, to tech policy at the National Urban League, to philanthropic advising at U.S. Trust, and now to leading Commonfund Institute and chairing the board of the New York Foundation. The through line he names is older than any of it: generosity, abundance, and taking care of your neighbors, learned long before he had words like "nonprofit" or "philanthropy."

The conversation gets honest about the professionalization of philanthropy and the way metrics quietly became a gate. George unpacks the myth of merit-based funding, why the 5% payout was never built to be transformational, and the question he keeps asking in mainstream rooms: if foundations believe endowments are good, why not endow their grantees too?

He and Ron also talk about how to actually move an institution, why change starts at the board level, and why nobody is coming to save our communities, so we build our own things.

Tune in to hear why George believes radical love and radical imagination are the tools the moment demands.

Chapters:

• 🎙️ 01:40 Meet George Suttles: Harlem-born, NYC-rooted, and how he and Ron first met
• 🏙️ 02:27 A New York City kid: family, kinship, and a love story across the boroughs
• ⛪ 06:40 A father who coached the neighborhood and a mother grounded in the church
• 🤲 08:10 Generosity and abundance before he had the words for philanthropy
• 🚪 09:46 From frontline youth work to tech policy: seeing the cracks in the system
• 🔍 15:40 Peeking behind the curtain: gatekeeping versus gate-opening
• 📊 18:00 The professionalization of philanthropy and the myth of merit-based funding
• 🏛️ 26:33 Moving the institution: why real change starts at the board level
• 💰 43:29 Why nonprofits deserve endowments too
• 🔧 50:09 Repair, chronic under-resourcing, and building our own things
• ❤️ 55:31 George's Rondering: radical love and radical imagination

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgesuttles
Email: [email protected]
Donate: NYC Racial Equity Endowment Fund

Connect with George Suttles to talk philanthropy, fiduciary duty, and values-aligned investing, or give directly to the NYC Racial Equity Endowment Fund and put the endowment idea he champions into practice for the communities that need it.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo
Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473 

Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com
Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org
Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com
Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org 

Chris Thompson, CFA, went from training to be a mechanic at a Brooklyn vocational high school to managing over a billion dollars on Wall Street. The thing that changed his trajectory wasn't talent. It was a math teacher who told him he was good at something he couldn't yet see in himself.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Chris Thompson, impact investor, executive coach, and JP Morgan investment banking alum, to trace one of the most improbable career arcs the show has covered. Raised in Crown Heights by his Jamaican immigrant mother after his father died when Chris was two, Chris enrolled at Automotive High School for one reason: to learn a trade fast and help put food on the table. Junior year, a Jamaican math teacher and a business teacher saw something in him and redirected everything, pointing him toward college credits, a JP Morgan scholarship, and a path nobody in his world had a map for.

Chris graduated valedictorian of Long Island University, earned an MBA from Duke and the CFA designation, and worked corporate credit through the 2008 financial crisis. He also carries a loss that reshaped everything: his mother died suddenly in front of him at 43, just as he was planning for business school.

Today Chris ties his finance skills to something bigger, deploying capital into affordable housing and community projects, and coaching the people coming up behind him. He and Ron, both children of immigrants who lost a parent young, get into mentorship, legacy, survivor's guilt, and the discipline of putting one foot in front of the other when you want to stop.

Tune in to hear why Chris calls that JP Morgan scholarship an impact investment in his own life, and what he'd ask his parents if he could.

Chapters:

🌱 01:47 Two island kids, children of immigrants, meet through a mutual friend

🍽️ 02:53 No vision, no path, just trying to see the next meal

💔 04:27 Losing his father at two and growing up with a superwoman mom

🔧 08:21 Choosing Automotive High School to learn a trade and help fast

📐 09:51 The math teacher who said, you're good at this, why not pursue it

🎫 13:18 The JP Morgan scholarship that changed everything

🏆 17:09 Graduating valedictorian and earning a seat at the investment bank

📉 20:08 Reading the warning signs before the 2008 crash

🕯️ 25:25 The hardest part of the story: losing his mother at 43

🤝 28:59 The village that carried him, and a sister he leaned on

🌍 31:42 Tying finance to purpose through impact investing and coaching

🌺 36:00 The question he'd ask the parents he lost

🚶 43:49 The Ronderings value: find a way to keep going, one step at a time

🔗 46:41 Where to find Chris and the work he's doing now

Links:

Email: [email protected]
Reach out to Chris Thompson directly by email to learn more about his work in executive coaching and impact investing.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo

Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473

Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com

Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org

Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com

Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

For more great podcasts like this one, visit: https://podcaststhatmatter.org

Career expert Jeremy Schifeling says a referral used to give you a 10x edge in hiring. In today's AI-flooded job market, it's now 20x, because trust is the one thing a machine can't fake.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Jeremy Schifeling, founder of The Job Insiders and best-selling author of the top LinkedIn and AI job-search books on Amazon, for a conversation about how to actually get hired when applying online has stopped working.

Jeremy's story doesn't start with success. It starts with him, by his own admission, sucking at teaching. A kindergarten teacher in Bed-Stuy who once tried to win over a room of eighth graders with a Jeopardy game and got laughed out of the room, he learned the hard way that you have to understand people before you can lead them. That failure pushed him from the classroom to Teach For America, to Echoing Green and iMentor, to LinkedIn, and finally to building his own company helping the next generation find meaningful work.

Ron and Jeremy compare notes from both sides of the table: what Jeremy hears from buried job seekers, and what Ron sees as a recruiter watching a thousand applications land in three days. They get into why referrals now matter more than ever, why introverts should reach out to geek out instead of network, and why social connection is as essential as a good diet.

Tune in to hear Jeremy's challenge to treat 2026 the way the best of us treated 2006: go build your own luck.

🎙️ 00:39 Jeremy Schifeling on sucking at teaching and why that failure built his whole career

🧠 03:17 Why the people who pick the hard path tend to run everything later

🎒 10:18 The eighth-grade Jeopardy disaster that taught him to understand people before leading them

🛠️ 12:08 How running a school blog in Bed-Stuy quietly became a tech superpower

🚀 18:42 Leaving the safe path to bet on himself, ten years of mistakes and all

🪄 22:49 Turning workshops into a magic show instead of a lecture

📉 25:00 Two career experts compare notes on the toughest job market in years

🤝 32:44 Referrals jumped from a 10x to a 20x advantage, and AI is the reason

🌱 39:07 Why social connection is as essential to your life as a good diet

🧲 40:15 Reach out to geek out: networking advice for introverts who hate networking

💡 53:37 The Rondering: build your own luck and make the world a better place

Links:

Website: thejobinsiders.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/schifeling

YouTube: youtube.com/@jobinsiders

Books: Jeremy's best-selling LinkedIn and AI job-search books on Amazon

Reach out to Jeremy Schifeling, fellow LinkedIn nerd, to talk job searching, AI, and how to build your own luck. He would genuinely love to hear what you are seeing in the market, so connect with him on LinkedIn and keep the conversation going.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo

Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473

Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com

Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org

Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com

Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

For more great podcasts like this one, visit: https://podcaststhatmatter.org

Some leaders climb out of a system and never look back. Dr. Patrick Fagan climbed out of New York City Public Schools and came back to lead it.

In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Dr. Patrick Fagan, Chief Talent and Human Resources Officer for New York City Public Schools, the largest school system in the nation, for a conversation about what it takes to lead people at a scale most of us will never touch.

Born in London to Jamaican parents and raised in East Flatbush, Patrick is a K-12 product of the very schools he now serves. He walks Ron through the full arc: playing trumpet at JHS 285, learning a trade at William E. Grady, and the doctorate in industrial-organizational psychology that taught him to read workplace behavior like a scientist.

Then he gets into the leadership. Why he traded "leadership" for "teamship" across his 10 executive directors. Why he refuses to be the bottleneck every decision runs through. Why he says you have to love people, not just like them, to last in HR. And how faith and a 5:30 AM gym routine keep him grounded while he oversees HR for 150,000 employees inside a $44 billion system.

There is also the line he tries to live by: every day is an interview. Not for the next job, but for trust.

Tune in to hear how Patrick brings the human back into human resources, and why he calls leading 150,000 people a privilege, not a burden.

🎙️ 00:16 Welcome to Ronderings, and a full-circle homecoming

📚 01:59 Want to publish a book that matters? Check out www.leveragepublishinggroup.com

🎺 06:38 From JHS 285 to a trade school, the path was never straight

🏢 17:19 The real scale: 150,000 employees and a $44 billion system

🛞 21:21 Teamship over titles, and why he refuses to be the bottleneck

🥧 30:12 The PIE framework, and bringing the human back to HR

💡 36:38 Got something worth saying? Talk to Dr. Kent at www.talktokent.com

🙏 37:18 Faith, wellness, and every day is an interview

❤️ 45:37 The Ronderings question: leave it stronger for the next generation

🎧 48:52 Podcasts That Matter, and a Stronger Podcast shout-out

Links:

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/patrick-d-fagan-ph-d-mba

Reach out to Dr. Patrick Fagan to talk teamship, building talent pipelines inside the nation's largest school system, and the many careers in New York City Public Schools that don't require a classroom.

Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo

Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473

Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com

Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org

Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com

Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

For more great podcasts like this one, visit: https://podcaststhatmatter.org