Loading...

PODCAST

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts)

Real CEOs. Real Stories. Hosted by Ben Fanning—Gold Stevie Award winner for Best Business Podcast and ranked in the Top 2% globally—Lead the Team draws on over 700 CEO interviews to take you inside the minds of leaders from brands like Honeywell, HP, IBM, Dunkin’, Zoom, and Savannah Bananas. In each episode, you’ll hear raw, unfiltered stories of leading through rapid growth, high-stakes decisions, and make-or-break moments—plus the CEO-tested tools and strategies they use to build high-performing

business careers

All Episodes

40:28

GE Gave Him 6 Weeks to Sell the Business | Fiserv CRO...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/10/04

What would you do if you had just six weeks to sell the business you spent years building?That’s what happened to Robert Clarkson when he was one of the youngest presidents at GE Capital. A message from GE leadership suddenly changed everything... and gave him roughly six weeks to help sell the business.What could have been a paralyzing moment became a defining leadership experience.Today, Robert is Chief Revenue Officer for SMB and Clover at Fiserv, following senior leadership roles at Stripe,

en

34:34

The Leadership Lesson I Learned the Hard Way | David...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/09/29

What happens when the leadership playbook that made you successful suddenly stops working?Dave Lehman, President and COO of Birdeye, has spent more than two decades building and scaling teams at Salesforce, Yext, Campaign Monitor, and Birdeye. But one of his most important leadership lessons came from a painful moment: after aggressively scaling a business, Dave had to cut half his team.“All I could do was blame myself.”In this episode of Lead the Team, Dave shares how that experience changed the

en

35:09

The Leadership Test You Can’t Prepare For | Guild CEO...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/09/27

Sometimes you don’t know what kind of leader you are until a crisis hits.Bijal Shah was two and a half months postpartum and out on parental leave when Guild’s founder and CEO suffered a stroke. Suddenly, she was called to step in, steady the company, earn the confidence of the board and executive team, and make decisions she never expected to face.Months later, a board member told her something she’ll never forget:“We never knew you had this gear.”In this episode of Lead the Team, Bijal shares what

en

43:00

His Business Partner Died at 38. It Changed How He...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/09/22

David Sudolsky was building a company with his best friend when everything changed in an instant.His business partner died suddenly at 38—and what David heard at the funeral forced him to question everything he believed about success.Today, David is Founder and CEO of Boldr. He shares how that loss changed the company he built, why he believes traditional outsourcing gets people wrong, what worries him about AI, and how fatherhood has transformed the way he leads.It’s a conversation about ambition,

en

25:08

The Leadership Mistake Your Team Never Forgets | Booz...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/09/20

What you say as a leader may take them seconds to forget...OR stay with someone on your team for decades.Aimee George Leary is Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she leads the people strategy for more than 35,000 employees. In this episode of Lead The Team, she shares the painful early-career moment that permanently changed how she leads.After honestly telling executives that a critical project was behind schedule, Aimee received a devastatin voicemail

en

32:56

How Great Leaders Stay Calm in a Crisis | GitLab CISO...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/09/13

What do you do when everything goes wrong...and everyone is looking to you for answers?Chaim Mazal knows that feeling.As Chief Information Security Officer at GitLab, he operates in a world where one alert can suddenly mean it’s “all hands on deck.”In this episode of Lead The Team, Chaim shares the story of a major cybersecurity incident at a previous company where sensitive customer data was exposed. At one point, the potential impact appeared to include more than 3,000 customers.Teams worked

en

30:47

Why This CEO Became an Intern | Puneet Raj, Fieldwire

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/09/08

When Puneet Raj became CEO of Fieldwire after its acquisition by Hilti, he inherited a successful 250-person startup facing a pivotal transition: the founders were leaving, employees were worried about losing the startup culture, and a new leader was walking in.Instead of arriving as the new boss with all the answers, Puneet introduced himself as an intern.For six months, he rotated through Fieldwire’s teams, learned the business from the ground up, listened to the people who had made it successful,

en

37:20

HP Solutions President Manoj Leelanivas - How to Lead...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/09/01

How do you lead through uncertainty when the path forward isn’t clear?Manoj Leelanivas has done it at extraordinary scale. Today he’s President of HP Solutions. Before HP, he helped lead a major transformation at Juniper Networks, moving into new markets, building belief across thousands of employees, and helping create an enterprise business approaching $3 billion.In this episode, Manoj shares the leadership lessons behind that transformation, including why people don’t resist change...they resist

en

30:49

The Decision That Cost the Quarter, but Saved the...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/08/30

What happens when leaders face intense pressure to compromise short-term gains for long-term survival?In this episode of Lead The Team, host Ben Fanning sits down with Mark Niemiec, Global Chief Revenue Officer for SAP Customer Experience.Mark shares the story of a massive enterprise deal where his team walked away from a short-term commission boost to do the right thing for the business long-term—and why the customer’s head of procurement called days later to thank him for not "taking the bait."Key

en

37:08

The Leadership Rule That Changed Tony Ball's Career |...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/08/25

What does it really mean to take ownership as a leader?In this episode of Lead the Team, Ben Fanning sits down with Tony Ball, CEO of Entrust, to explore the leadership lessons that shaped his career—from working alongside Intel during one of the most demanding periods in technology history to leading a global cybersecurity company with more than $1 billion in annual revenue.Tony shares how one defining experience taught him a principle he still lives by today:"When you find a problem, you own it

en

42:16

The Multi-Million Dollar Failure That Started a...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/08/23

What do you do when you inherit a problem everyone else has given up on?Before helping build Grafana Labs into one of the world's leading infrastructure software companies, Anthony Woods inherited enterprise software that had already cost millions of dollars—and concluded it was never going to work. Instead of accepting it, he spent one weekend building a better solution. That single decision became the turning point that ultimately led him to co-found Grafana Labs, now a company valued in the

en

29:09

The Customer Conversation That Changed a Company |...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/08/18

When Phong Nguyen stepped into the CEO role at Modus—a technology platform processing over $2 Billion annually in driver reimbursements—he skipped the victory lap and did something his team was terrified to arrange: he got on a call with one of their biggest, angriest ex-customers.The client "ripped them a new one," exposing a hard reality: Modus had lost its innovation edge and treated them transactionally. But instead of getting defensive, Fong took a walk to cool down, gathered his leadership

en

37:01

The Quarter From Hell That Created a $500M AI Company...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/08/15

Every leader eventually faces a moment when the numbers stop making sense.For Amit Bendov, Co-Founder and CEO of Gong, that moment came during what he calls "the quarter from hell." Sales were collapsing, investors were asking tough questions, and every report looked normal. The CRM had data—but none of the answers.That painful experience sparked an idea that would become Gong, one of the world's leading AI-powered revenue platforms, now generating more than $500 million in annual recurring

en

39:42

The AI Security Threat Leaders Aren't Ready For |...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/08/11

AI isn't just transforming business—it's transforming cyberattacks.In this episode of Lead the Team, Ben Fanning sits down with Dennis Kozak, CEO of Ivanti, to discuss why artificial intelligence is changing cybersecurity faster than most organizations can adapt. After leading companies through cloud computing, mobile, remote work, cybersecurity, and now AI, Dennis explains the leadership principles that remain constant even as technology rapidly evolves.He shares the story of a company that

en

29:40

One Cell Tower Survived | Chris Hillabrant, CEO of...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/08/09

Chris Hillabrant was only days into a new role in New York when the September 11 attacks changed everything.As communications infrastructure across Manhattan began to fail, his team discovered they had one cell site still standing.What happened over the next 72 hours became one of the defining leadership moments of his career. Technicians drove into the city, manually hauled thousand-pound equipment dozens of stories to triple the site's capacity, opened the network to competitors, redirected

en

33:21

The Impossible Decision That Shaped This CEO | Doug...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/08/04

What does it take to make the kind of decision that changes how you lead forever?In this episode of Lead The Team, Ben Fanning sits down with Doug Braun, CEO of eProductivity Software (EPS), to discuss the leadership experiences that shaped his philosophy long before he became CEO.Doug shares the unforgettable story of a company making the difficult decision to walk away from a customer representing nearly half of its revenue, and how witnessing that moment taught him one of the most important

en

43:42

How to Beat a Monopoly and Outsmart AI | CEO, Thryv...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/08/02

He Beat a Monopoly. Then Had to Reinvent Everything.What do you do when the business model that made you billions faces sudden, total obsolescence?Most executive leaders miscalculate technological shifts—they either panic and move too early, or ignore the noise and move too late. In this episode of Lead the Team, host Ben Fanning sits down with Joe Walsh, Chairman and CEO of Thryv, to break down the tactical frameworks required to lead a legacy brand through the absolute chaos of print, digital,

en

35:20

How an Underdog Beat the Market Leader | Alessio...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/07/27

How do you beat the industry leader when everyone says you don't belong?In this episode of Lead The Team, Ben Fanning sits down with Alessio Artufo, CEO of Docebo, who helped transform a small Italian startup into a global SaaS leader, scaling the business from roughly $1 million to more than $200 million in ARR.Alessio shares the pivotal moments that shaped both the company and his leadership—from being underestimated because of his accent, to winning an enterprise customer that was ten times

en

43:25

Advance Auto Parts CEO is Rebuilding from the Front...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/07/22

What separates great CEOs from everyone else?According to Shane O'Kelly, President and CEO of Advance Auto Parts, it starts by getting out of the boardroom and onto the front line.After taking over an $11 billion company with nearly 5,000 locations and more than 60,000 team members, Shane's first move wasn't another strategy meeting—it was visiting stores, listening to employees, and uncovering the leadership blind spots holding the business back.In this episode of Lead the Team, Shane shares the

en

31:54

Why Change Initiatives Fail | MSX Deputy CEO, Andrea...

Lead the Team (Top 2% of Podcasts) ·

2026/07/07

Most leaders think they know why people resist change—but they are usually wrong.In this episode of Lead the Team, Ben Fanning sits down with Andrea Sorrenti, Deputy CEO of MSX International, to expose the hidden truth about corporate transformation: it’s not resistance holding your team back, it’s fear.After nearly three decades leading global teams through major automotive industry shifts, Andrea shares the raw leadership lessons that only come from painful, real-world mistakes.In this episode,

en

483 results

Similar Podcasts

TaxTalent.com The Golden Rule Podcast

Adam Golden

TaxTalent.com Podcast

Tony Santiago

Best of Business

Newstalk ZB

Ouribank

Ouribank

SoldiOnline

Mondadori Digital