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Worthy to Lead
Worthy to Lead episodes
- Episode 50: Stop Overselling: A 30-Year Investor on What Actually Builds Confidence in a Pitch Conversation | with Rayna Lesser Hannaway
Leaders often walk into a pitch ready to defend their idea. The big market. The happy customers. The risks that are all "manageable."
Kristiana sat down with Rayna Lesser Hannaway, founder of Pure Path Ventures, who spent nearly three decades as an institutional investor at firms like Fidelity Investments, Jennison Associates, and Lord Abbett. After evaluating thousands of management teams, Rayna learned that it’s more about the team than the idea, and whether they are able to answer questions honestly when the conversation goes off script.
In this episode, Kristiana and Rayna pull back the curtain on what investors and boards are really evaluating in the room, why overselling quietly erodes trust, the team dynamics that give leaders away in seconds, and how to prepare a pitch that holds up through the toughest questions.
CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:
Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/CONNECT WITH RAYNA:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rayna-lesser-hannaway/
Website: https://www.purepathventures.com49 min - Episode 49: Was It Designed Or Just a Default? How Multiplayer Built a Company Around Happiness with Gianmichael Di Lallo
Every company has a process nobody can explain. A meeting that runs long. A form that takes 20 minutes. An approval chain with 15 names on it.
Kristiana sat down with Gianmichael “GM” Di Lallo, Chief Design Officer and Partner at Multiplayer, to figure out what they do about it. GM spends his days inside other companies as he leads embedded designers, which means he sees the exact moment a process stops making sense and nobody notices, because it's just "how things are done here."
In this episode, Kristiana and GM break down how to spot the defaults quietly draining a team, how Multiplayer actually measures happiness across their company, and how they continually reinvent the culture as they scale to help the team thrive and drive even better business results.
CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:
Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/CONNECT WITH GM:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gianmichael/
Website: https://www.multiplayer.studio/BOOKS MENTIONED:
Happiness by Design: https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Design-Change-What-Think/dp/0147516307/
Delivering Happiness: https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220/46 min - Episode 48: 5 tips for making your high-stakes pitch feel relaxed
Kristiana recently sat down with a small business banker to talk through funding for her business, and something unexpected happened. Instead of feeling like she was walking into a test, the whole conversation felt like a relaxed collaboration - building a plan for the future.
She used the exact storytelling principles she teaches inside Fortune 500 companies to prepare, and it turned a nerve-wracking meeting into one of the most enjoyable financial conversations she's ever had.
In this episode, Kristiana shares 5 practical tips for walking into any high-stakes pitch (a banker, an investor, your executive team, your board) feeling confident and present, and the behind-the-scenes due diligence that will help you get there. Because the best pitches aren't performances. They're very well-prepared conversations.
Big thanks to Rey Andrade at Frost Bank for the inspiration behind this episode and for being an incredible partner to Austin small business owners!
📘Download Kristiana’s Executive Influence Storytelling Guide for more pitch best practices.
CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:
Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/CONNECT WITH REY:
Rey Andrade, Assistant Vice President at Frost Bank (Austin, TX)
Office: (512) 473-4304
Email: [email protected]28 min - Episode 47: Executive Influence and Strategic Storytelling
Kristiana has spent the past twenty years leading innovation for design and technology teams at Fortune 500 companies, and there is one pattern that keeps showing up no matter the company or the team.
Brilliant leaders bring ideas that could genuinely change the business, and they have no idea how to pitch those ideas in a way that earns buy-in. So the ideas die in the conference room before anyone even gets to explore them.
In this episode, Kristiana breaks down seven of the most common influence gaps costing teams their best thinkers, and shares the real story of a leader named Carla whose pitch fell apart in the room, and what changed once she learned a better way to tell the story.
This framework grew out of a partnership Kristiana did more than ten years ago with Techstars Accelerators at Target, where she took the strategies that help startups win funding and adapted them for leaders pitching inside corporate teams.
Download the 7 Executive Influence Gaps & How to Solve Them Guide: https://www.worthytolead.co/influenceguide
Master the Art of Selling Ideas to the C-Suite. Join the Innovation Storytelling Workshop: https://www.worthytolead.co/storytelling
CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:
Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/20 min - Episode 46: FRICTION: How Tension, Emotion, and Change Reveal Better Leaders | with Dr. Maggie Sass and Dr. Ross Blankenship
Dr. Maggie Sass and Dr. Ross Blankenship are consulting psychologists and executive coaches who have spent decades working with executives and senior leaders, and they came to a conclusion that changed how I think about emotions at work entirely.
We’re often taught to push past tension or ignore the defensiveness that spikes during tough meetings. But Maggie and Ross argue that friction isn't a problem to solve, but critical information for making decisions. Emotions are the medium through which all work happens.
Their new book, Friction: How Tension, Emotion, and Change Reveal Better Leaders, is backed by a national survey of over 1,100 working Americans, and it makes the case that human-centered leadership and emotional intelligence are becoming more essential, not less, as AI reshapes how we work.
Order Dr. Ross and Dr. Maggie’s latest book, Friction:
Website: https://www.talentsmarteq.com/friction/
Amazon: https://a.co/d/09kK3yTqADDITIONAL LINKS:
- Nir Eyal on habit-forming products: https://www.nirandfar.com/hooked/
- MIT study on AI and cognitive load, "Your Brain on ChatGPT": https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/
- Dr. Marc Brackett on the RULER framework for emotional intelligence: https://marcbrackett.com/ruler/
- Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions: https://www.6seconds.org/2025/02/06/plutchik-wheel-emotions/
- Lisa Feldman Barrett on how emotions are constructed by the brain: https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/books/how-emotions-are-made/
CONNECT WITH MAGGIE:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggiesass-phd/
Website: https://www.talentsmarteq.com/CONNECT WITH ROSS:
Website: https://www.tuesdayadvisors.com/
Substack: https://rossblankenship.substack.com/
Website: https://www.rossblankenship.io/CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:
Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/1 hr 2 min - Episode 45: Building Company Culture That Thrives with AI | with Dr. Kevin Sakamoto
Dr. Kevin Sakamoto and I go way back. We worked together at Target, we've spent years comparing notes from our different corners of the world (he's a professor and product leader, I'm a design leader), and we enjoy diving deep and nerding out over leadership and innovation.
We recently sat down to challenge how leaders are thinking about leading through AI. We get into the fear that some leaders are feeling right now: the quiet worry that their role, their relevance, their whole reason for being in the room might be slipping away.
We talk about the IKEA case study that will truly make you rethink what's possible when a company decides to renew its people instead of replacing them. We dig into why middle management is having its own identity crisis, what an inverted apprenticeship looks like when your newest hire knows more about AI than you do, and why the smartest thing you can do right now might just be to gather everyone around a table to work through it together.If you've been bracing for impact instead of getting curious, this conversation is your invitation to try something different.
REFERENCES:
- IKEA case study on AI-driven customer service and reskilling: https://employerbranding.news/resources/what-ikeas-ai-reskilling-story-looks-like-now-it-has-made-layoffs-too/
- Entrepreneur.com article on the collapse of the middle manager layer: https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/as-companies-cut-managers-the-smart-ones-are-investing-in/498397
- Zappos culture and the legacy of Tony Hsieh: https://www.forbes.com/sites/keithferrazzi/2024/07/10/the-new-growth-architects-three-companies-honoring-tony-hsiehs-legacy/
CONNECT WITH DR. KEVIN SAKAMOTO:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-h-sakamoto/CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:
Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/
Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com/38 min - Episode 44: INTEGRITY is NOT a Liability in the C-Suite. It’s Your Competitive Edge | Interview with Rusty Atkinson
Rusty Atkinson spent twenty-five years climbing into the highest levels of corporate technology, including time as a CIO, and he vowed not to stop caring about his people in order to get there.
In this Worthy to Lead podcast conversation, we get into the real cost of leading with integrity: the rooms Rusty wasn't invited to and why he'd make the same trade every time. He walks us through the six stumbling blocks he identifies in his book, The Integrity Edge, from lack of trust and unchecked ambition to the slow drift toward a toxic culture, and he hands us a Courage Model for building the kind of conviction that holds up when the stakes are high, not just when it's convenient.
If you've ever assumed that toughening up and caring less is just part of the job description at the top, this is your permission slip to choose another path.
REFERENCES:
The Integrity Edge by Rusty Atkinson: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FRN8YWKM
Love as a Business Strategy by Mohammad Anwar: https://www.loveasabusinessstrategy.com/CONNECT WITH RUSTY:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rustyatkinson/CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:
Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/
Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com57 min - Episode 43: How Coaching Changed Everything About How I Lead
For once, I'm not the host – I'm the guest. My friend and fellow coach Laurie Hall flips the script and interviews me about my own path: small-town Minnesota roots, unglamorous first jobs, and getting thrown into leadership with zero training.
My early stumbles led me to coaching – the moment that changed how I lead for good – and into 23 years of building teams and inventing new roles for myself inside corporate. We talk about why I left a job I loved at Amazon at the start of 2025, the "human-centered leadership flywheel" behind my membership community now, and the mindset shift I keep coming back to: your work is not your worth.
If I could create my own role inside four different companies, why couldn't I build the one I actually wanted outside of all of them? I hope this gives you permission to ask the questions you've been putting off.
Be the first to know about new episodes, insights, and resources. Join my email list at https://www.WorthyToLead.co/subscribe
CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:
Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/
Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com/🎧 LISTEN TO LAURIE'S EPISODE:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-40-from-nasa-engineer-to-leadership-coach-navigating/id1748949789?i=1000768552476CONNECT WITH LAURIE:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriehallformerlypeterson
Website: https://newhorizonstrategies.com/41 min - Episode 42: From Fear to Fluency: VP Andy Vitale on How to Lead AI Innovation with Confidence
Andy Vitale has been building with AI since 2015, across healthcare, banking, mortgage, marketing, and now tax software, long before it became a leadership talking point.
He was auto-suggesting medical codes at 3M before most people knew what machine learning was. He helped increase loan volume at Rocket Companies by billions of dollars through conversational AI. And now, as VP and Head of Product Design and AI Center of Excellence at TaxWell, he is shipping AI-powered features within a single tax season while spending 75% of his week in AI-related work, at the VP level, hands-on.
In this conversation, we trace that full arc: what it looked like to build with AI before it was a trend, how product teams are working differently now, why design systems have become a competitive moat, and what separates the leaders who will thrive in this moment from the ones who quietly become speed bumps.
If you have been feeling the pressure to get fluent in AI and lead your team through a transition you are still figuring out yourself, this episode is worth a listen.
REFERENCES:
Claude: https://claude.ai
Wisprflow: https://wisprflow.ai
Figma Make: https://www.figma.com/make/
Cursor: https://cursor.com/CONNECT WITH ANDY:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyvitale/
Website: https://www.andyvitale.com/
Design Executive Council: https://www.designexecutivecouncil.com/CONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:
Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/
Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com/50 min - Episode 41: The Phrase That Changed Everything: "I Can Fit That In" with Erin Coupe
Erin Coupe spent over 17 years inside high-performance corporate environments: Goldman Sachs, CBRE, Fortune 140 companies. She was commuting 10 to 12 hours a week, working 60-plus hours, and building a career that looked impressive from the outside. Then her body started breaking down. Fainting in elevators. Stress rashes treated with steroids. A quiet but persistent sense that something was deeply wrong.
What followed was a years-long process of unlearning: not just habits, but beliefs she had never consciously chosen in the first place. Beliefs shaped by a childhood marked by poverty, a terminally ill father, and a survival mode that followed her straight into the boardroom.
Erin is now an international keynote speaker, executive advisor, and bestselling author of I Can Fit That In, named a 2026 Next List Selection by JP Morgan. She works with leadership teams to expand capacity, increase sustainable performance, and shift the energy of entire organizations, starting with the individuals at the top.
In this conversation, we get into what it cost her to live inside hustle culture for so long, what helped her to start owning her own energy, the importance of daily rituals (not just routines), and what actually moves the needle towards a sustainable work culture.
If you have ever felt like you are carrying too much, or quietly wondering how long you can keep operating at your current pace, this conversation is for you.
CONNECT WITH ERIN:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-coupe/
Website: https://www.erincoupe.com/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/authenticallyecI CAN FIT THAT IN:
https://www.erincoupe.com/i-can-fit-that-inCONNECT WITH KRISTIANA:
Website: https://www.worthytolead.co/
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kristianacorona
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthytolead/
Substack: https://worthytolead.substack.com/44 min
About Worthy to Lead
From the publisher's feed
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Have you ever thought to yourself: “How can I get to be one of those leaders who truly inspires their team? I don't just want to manage the work, I want to impact the trajectory of their career."
Maybe you want to be more strategic, but you’re constantly stuck in the weeds, feeling overwhelmed by managing all the details.
You find yourself tethered to the desk, making every decision, and desperately wishing you could take a vacation without things falling apart. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
Whether you are a new leader, an aspiring leader, or an experienced leader who has seen it all, this podcast has you covered.
Kristiana Corona is a corporate leader, mom of 3, and certified executive coach. She's spent more than two decades building design and technology teams for Fortune 500 companies.
Like so many leaders, she started off with very little training and made every mistake in the book. She felt completely unworthy of the title of “leader.”
Along the way, a surprise encounter with executive coaching changed her life and led her to dramatically improve her leadership style and results.
Fast forward to today and you’ll see the thriving teams that she has led: confident, resilient, strategic, and empowered. They’re making a real impact on the world.
If you’re a leader looking for the tools, the mindset and the inspiration to help you become the leader you’ve always dreamed of - a leader who does feel worthy to lead - this podcast is for you.
The Worthy to Lead Podcast is a business podcast that blends insights and interviews to provide you with the tools and mindset you need to develop teams of any size to be empowered and effective.
Using techniques from executive coaching and other leadership best practices, you’ll learn to create a “coaching leadership style” that will transform the way you lead forever.
Kristiana brings you step-by-step tools, frameworks, and insights into coaching, leadership, neuroscience, behavioral psychology, emotional intelligence, focus, mindset, and so much more.
She won’t shy away from sharing personal stories of her own mistakes and challenges (and yes, there have been so many!). She dives deep, shares real talk, and takes the learnings to help guide you on the path to overcoming similar challenges for yourself.
Along the way, she’ll interview amazing and inspiring leaders and experts across many industries who share their personal journey to feeling worthy and the strategies that got them there. Each episode is packed with inspiration and practical steps that you can use to start taking action today.
Learn the best-kept secrets of coaching as a leadership style and how it can transform your life and unlock new potential in your teams. Join us as we go deep and explore what it takes to build an authentic leadership style that you, and others, are going to love.