Podcast · Business

Leveraging Thought Leadership

by Peter Winick and Bill Sherman · English · Business

Hear from the people whose ideas shape the business world. Learn what their public stories leave out. Our beat: the business of thought leadership and the people who take ideas to scale. Fortune 500 CEOs. New York Times bestselling authors. Thinkers50 honorees. NSA Hall of Fame speakers. Top busine

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 22 min
Latest: 11 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

11 Oct 2026 · 20 minNew

Why Focus Is a Team Problem, Not a Personal One | Shawn Vanderhoven | 743

A leader stands up in the middle of a 200-person workshop, slams his hand on the table, and says out loud what everyone in the room is feeling: I can't do great work here anymore. That moment helped start Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World , and it's where this conversation gets interesting. Shawn Vanderhoven leads the executive development practice at the Wiseman Group and collaborated on the second edition of Multipliers . His argument is simple and uncomfortable. The productivity crisis in knowledge work isn't mainly personal. It's social. When the medium is speed, speed…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

S1 · E742 · 1 Oct 2026 · 19 min
How to Scale Executive Coaching Across an Entire Organization | Billy Hoogterp | 742
Ask professionals at the world's biggest companies whether they have a plan for their own learning and growth, and Bill Hoogterp says the answer is almost never yes. He built LifeHikes around that gap, and in this episode he shows how a happy accident turned into a scalable model. Bill's career reads like a series of rivers rather than a roadmap: a decade of living cashless and keyless, nonprofits that mobilized over a million student volunteers, an internet company that grew into Raptive, and, 12 years ago, a pivot into training and coaching. Peter presses him for the through line, and the…
S1 · E741 · 27 Sep 2026 · 21 min
How to Stand Out When AI Makes Content a Commodity | Jack Myers | 741
What if the one thing you've spent your career building, your expertise, is about to become the least valuable thing you own? In this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, Peter Winick sits down with Jack Myers , a media ecologist, futurist, and author of Your Third Brain: Powering a Future of Unimagined Possibilities . Jack launched The Myers Report as a fax newsletter in 1984, founded MediaVillage , and has spent decades watching each new medium reshape the people who use it. The two have known each other for more than ten years. Peter's focus is how to scale, leverage, and monetize…
S1 · E740 · 20 Sep 2026 · 40 min
Building Trust Between Humans and AI in R&D| Jayshree Seth| 740
What does it take for a corporate scientist with zero direct reports to land on a list dominated by business school professors and bestselling authors? That's the question Jayshree Seth had to answer for herself when she was named to the Thinkers50 Radar in 2025 — and her answer became a framework. In her third appearance on the show, Jayshree Seth, 3M 's Chief Science Advocate and now-published trilogy author, returns to catch listeners up on a remarkable stretch: a Thinkers50 keynote, a panel alongside Amy Edmondson, an HBR collaboration on trust and AI, and the release of her third book,…
S1 · E739 · 17 Sep 2026 · 25 min
Why Your Book's ROI Isn't Book Sales | Zach Kristensen | 739
Here's an uncomfortable truth for anyone thinking about writing a book: the profit from the book itself is usually a rounding error. The real return shows up somewhere else entirely — and this episode, featuring publishing strategist Zach Kristensen , is about figuring out where. Zach has spent 15 years inside the thought leadership publishing world, first at FranklinCovey helping build out titles like The 4 Disciplines of Execution, and now running his own publishing and author-coaching practice, Juxtabook . His new book, Trust Me, I'm an Author , distills what he's learned working with…
S1 · E738 · 13 Sep 2026 · 21 min
Translating Academic Research Into Real Business Impact | Nathan Bennett | 738
What actually happens when academic research meets the boardroom? Peter Winick sits down with Nate Bennett — professor of management and faculty director of the Executive MBA program at Georgia State University 's J. Mack Robinson College of Business — for a candid look at the gap between what business scholars know and what business leaders actually use. Bennett has spent his career straddling three audiences: students preparing to lead, practicing managers looking for answers, and fellow academics who reward each other for depth over accessibility. He explains why so much scholarly work…
S1 · E737 · 10 Sep 2026 · 29 min
Leading Through Uncertainty: What Crisis Really Reveals | Tom Kolditz & Mariana Khomitska | 737
What separates a leader from someone who just holds a title? This episode goes looking for the answer with two people who've watched that question get answered under real pressure: retired Brigadier General Tom Kolditz , who spent 40 years building leaders at West Point , Yale , and Rice , and Mariana Khomitska , a Ukrainian leadership development expert who has spent the last several years watching leadership get tested in wartime. Their new book, Against the Storm: How True Leaders Prevail When the World Shakes , comes out September 15 — and this conversation gets at the "why" behind it.…
S1 · E736 · 3 Sep 2026 · 42 min
Rivers, Rocks, and Rubies: A New Career Model | Dan Pontefract | 736
Here's an uncomfortable question: if you replaced "Gen X" with a racial or ethnic label in a hiring conversation, would anyone tolerate it? Dan Pontefract — leadership and corporate culture strategist, six-time author, and former Chief Learning Officer at SAP and TELUS — thinks the answer says a lot about how casually organizations discriminate by age. In this conversation, Dan traces the arc that led to his sixth book, The Future of Work Is Grey — from a "reverse ageism" encounter as a 26-year-old college administrator to a career-defining moment when, at 51, a longtime speaker bureau…
S1 · E735 · 30 Aug 2026 · 21 min
How Career Pivots Really Happen | Mary Olson-Menzel | 735
What does it actually take to build a coaching methodology that thousands of people rely on? According to Mary Olson-Menzel , Founder and CEO of MVP Executive Development and author of the national bestseller What Lights You Up? Illuminate Your Path and Take the Next Big Step in Your Career , it wasn't a strategic plan. It was fourteen years of watching. This episode traces Mary's career from local TV news reporter through executive recruiting to founding her own coaching practice, one built on pattern recognition rather than a whiteboard plan. Mary describes herself as a kind of "business…
S1 · E734 · 23 Aug 2026 · 18 min
The Difference Between Opinion and Real Thought Leadership | Lisa Bodell | 734
She was skeptical about writing a book for years. Not because she lacked ideas — because she'd watched too many people write books for their ego rather than for their reader. In this episode, Bill Sherman sits down with Lisa Bodell , CEO of futurethink and bestselling author of Kill the Company and Why Simple Wins , to talk about what actually happens between "I should write a book" and "I finally did." It's not the tidy origin story most authors tell. Lisa walks through the real arc: the excitement of a new idea, the trough of doubt that follows ("Oh my God, this sucks. What am I doing?"),…
S1 · E733 · 20 Aug 2026 · 22 min
Why Personal Branding Isn't About You At All | Vanessa Errecarte | 733
"Personal brand" might be the most cringe-inducing phrase in business vocabulary. Say it out loud to a room of accomplished professionals and watch the shoulders tense — it sounds like self-promotion, follower counts, and algorithm-chasing. Vanessa Errecarte , Founder of Marketing Simplified , the UC Davis Graduate School of Management lecturer who built one of the nation's only for-credit MBA courses on the subject, thinks the term isn't wrong — it's just been hijacked. Her argument is simple but reframes everything: a personal brand was never about you. It's about intriguing people with…
S1 · E732 · 16 Aug 2026 · 22 min
Turning Unpredictable Referrals Into a Predictable Pipeline | Mark McIntosh | 732
Every founder-led advisory firm knows the feeling: business comes in waves. Referrals and word-of-mouth are lovely — until the pipeline goes quiet for three months and nobody can explain why. In this episode, Mark McIntosh , founder of RevGrow , joins the show to break down why that unpredictability isn't a mystery to solve, it's a system to build. A CPA by training, Mark spent years watching talented advisors get referred business only when it happened to occur to someone else — because their expertise "lived in someone else's memory." His answer was to build a repeatable playbook: get…
S1 · E731 · 13 Aug 2026 · 39 min
The Business Case for Giving Your Best Ideas Away | Dr. Ivan Misner | 731
"We hated your books." That's what a European competitor once admitted to Ivan Misner — years after trying to build a rival networking organization and watching his own members ask, "How come we don't have books like BNI's?" It's a story that gets at the heart of this conversation: sometimes the most competitive thing you can do is give your best thinking away. Bill Sherman sits down with Dr. Ivan Misner, founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI (Business Network International) , to explore how a mindset of generosity — not scarcity — fueled BNI's growth into 11,000+ chapters, 355,000+…
S1 · E730 · 9 Aug 2026 · 23 min
The Business Model Behind a Financial Movement | Carrie Joy Grimes | 730
Here's an uncomfortable truth: most people will tell a total stranger about their weird rash before they'll tell their best friend how much debt they're carrying. That contradiction sits at the center of this episode. The guest is Carrie Joy Grimes , founder and CEO of WorkMoney — a nonprofit she describes as "the AARP for everyday people's money." She built it in 2020 after years as a union organizer, watching thousands of people wrestle with the same financial confusion she'd faced growing up in a household where money was never discussed. The conversation opens with a poker metaphor that…
S1 · E729 · 6 Aug 2026 · 25 min
Turn Podcast Appearances Into a Referral Flywheel | Dustin Riechmann | 729
Book the podcast. Do the interview. Move on to the next one. That's the default playbook for most podcast guests — and according to this week's guest, it's leaving most of the value on the table. Dustin Riechmann , founder and CEO of 7 Figure Leap , and host the the 7 Figure Leap Podcast , has spent the last four years helping coaches, consultants, and agency owners turn podcast guesting into a genuine growth engine — not just a lead-gen tactic. His argument: in a "trust recession" flooded with AI content and social media noise, the real currency isn't reach, it's trust. And trust, done…
S1 · E728 · 30 Jul 2026 · 27 min
Building A Leadership Framework Backed By Data | Benjamin Granger | 728
Why do we size up a rude stranger in seconds and decide they don't belong in our "tribe"? Dr. Benjamin Granger has a term for it: the evolutionary hangover — his phrase for the cognitive biases our brains evolved for savanna survival and never quite retired. As Chief Workplace Psychologist at Qualtrics , Granger spends his days distilling billions of data points on how employees and customers really feel, and in this episode he brings that same lens to his new USA Today bestseller, A Leader Worth Following . The conversation moves from the biological to the deeply practical. Granger traces…
S1 · E727 · 26 Jul 2026 · 20 min
Why Thought Leadership Needs Real Experience, Not Theory | John Winsor | 727
What happens when the person telling your success story wasn't actually in the room? That's the moment that pushed John Winso r — Founder and Chairman of Open Assembly , Harvard Business School executive fellow, and author of six books including the bestselling Open Talent — to write a widely discussed piece questioning the entire thought leadership industry. In this conversation with Peter Winick, Winsor traces his path from launching a regional sports magazine (sold to Condé Nast ) through decades of building and exiting companies, to his current work at Harvard's AI Institute studying the…
S1 · E726 · 19 Jul 2026 · 27 min
Why Your Book Launch Is Just the Beginning | Sandy Smith | 726
You just spent two years writing a book. Now what? That's the question at the center of this conversation about book publicity, expectations, and the long game of building a body of work. Bill Sherman sits down with Sandy Smith , CEO of Smith Publicity , to unpack what a smart book launch actually looks like — and why most of the excitement (and anxiety) authors feel in the 60 days around publication misses the point. Sandy's first move with any client is to ask what success looks like a year out. That reframe — from launch week to long horizon — shapes everything else: how to define goals,…
S1 · E725 · 16 Jul 2026 · 19 min
The Marketing Dilemma Every Author Faces | Rand Selig | 725
What happens when the metrics you were taught to chase — title, bonus, prestige — stop adding up to a life that feels good? In this episode, Peter Winick sits down with Rand Selig , a Stanford MBA, former Wall Street investment banker, and founder of The Selig Capital Group , to trace his path from a jarring first job at Lehman Brothers to a self-defined version of success built on peace, gratitude, and deep relationships. The conversation opens with an unusually candid account of what it was like inside a major investment bank in the early days of Rand's career — a place where talent was…
S1 · E724 · 12 Jul 2026 · 17 min
Why Your Expertise Is the Only Content That Converts | Ghazenfer Mansoor | 724
What happens when a software CEO stops thinking like a marketer and starts thinking like a thought leader? You get a content flywheel that ranks #1 on Google, ChatGPT, and Claude — without hiring an SEO firm. Ghazenfer Mansoor , Founder and CEO of Technology Rivers , didn't set out to become a thought leader. He set out to grow a business. But as referrals gave way to inbound and conference conversations evolved into podcast guesting, something became clear: the content he was putting into the world was doing real work — compounding quietly in the background. In this episode, Ghazenfer walks…
S1 · E723 · 9 Jul 2026 · 21 min
From In-House Analyst to Independent Thought Leader | Charlene Li | 723
This episode is a companion to the upcoming Thought Leadership Handbook — part of a series where Bill speaks with exemplars featured in the book about how they actually practice thought leadership. There are plenty of books explaining what AI is. This one is about the person who decided to write a book that tells you what to do about it instead — and who's spent 25 years turning disruption into frameworks other people can actually use. Charlene Li joins Bill Sherman to talk about her new book, Winning with AI , co-written with Katia Walsh , and why this one felt different from her five…
S1 · E722 · 2 Jul 2026 · 21 min
Mental Health at Work Is Smart Business | Melissa Doman | 722
Most professionals who make the leap from clinical therapy to the corporate world stumble on the same obstacle: they speak the wrong language. They know the science cold. They understand what's happening beneath the surface in any dysfunctional team, toxic culture, or burned-out leadership group. But if they can't connect those insights to the metrics that actually keep executives up at night — retention, productivity, profitability — they get dismissed as well-meaning outsiders. Melissa Doman figured this out the hard way, and built a thriving practice on the other side of that realization.…
S1 · E721 · 28 Jun 2026 · 30 min
From Attorney to Speaker: The Identity Shift That Changes Everything | Wani Iris Manly, Esq. | 721
What happens when you're wildly successful at a life you didn't consciously choose? Wani Iris Manly, Esq. , grew up groomed for one thing: the law. She did the work, built the firm, drove the Porsche. And then, on New Year's Eve in 2010, she sat alone and took an honest look at the gap between the life she had and the life she actually wanted. What followed was one of the more audacious pivots you'll hear about — selling her car, her apartment, and most of her belongings, and moving solo to Paris without a plan, without French, and without a single contact in the city. That's where the story…
S1 · E720 · 25 Jun 2026 · 22 min
Cracking the Greatness Code in Professional Services | Alan Guarino | 720
What does it look like when someone making $10 million a year calls you and says, "Get me out of here"? For Alan Guarino , Vice Chairman of CEO and Board Services at Korn Ferry , it happens more than you'd think — and it's exactly what pushed him to write The Greatness Code: The Formula Behind Unstoppable Success . Alan has spent decades at the intersection of executive search, C-suite coaching, and talent strategy. He's seen it all: brilliant people in toxic environments, leaders who suck the oxygen out of every room, and — on the other end of the spectrum — a rare few whose leadership…
S1 · E719 · 18 Jun 2026 · 38 min
Why Authentic Stories Matter More Than Ever in an AI World | Gabrielle Dolan | 719
What do you do when you've found a powerful idea — but the market thinks it's silly? Gabrielle Dolan (known to almost everyone as "Ral") noticed something in the corridors of corporate Australia: the leaders who moved people, who made change land, who made ideas stick — they all told stories. The data nerds and slide-deck merchants were losing the room. The storytellers were winning it. So she did something that seemed a little mad at the time: she left a senior role at National Australia Bank to teach business storytelling professionally. The reaction from the market? Something between…
S1 · E718 · 14 Jun 2026 · 20 min
The Opus Way: Fueling Ambition Without Burnout | Janine Mathó | 718
What if ambition is not the problem—but the way we fuel it is? In this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, Peter Winick speaks with Janine Mathó , author of " Live Your Opus ", about the Opus Way : a framework designed to help high achievers build healthy, meaningful careers without lowering their ambition. Janine challenges the old tradeoff between success and sustainability. Her message is clear. You do not need less ambition. You need the energy, systems, and self-awareness to support it. Her work helps leaders understand how they operate under pressure. It gives them practical…
S1 · E717 · 11 Jun 2026 · 37 min
How to Find Agency in Times of Instability | Suzan Song | 717
What if suffering is not a detour from life, but one of the places where meaning begins? In this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, Bill Sherman speaks with Dr. Suzan Song , MD, PhD, about instability, agency, and the human search for groundedness when life breaks open. Her work spans clinical care, global systems, conflict zones, and executive leadership. Her core question is simple and urgent: how do people move through suffering without losing themselves? Dr. Song shares the deeply personal origin of her work. After losing her father to violence as a teenager, she pushed forward…
S1 · E716 · 4 Jun 2026 · 20 min
Founder Readiness: Measuring the Leadership Risk Investors Miss | Logan Yonavjak | 716
What if the biggest risk in a company is not the strategy, the product, or the market—but the leader's ability to grow fast enough to match the business? In this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, Peter Winick sits down with Logan Yonavjak , founder of the Founders Readiness Institute , to explore a bold idea: leadership capacity can be measured, developed, and used to reduce business risk. Logan's work sits at the intersection of people analytics, vertical development, AI, and executive performance. She is building tools that help investors, boards, and leadership teams understand…
S1 · E715 · 31 May 2026 · 19 min
The Economics of Getting What You Want | Judd Kessler | 715
What if luck is not random, but designed? In this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, Peter Winick sits down with Judd Kessler , Wharton professor and author of " Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want ." Judd's work brings market design out of the academic journal and into daily life. He studies the hidden systems that determine who gets access, who gets opportunity, and who gets left waiting. These systems are everywhere. School programs. Job assignments. Consulting projects. Ticketing platforms. Government services. Nonprofit resources. Even your…
S1 · E714 · 24 May 2026 · 21 min
Permanence: How Leaders Sustain Success Without Losing Themselves | Lisa Broderick | 714
What if success is not the hard part? Lisa Broderick , Managing Partner of Conversus Group , and co-author of Permanence with Marshall Goldsmith , brings a practical answer to one of leadership's most overlooked problems: how to stay the person you want to be after success arrives. Most leadership advice focuses on achievement. Hit the goal. Grow the company. Build the platform. Scale the impact. But Lisa's work asks a sharper question. What happens to your behavior, identity, and relationships once the pressure of success starts to reshape you? In this conversation, Lisa unpacks the power…

About Leveraging Thought Leadership

Leveraging Thought Leadership is a English business podcast from Peter Winick and Bill Sherman. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Peter Winick and Bill Sherman
Language: English
Category: Business
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 22 min
Latest episode: 11 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1355885445

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