In this episode of The Human ROI Podcast, Elissa Mahendra is joined by Omer Glass, co-founder and CEO of GrowthSpace, to discuss the future of skill development, AI-enabled learning, and how organizations can turn capability building into measurable business returns.

Leaders are being asked to move faster, close skill gaps, adopt AI, and prove the value of their people investments. But too often, learning and development is still measured by activity: course completions, attendance, program participation. Those numbers are easy to report and easy to mistake for impact. The harder question, and the one this conversation keeps coming back to, is whether any of it actually changed behavior or moved a metric the business cares about.

Omer shares how GrowthSpace is helping organizations rethink that model through precision skill development: identifying the right gaps, matching employees with the right experts, and tying learning directly to business priorities. It is a shift from measuring effort to measuring return.

Elissa and Omer also explore ExpertX, GrowthSpace's AI-powered solution for extending expert knowledge across an organization. From internal trainers and SMEs to senior leaders and top performers, ExpertX opens new possibilities for capturing institutional knowledge, supporting employees in the flow of work, and making expertise reachable across teams that could never access it before.

This conversation is especially relevant for HR, talent, L&D, and business leaders thinking about how to grow capability, prepare their workforce for AI, and move from learning programs to real workforce transformation.

In this episode, we discuss:

→ Why traditional learning programs struggle to show business impact
 → What precision skill development means and why it matters now
 → How organizations move from broad training to targeted capability building
 → Why skill development should start with the business problem, not the content
 → How AI extends internal expertise and institutional knowledge across the workforce
 → The role of ExpertX in knowledge transfer and employee support
 → Why learning ROI has to be tied to outcomes leaders actually care about
 → How HR and business leaders can start small, test, and build momentum

🔗 EXPLORE MORE

Connect with Omer Glass
 → LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omerglass/
→ Website: https://www.growthspace.com/
→ ExpertX: https://www.growthspace.com/news/expertx-ai
→ Book a Demo: https://www.growthspace.com/book-a-demo

Connect with Elissa Mahendra
 → LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emahendra/
→ LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-human-roi-7396293873473523713
→ The Human ROI Podcast: https://thehumanroi.buzzsprout.com/

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 Thanks for joining the conversation on The Human ROI. 

In this episode of The Human ROI, I sit down with Melanie Borden, Founder of Borden Group and creator of the Human to Brand Movement, to unpack one of the biggest missed opportunities in today’s career landscape: visibility.

Melanie has helped hundreds of executives, founders, and organizations translate their expertise into powerful digital presence and real business outcomes. Her work has been featured in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal, and in this conversation, she breaks down what’s really holding leaders back from showing up.

We get into the psychology behind visibility, why even the most accomplished professionals hesitate to put themselves out there, and how to reframe personal brand from performance to service.

We also explore:
 • Why doing great work is no longer enough on its own
 • How to reframe visibility from performance to service
 • What “building in public” looks like in practice
 • The difference between attention, influence, and real business impact
 • How to use AI as a tool without losing your voice
 • Simple ways to start showing up this week, even if you don’t feel ready 

Melanie shares practical, no-fluff ways to get started this week, plus how to scale your presence through community, partnerships, and consistent storytelling.

If you’ve ever thought, “I know I have more to say, but I’m not putting it out there yet,” this episode is your nudge.

🔗 EXPLORE MORE

Connect with Melanie Borden
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanieborden/
→ Website: https://humantobrand.com
→ Book: Theater of the Mind  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G53YGT9V

Connect with Elissa Mahendra
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emahendra/
→ LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-human-roi-7396293873473523713
→ The Human ROI Podcast: https://thehumanroi.buzzsprout.com/

Support the show

 Thanks for joining the conversation on The Human ROI. 

In this episode of The Human ROI, Elissa Mahendra sits down with Jessica D. Winder,  Chief People Officer, career coach, and author, to explore a critical gap in today’s workplace: the hidden potential sitting inside organizations and why it so often goes unrealized.

Jessica shares her perspective from both sides of the table, as an HR executive and career coach, on why high-performing professionals are frequently overlooked despite delivering strong results. The conversation challenges the belief that hard work alone leads to recognition and instead highlights the real drivers of career growth: visibility, advocacy, and positioning.

Together, they unpack how talent decisions are really made inside organizations, why leaders default to external hires, and how internal talent often goes untapped. Jessica also offers unfiltered, practical strategies for individuals to start advocating for their careers and actively campaign for their growth, clarifying what they want to be known for, communicating their impact, and building visibility both inside and outside their organization. 

For leaders, this episode is a call-out to rethink how they identify and develop talent. If you’re not actively uncovering and activating the potential already on your team, you’re leaving real value on the table.

For individuals, it’s a wake-up call: your potential isn’t enough. It has to be seen, understood, and claimed.

🔗 Explore More

Connect with Jessica Winder:
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicawinder/
→ Linktree (all resources): https://linktr.ee/HiddenGemCC

Connect with Elissa Mahendra:
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emahendra/
→ LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-human-roi-7396293873473523713
→ The Human ROI Podcast: https://thehumanroi.buzzsprout.com/

Support the show

 Thanks for joining the conversation on The Human ROI. 

What if the real bottleneck in your organization isn’t strategy, capital, or technology, but leadership capacity?

In this episode of The Human ROI Podcast, Elissa Mahendra sits down with Sonia Vora, Founder of Future Focused Talent, to explore how a leader’s internal architecture shapes organizational performance at scale.

Together, they unpack a powerful shift in thinking: leadership is not a soft skill. It’s an enterprise asset.

Sonia shares how organizations often outgrow the internal capacity of their leaders before anything else, and how hidden patterns like reactivity, control, and burnout can stall growth. From decision velocity to emotional contagion, they explore the subtle yet measurable ways in which leadership becomes the constraint.

The conversation also challenges traditional models of success, including the over-reliance on “heroic leadership,” and introduces a more sustainable path forward through systemic leadership; one that builds capacity, not dependency.

You’ll also hear:

•  The three early signals that leadership is becoming the bottleneck 
•  Why burnout is not just personal, but an operational risk 
•  How the stories that fueled your success may now be limiting your growth 
•  The role of neuroplasticity and why the pause is a leadership advantage 
•  Practical ways to strengthen leadership capacity without adding more to your plate 

This episode is a powerful reminder that evolving how you lead isn’t indulgent; It is the strategy.

🔗 Connect & Learn More

 Sonia Vora
Founder, Future Focused Talent
→ Future Focused Talent: https://www.futurefocustalent.com/
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soniavora/
→ Scale & Soul Community: https://scaleandsoul.beehiiv.com/

Elissa Mahendra
→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emahendra/
→ LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-human-roi-7396293873473523713
→ The Human ROI Podcast: https://thehumanroi.buzzsprout.com/

Support the show

 Thanks for joining the conversation on The Human ROI. 

In this debut episode of The Human ROI, Elissa Mahendra introduces the core thesis behind her body of work shaped over 20+ years in HR, talent strategy, and organizational transformation.

From sitting in executive rooms where cost becomes the fastest lever to later becoming part of that equation herself, Elissa examines how revenue pressure and misalignment create downstream human consequences. 

She introduces two foundational concepts she developed:

• The Human ROI Equation
 • The Time Value of Talent

Because human systems either compound or they corrode. And when they corrode, the cost shows up everywhere: in culture, productivity, enterprise value, and people’s lives.

If you’re leading through growth, AI integration, M&A, or organizational change, this episode reframes how to think about performance, value creation, and the systems that shape both. 

Support the show

 Thanks for joining the conversation on The Human ROI. 

Strategy alone doesn’t create results.
People do.

In this brief introductory episode of The Human ROI, host Elissa Mahendra shares the perspective that sits at the center of the show: sustainable performance and enterprise value are created when organizations intentionally invest in careers, culture, and human capability.

Drawing on her work at the intersection of talent strategy and business outcomes, Elissa explores why even the strongest growth and transformation plans fall short when the human system isn’t aligned to deliver them... and why disciplined investment in people and culture is the engine behind lasting results.

This episode introduces the core themes of The Human ROI, including:

• Career development as a driver of performance
• Culture as a system that shapes execution
• Human performance as a value driver, not a soft concept
• The growing impact of AI and the future of work on how people perform

If you’re building a career, leading teams, or navigating growth and change inside an organization, this episode sets the foundation for the conversations ahead.

Because humans aren’t separate from ROI.
They’re how ROI is created.

Welcome!

Support the show

 Thanks for joining the conversation on The Human ROI.