Speak Your Mind Unapologetically Podcast

She missed the scholarship deadline for her MBA. She asked anyway. She got it. She was the only woman in her group project cohort, a single mom with a one-year-old, living paycheck to paycheck. She told her group on day one exactly what she could do and when she was leaving. They respected it. On a business trip with a relatively new manager, she admitted mid-conversation that she wanted to move into a strategy role that didn't even exist yet. That manager became her greatest champion. That pivot launched the career that led her to become Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Lee Health.

Lisa has spent her career figuring out what fearless authenticity actually looks like in practice: not as a concept, but as a set of specific choices made in specific moments of risk. In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, she walks through the mindset shifts and early career moves that built her foundation.

You'll learn:

• The exact moment Lisa realized intimidation was her own internal problem, not something others were doing to her and how that realization changed every difficult room she walked into after
• Why the post-it on her monitor reads "no one wants to feel insignificant, incompetent, or unlikable", and how she uses it to decode defensiveness in herself and others
• The MBA-as-single-mom stories: how she advocated for a scholarship she'd missed the deadline for, set hard boundaries with her group project team from day one, and created an independent study that wasn't in the curriculum
• How a candid conversation on a business trip, admitting she wanted a completely different role, launched her entire strategy career, and what she learned about speaking up to managers about your real aspirations
• Why her first attempt at people management felt completely wrong, and the leadership philosophy she arrived at: "developing leaders, not amassing followers"
• How conflict made two of her most important professional relationships stronger, not weaker

About Lisa: Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Lee Health, Lisa leads strategic planning, innovation, and organizational transformation across one of Florida's largest health systems. She is a passionate advocate for women in leadership and women of color in senior roles.

The Mirror Method, the WAIT Acronym, and Why "Learn Fast" Beats "Fail Fast": Lee Health CSIO Lisa on Challenging the Status Quo — Part 2

She walked into a conference room as the only woman in a room full of men in technical data roles. They introduced themselves to each other and started the meeting without acknowledging her at all. She paused, said "excuse me," stated her name, her role, and why she was there. It startled them. She was glad she did it. Because if she hadn't, she wouldn't have belonged in the conversation that followed.

In Part 2 of this conversation, Lisa, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Lee Health, moves from personal story into the specific leadership tools she uses every day to challenge the status quo, orchestrate high-stakes conversations, and move organizations through change without creating enemies.

You'll learn:

• The Mirror Method: why the most dangerous thing you can do when entering a new organization is come in with a fix-it mentality, and the structured listening approach that gets people to agree the status quo needs to change before you ever propose a solution
• WAIT — "Why Am I Talking?" — the acronym she uses to decide when her voice advances a conversation and when silence does more
• How she reads the nonverbals of an entire organization the same way she reads body language in a room, and what signals tell her when trust is building and when it isn't
• Why she stopped relying on PowerPoint and what changed when she started looking people in the eye instead of at her slides, including the mentor advice that saved her: "be ready to deliver a 5-minute version of what you just created"
• The difference between intellectual sparring and debate, and how she creates conditions for divergent thinking that actually leads to decisions, not just more discussion
• Why she says "learn fast" instead of "fail fast", and how she navigates naysayers, skeptics, and the inevitable "you paid how much for what?" moments in healthcare innovation
• What she looks for when building a team: curiosity, courage, and comfort with ambiguity, and why trustworthiness ranks above everything else

About Lisa: Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Lee Health, Lisa leads strategic planning, innovation, and organizational transformation across one of Florida's largest health systems. She is a passionate advocate for women in leadership and women of color in senior roles.

For years, Daisy's performance reviews said the same things: hardworking, great team player, result-driven, quiet. Cycle after cycle, different managers, same words. Then she realized: those were her brand hashtags, and they were never going to get her to where she wanted to go. She wanted "confident," "influential," "driven," "leadership." And nobody was going to give her those labels. She had to earn them by using her voice.

Daisy is Head of Strategy and FP&A at Revolut, one of the world's fastest-growing fintechs. Originally from China, she built her career navigating the cultural expectation that hard work and results would speak for themselves. They didn't. In this episode, she breaks down exactly how she changed that, and what she now teaches every junior person who reports to her.

You'll learn:

• The performance review pattern that finally made her realize she was building the wrong brand, and the specific words she decided to own instead
• Why she stopped being the silent note-taker in every meeting, what she lost by doing it, and why AI has made that role completely obsolete
• The 4-phase framework for asking questions in town halls and large meetings, from canned questions that still get you seen, to strategic dialogue that opens collaboration doors with senior executives
• The "golden three months" strategy: how to use your newness as a security blanket to ask anything, map broken processes, and deliver visible value before anyone expects it
• Why there is no such thing as over-communication at work ,and how staying quiet to avoid being "too much" is actually the riskier move
• The one mandate she gives herself and every person she mentors: say something in every meeting, even if it's just a rephrasing

If you've ever been called "hardworking" but not "leadership material," or if you have great ideas that only come out in one-on-ones but never in the room, this episode is the blueprint.

About Daisy: Head of Strategy and Financial Planning & Analytics at Revolut, Daisy leads strategic and financial operations at one of the world's largest fintech companies. Originally from China, she coaches and mentors junior professionals on speaking up, building visibility, and translating strong technical work into leadership presence.

Stop Taking Notes, Start Getting Noticed: Revolut Head of Strategy Daisy on Building Your Brand Through Your Voice

When a new business leader walked in and told Malvika they were going to restructure the entire segment — 60% of company revenue — in a room with just the two of them, no leaks, no one else in the room, she didn't say no. She said: "I hear you. And here's how we get to the same outcome with the right people involved." Six months after implementation, he came back and told her it was the right call.

That's the ABC method — Acknowledge, Build, Challenge — and it's the framework Malvika has built her career on. As VP HR, Learning & Development at Newell Brands, she's spent years figuring out how to challenge senior leaders without triggering defensiveness, manage rooms full of type A executives without losing the thread, and find genuine joy in the conversations most people dread.

In this episode, she gets specific about all of it.

You'll learn:

• The ABC method for challenging leaders without coming across as aggressive, and the Project Panther restructure story that proves it works
• How she handled a client in Oman at 24 who kept making inappropriate comments — alone, in a foreign country, with a relationship and additional business on the line, and still won the next assignment
• The "be brief, be bright, be gone" framework for capturing and keeping the attention of type A executives in high-stakes meetings
• How she gamified a full-day leadership talent review to keep a competitive senior team engaged, and still got all the work done
• Why leading with facts instead of emotion is the only way to challenge the status quo without losing credibility
• Her personal technique for staying calm when everything is tense: painting, choosing to laugh, and the line about "not my circus, not my monkeys, but I do know some of the clowns"

If you work with strong-willed leaders, navigate difficult conversations across cultures, or just want to bring more effectiveness, and more joy, into the hardest parts of your job, this episode delivers.

About Malvika: Vice President HR, Learning & Development at Newell Brands, Malvika has led organizational transformation, talent strategy, and cross-cultural teams across global markets. Originally from India, she has built her career navigating high-stakes leadership conversations across cultures, industries, and executive levels.

She Was 24, Alone With a Difficult Client in Oman. What She Figured Out Built Her Entire Leadership Playbook.

She watched a brilliant female CEO — strategic, skilled, accomplished — get pushed out of her company. And in that moment, Alejandra had a realization that changed how she thinks about her entire career: if it can happen to her, it can happen to any of us. A job title is the most fragile kind of power there is. The only power that can't be taken away is the one you build inside yourself.

Alejandra is SVP of Technology, Global Infrastructure Solutions at Equifax, leading teams across multiple countries and continents. She also runs "I Am Remarkable" workshops — originally a Google initiative — helping professionals, especially women and underrepresented groups, learn to celebrate their own achievements out loud. She did not always find this easy. Growing up in Argentina, where the culture does not reward self-promotion the way the U.S. does, she spent years assuming her work would speak for itself. It didn't.

In this episode, she shares what she learned late, by her own admission, and what she now teaches others from the start.

You'll learn:

• Why waiting for others to recognize your achievements is a trap, and the mindset shift that breaks it
• The story of how she walked into a job interview at 22 with no experience and got hired on boldness and a single honest promise
• Why she left a well-paying job that supported her family to escape bias, and how she made that decision
• The difference between title-based power and internal power, and why only one of them survives a corporate restructure
• The single biggest leadership gap she sees across cultures, levels, and industries, and it's not what most leaders focus on
• How values contain ambition and keep influence from crossing into manipulation
• The practical system she teaches for tracking and sharing your own achievements before you forget them

If you've been doing great work and waiting for someone to notice, this episode reframes that habit entirely.

About Alejandra: SVP of Technology, Global Infrastructure Solutions at Equifax, Alejandra leads infrastructure teams across the globe. Originally from Buenos Aires, she moved to the U.S. seven years ago. She is an advisory board member of WATT (Women Advancing Technology Together) at Equifax, a board member of the Start House Foundation, an active facilitator of the I Am Remarkable initiative, and a member of Women in Technology (WIT) Atlanta.

Stop Waiting to Be Recognized: How Equifax SVP Alejandra Learned to Promote Herself — and Why You Need To

Sixteen years later, she still tells this story. She was called into the office of a 6'4" senior executive she barely knew. He sat with his back to the door and said: "You will either make me a very happy man or a very unhappy man." Something in her snapped. She replied: "I was always told I'm not responsible for how other people feel." He slowly turned his chair around with a smile on his face. That one moment became the foundation of a decade-long mentorship.

Melissa is Executive Director and Chief Privacy Officer at Kodiak Solutions, and she's spent her career learning, sometimes the hard way, what it actually means to hold onto your personal power when the professional stakes are high.

In this episode, she breaks down the real moments that tested her, and the specific tools she built to handle them.

You'll learn:

• What "giving away your personal power" actually means, and how to catch yourself doing it before it costs you
• What Melissa said to a senior executive that instantly shifted how he saw her, and why most people would have responded the opposite way
• How she handled a new boss who made every conversation feel like an interrogation, and the scripting technique that got her through it without losing her composure or her job
• Why a mentor told her "if you're going to swim with sharks, you need to thicken your skin", and what that actually means for women moving into senior leadership
• How to stop taking feedback personally when your whole identity has been built around being the A student
• The self-awareness practice that tells you when to speak up and when holding back is the smarter move

If you've ever left a difficult conversation beating yourself up, questioning your own judgment, or wondering why you didn't say what you meant, this episode gives you the tools to stop that pattern.

About Melissa: Executive Director and Chief Privacy Officer at Kodiak Solutions, Melissa brings decades of experience in technology and healthcare leadership. She is an active mentor to early-career women in tech and a champion of honest, values-driven leadership.

How to Reclaim Your Personal Power When Authority Figures Try to Diminish You

She was called polarizing. She cried in meetings. She was written off as "the rookie." Then she spent 30 years rising through Oracle and Microsoft to become a Global Customer Success Leader for the Americas. Wendy didn't wait to feel confident. She built the skills to project authority even when she didn't.

In this episode, Wendy breaks down exactly how she did it, including the practical strategies she used to manage emotional responses at work, shake off damaging labels, and position herself for opportunities most people never even get invited to.

You'll learn:

• A concrete technique to stop tears in the moment and stay composed under pressure
• How to identify the labels that cap your career, and what to actually do about them
• Why being heard at work isn't about speaking louder, it's about being in the right rooms
• When to be the one speaking up, and when letting someone else take the lead is the smarter power move
• How casual networking leads to the sponsors and mentors that actually accelerate careers

If you've ever been dismissed, mislabeled, or felt like your emotions were working against you at work, this episode is your playbook.

About Wendy: Retired after a 30-year career in Washington-area tech, Wendy served as Microsoft's Global Customer Success Leader for the Americas and VP of Customer Success at Oracle, where she led teams responsible for half of Oracle's North American Cloud Technology customers. She's a longtime advocate for diversity in tech and an active mentor through Girls in Technology (GIT).

Mary Hope grew up learning not to make waves, not to get emotional, not to rock the boat. Those lessons followed her into the boardroom. When a male colleague made a sexist comment during a high-stakes presentation, she said nothing. She couldn't even bring herself to tell her husband that night. The shame of her own silence was that heavy. That moment became the turning point.

Today, Mary Hope is VP and General Manager of Autodesk's Education Business, a business she helped scale from 5 million to over 235 million users. She's learned not just to speak up for herself, but to build teams and accountability systems where silence doesn't get to win.

In this episode, she gets specific about how.

You'll learn:

• The societal conditioning that trains women to suppress their voice, and the values-based trigger that finally broke through it
• How to hold cross-functional peers accountable when they nod along but never follow through, and the system that actually works
• Why she fired a trusted high-performing manager not for misconduct, but for failing to surface a toxic situation in his team, and what that decision cost her
• What a "listening tour" looks like when you're the one who needs to hear, not speak .
• The Billie Jean King moment she watched at age 6 that became her earliest model for speaking up when the stakes are real

If you've ever stayed quiet and paid for it later or led a team where silence was quietly doing damage this episode is your playbook.

About Mary Hope: VP and General Manager of Autodesk's Education Business, Mary Hope co-founded Autodesk's consumer and 3D printing business in 2010 and helped scale its user base from 5 million to over 235 million users in four years. She serves on the SkillsUSA board of directors and is a longtime advocate for women's advancement, LGBTQ+ rights, and equal access to education.

Find out the real reason difficult conversations feel so hard at work, and how our mindset hurts our conversations and relationships. This episode gives you four internal switches you can flip in real time, so that you can have calm authority to fix conversations that go sideways.

You'll discover what confident communicators do differently in difficult conversations. Because you don't need to say the perfect thing. You just need to stay stable enough to say something useful in that moment so that you can keep your influence.

You'll learn how to:

• Stop taking pushback personally and stay detached under pressure

• Regulate your emotions so you don't interrupt, over-explain, or get defensive

• Bring clarity to conversations that feel messy or overwhelming

• Keep progress happening when discussions get tense, repetitive, or uncomfortable

If you want to:

• Handle difficult conversations at work with confidence

• Respond to pushback without shutting down or getting reactive

• Increase your influence with managers, peers, or senior leaders

• Speak up clearly, even when situations aren't perfect

…this episode will give you a practical internal system you can use immediately.

🎧 Listen now and learn how calm, clear communication moves decisions forward.

🎁 Free Resource: Download the 30 Power Shifts Guide — a free, practical cheat sheet with real-life "weak vs. powerful" word swaps for meetings, presentations, and everyday conversations.

• Replace soft, hesitant phrases with powerful, natural ones.

• Speak with clarity, conviction, and calm authority.

• Be heard without apology.

👉 Get your free guide here: https://assertiveway.aweb.page/30power

✅ Free Newsletter: https://assertiveway.com/newsletter/

✅ Take the Quiz 'Do You Speak Like a High-Impact Leader?': https://myassertiveway.outgrow.us/highimpactleader

✅ Listen on the Speak Your Mind Unapologetically podcast on Apple Itunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speak-your-mind-unapologetically-podcast/id1623647915

✅ Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6L1myPkiJXYf5SGrublYz2

✅ Order our book, 'Unapologetic Voice: 101 Real-World Strategies for Brave Self Advocacy & Bold Leadership' where each strategy is also a real story:

https://www.amazon.com/Unapologetic-Voice-Real-World-Strategies-Leadership-ebook/dp/B0CW2X4WWL/

✅ Follow the show host, Ivna Curi, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivna-curi-mba-67083b2/

✅ Request A Customized Workshop For Your Team And Company: http://assertiveway.com/workshops

Contact me: [email protected] or [email protected]

Contact me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivna-curi-mba-67083b2

A new year doesn't require a long list of aspirational, feel-good goals. It requires the right specific goals — especially when it comes to speaking up at work.

In this first episode of the year, you'll reframe goal-setting for speaking up at work — away from vague intentions like "be more confident" and toward specific, observable communication behaviors that actually change your impact, credibility, and influence at work.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why most speaking up goals fail by February

• The difference between wanting to speak up and deciding when and how to speak up

• Three practical assertive communication goals you can set for the new year:

  • What to say more of

  • What to say less of

  • What to say earlier — not perfectly

You don't have to change who you are, become fearless, or extroverted.

If speaking up at work, self-advocacy, and career advancement matter to you this year, this episode will help you start with clarity instead of pressure.

🎁 Free Resource: Download the 30 Power Shifts Guide — a free, practical cheat sheet with real-life "weak vs. powerful" word swaps for meetings, presentations, and everyday conversations.

• Replace soft, hesitant phrases with powerful, natural ones.

• Speak with clarity, conviction, and calm authority.

• Be heard without apology.

👉 Get your free guide here: https://assertiveway.aweb.page/30power

✅ Free Newsletter: https://assertiveway.com/newsletter/

✅ Take the Quiz 'Do You Speak Like a High-Impact Leader?': https://myassertiveway.outgrow.us/highimpactleader

✅ Listen on the Speak Your Mind Unapologetically podcast on Apple Itunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speak-your-mind-unapologetically-podcast/id1623647915

✅ Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6L1myPkiJXYf5SGrublYz2

✅ Order our book, 'Unapologetic Voice: 101 Real-World Strategies for Brave Self Advocacy & Bold Leadership' where each strategy is also a real story:

https://www.amazon.com/Unapologetic-Voice-Real-World-Strategies-Leadership-ebook/dp/B0CW2X4WWL/

✅ Follow the show host, Ivna Curi, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivna-curi-mba-67083b2/

✅ Request A Customized Workshop For Your Team And Company: http://assertiveway.com/workshops

Contact me: [email protected] or [email protected]

Contact me on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivna-curi-mba-67083b2