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PODCAST

The Human Connection Podcast

Is your business’s growth stalled? Employee churn eating into your profits? Struggling with customer retention?You need stronger connections.Every Tuesday and Thursday, connect with an expert who’s sharing actionable advice for building stronger relationships with your customers, clients, and stakeholders. Hosted by Karl Pontau, a storytelling super-connector, content system strategist, and survivor of two childhood brain tumors, this podcast’s mission is to fix the underlying cause of workplace and

business management

All Episodes

20:48

Your Team Isn't Agreeing With You. They're Avoiding...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/10/08

"All too often, early-stage leaders assume silence is the absence of conflict. Much of the time, that silence is really evidence of avoidance." — Dr. Jonathan ThorpYou ended the all-hands with "any questions?" Nobody said a word, and you logged it as alignment. At a 150-person Series B, that silence is the loudest signal in the room, and you just walked past it. (Turns out "any questions?" isn't a feedback mechanism.)In this episode of The Human Connection Podcast, Karl sits down with Dr. Jonathan

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21:06

If Your Company Died Tomorrow, Who Would You Be? |...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/10/07

"We don't say we reach potential, because that doesn't make sense to me. You just golf the rest of your life and then you're done." — Mark TalagaYou've been "the founder" since the first Slack message. It's on your LinkedIn, it's how you introduce yourself at dinner, and it's quietly holding up your entire sense of self. So what happens when the company stalls, gets acquired, or AI starts doing half your job? (Karl found out the hard way when a previous business didn't make it.)In this episode of

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21:06

Human Connection in B2B Relationships: What AI Should...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/10/06

"When data is not an issue anymore, the final control and the privacy will become a huge defining moment." — Jing KuangAt a Series B–D company, your most valuable client relationships live in three people's heads and a CRM nobody updates. Then someone walks into a meeting and asks a question the other person already answered last time. (Karl did exactly this the day after a trip. Humbling.)In this episode of The Human Connection Podcast, Karl sits down with Jing Kuang to talk about building business

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22:28

Stop Faking Scarcity | Barry Moline

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/10/01

"If the customer misses that sale, there's just gonna be another sale in a few months. And the customers know that, and we know that." Barry Moline has spent nearly three decades as a CEO. He can tell influence from manipulation, and so can your buyers.In this episode of The Human Connection Podcast, Barry lays out a three-part test for ethical influence: it has to be true, it has to make sense, and it has to be wise. Wise means you'd recommend it to your own family. He explains why scarcity is the

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20:30

Your Hiring Team Agrees on 'Warmth.' Nobody Means the...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/30

"It's easy, ironically, to forget the human in hiring." Christina Seime has spent 20 years moving from writing code to sitting in the room where hiring decisions get made. Across that whole path, the same gap kept showing up.In this episode of The Human Connection Podcast, Christina explains why hiring teams keep screening for what's easy to find on a resume and miss what actually predicts whether someone will thrive. Her example is a consultancy with two core values, professional authority and

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20:32

Leadership Presence: Your Team Knows You're Not...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/29

"If I'm spending time with you, I'm going to be with you 100%." Vikas Prasanna learned this from his 11-month-old son. Then he noticed it was working on his customers too.In this episode of The Human Connection Podcast, Vikas talks about what it's like to be a first-time dad while building a dental SaaS company in Ireland. The company is five years old, has raised a seed round, and is on its third pivot. He and his wife are immigrants with no family nearby. His shift to a commercial role meant a

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20:51

The Human Skills AI Can't Replace: A Leadership...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/24

"Be the place where the machine cannot reach, because the machine cannot read the future when it's unstructured. Because it looks at the future by defining the past." — Mohan NairYou bought the AI tools to buy your leadership team some time. Somewhere between the first automated workflow and this quarter's board deck, that time got spent making the same work faster. (Speeding up a process that never made sense just gets you to the wrong place sooner.)In this episode of The Human Connection Podcast,

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21:31

You're Not Jensen Huang. Stop Pitching Like It |...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/23

"Even if you have a big multi-million dollar or euro revenue company behind you, you're still not Jensen Huang. […] People are not coming to you. You've come to them." — Jonathan KoifmanYour platform can do nineteen things. The buyer across the table has one problem, and it keeps them up at night. (Guess which list your website is written from.)In this episode of The Human Connection Podcast, Jonathan Koifman breaks down stakeholder-focused communication for founders and executives who keep pitching

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21:02

You Don't Need a New ERP (Yet). You Need Your...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/22

"A lot of companies will think that they need to replace an ERP system. And when I go in and talk to them, I often find that there's a lot of misalignment across the business units." — Augie Santa MariaYou've got the budget for the new system and a slide about AI. What you may not have is one agreed version of how your departments actually do the work. (The software was never going to settle that argument for you.)In this episode of The Human Connection Podcast, Augie Santa Maria breaks down company

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22:48

77% of MedTech Startups Don't See Year 10. Here's the...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/17

"The sales reps are doing the work that should have been done before the product was launched. I call it rolling a boulder uphill versus rolling a pebble uphill." — Craig T. Ingram Karl talks with healthcare commercialization strategist Craig Ingram about the single most common — and most expensive — mistake venture-backed MedTech and health tech startups make right after they close a round: hiring a sales team before anyone outside the building has heard of them. Craig breaks down why revenue is a

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22:12

You Started Marketing Your Raise the Day It Went...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/16

"If a capital raise is gonna take place next year, start building relationships now... it always amazes me how so many founders, so many CEOs, so many teams think, 'we're gonna start marketing the raise once the raise is live.'" — Jason Fishman Karl talks with Jason Fishman, CEO of Digital Niche Agency, about why founders lose capital raises before they ever open a pitch deck — because they treat relationship-building as a launch-week activity instead of infrastructure they should've built a year

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21:01

You Built a Company So You'd Never Feel Alone. You're...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/15

"We're told the lone wolf is the most powerful person out there — that's what we're aspiring to be. I think it's done us more disservice as men than almost anything else... We may have a large company. We may not be connected at all." — Mark PlattenKarl sits down with author and leadership guide Mark J. Platten to name the thing most C-suite leaders won't say out loud: the subconscious patterns wired into you before age seven are still running your boardroom. Mark and Karl dig into why the "lone

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20:35

You're a Lot Easier to Fire Than You Think | Jared...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/10

"We're a lot easier to fire if you don't have a personal connection to who we are."That's Jared Harman naming the quiet math behind every churned account: nobody leaves a company they have a relationship with. They leave a vendor. Most leaders build their retention strategy around the brand, the deck, the "differentiated service" — when the thing actually keeping a client is the person who picks up the phone.Jared is CEO and co-founder of The One Group Agency, a full-service marketing agency based

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21:43

Drew Albrecht: How Employee Benefits Became a Culture...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/09

"I wouldn't necessarily say there's a way for employers to win."That's Drew Albrecht's honest read on the health benefits market — and it's not a reason to give up, it's the reason most executives are losing money on a line item nobody's actually reading. Benefits get treated as a "set it and forget it" expense that renews once a year. Meanwhile the claims data sitting inside that renewal has been quietly telling a story nobody in the building bothered to open.Drew is Director of Consulting and

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20:50

You Decided What She Wanted Before You Asked Her |...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/08

"We're not anti-surgery. We're just anti-inappropriate surgery."That's Dr. Mary O'Connor's mission statement in one sentence — and it's also the best diagnosis of a mistake that has nothing to do with healthcare. Executives reach for the big, expensive, dramatic fix constantly: the platform overhaul, the process relaunch, the AI rollout. Rarely do they reach for the boring, unglamorous work that would've actually solved it.Mary is co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Vori Health, a virtual-first

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22:17

Your Executive Team Never Learned to Lead People. AI...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/03

"Surveillance is power over people. Visibility is power with people."Adam Johnson has led AI strategy work inside Microsoft and Amazon, and now spends his days telling mid-sized companies the thing they don't want to hear: their AI rollout isn't failing because of the technology. It's failing because they never built the trust required to roll anything out successfully in the first place.Karl and Adam dig into why so many AI initiatives are stalling out, why the resulting layoffs are less about AI

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24:15

Dr. Liz DuBois Erskine: Why Only 4% of Million-Dollar...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/02

"Aggressive is assertive. Men are assertive and women are aggressive. Same behavior."Dr. Liz DuBois Erskine has a PhD in conflict resolution and has coached leaders through Disney, iHeartRadio, and beyond — and she spends up to half of every coaching session doing one specific thing: rehearsing how her clients talk, not what they know. Because on paper, the barriers are gone. In practice, 40% of American companies are run by women — and only 4% of the companies making seven figures or more are.Karl

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20:59

Suzanne Spencer: Building Resilience Rep by Rep After...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/09/01

"We build resilience rep by rep."Suzanne Spencer isn't talking about willpower. She's talking about the small, unremarkable moments — the car trouble, the crummy Tuesday, the thing that doesn't go according to plan — that either build the muscle or let it atrophy. She'd know: a decade as a TV news anchor covering other people's worst days, then two brain surgeries of her own — the second just weeks after becoming a first-time mom — turned that observation into a framework she now takes into

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20:46

You Recorded the Episode, But Missed the Actual...

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/08/27

"The leverage is what happens afterwards." — Marlen KakkoriMarlen Kakkori has built her entire business around a topic most founders get wrong the moment they hit record: how to actually be a good podcast guest. She's the founder of the Podcast Conversion Lab, and her core insight is blunt — the interview itself isn't where the value is. The relationship you build with the host after it ends is.Karl and Marlen get into the number of shows it actually takes before podcast guesting starts converting

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21:09

Briana Brugh: Why Being Polished Is Killing Your Brand

The Human Connection Podcast ·

2026/08/26

"When you use AI for everything... you've basically put on a costume." — Briana BrughBriana Brugh spent a decade in marketing doing the buttoned-up LinkedIn thought-leadership thing everyone else was doing — 2,000 followers, nothing moving. Then she stopped being a "marketer" and started being a "professional yapper," posting about Hamburger Helper and Nicolas Cage instead of frameworks and funnels. That decision built a newsletter, a website, and eventually a full media company.Karl and Briana get

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