Home Podcasts The Talent Development Hot Seat - The #1 podcast for L&D Professionals
The Talent Development Hot Seat - The #1 podcast for L&D Professionals

The Talent Development Hot Seat - The #1 podcast for L&D Professionals

Andy Storch 300 Episodes Oct 13, 2026

The Talent Development Hot Seat is a podcast for Learning and Development professionals. Each week, host Andy Storch interviews talent development experts, thought leaders, and practitioners to share best practices and insights. The show covers the latest trends in the field and aims to help listeners develop their organization's people. It also offers a membership community for networking and further learning.

Episodes

AI for HR: Moving from Spreadsheets to Strategy with Violetta Drobot,
AI for HR: Moving from Spreadsheets to Strategy with Violetta Drobot, Oct 13, 2026 36:31 What happens to the HR role when AI takes over the data crunching? In this episode, Andy Storch talks with Violetta Drobot, a Boston-based consultant who leads organizational transformation and systems projects at the intersection of HR, project management, and AI. Violetta explains how AI flips the traditional HR workload so that the strategic part of the job grows from 10% to 60%. She shares a s
Logins Aren't Adoption: What Real AI Transformation Looks Like with Chrisa Hill
Logins Aren't Adoption: What Real AI Transformation Looks Like with Chrisa Hill Oct 6, 2026 46:04 Christa Hill is back on the Hot Seat, four months (a lifetime in AI years) after her first appearance. Christa is Chief AI Learning Officer at LearnIt and co-founder of Tacit Edge. She tells Andy what she's seeing inside companies now. Organizations are tired of rebuilding workflows every time a new model drops. Boards are in the "show me the money" phase. And the definition of AI adoption is chan
AI Transformation & Cognitive Governance with Giovanni Giamminola
AI Transformation & Cognitive Governance with Giovanni Giamminola Sep 29, 2026 40:37 This week I'm speaking with Giovanni Giamminola about using AI to strengthen (not surrende) human judgment.Giovanni explains the difference between cognitive offloading and cognitive surrender, why AI fluency can create false confidence, and how cognitive governance helps organizations decide when people should lead the reasoning and when AI can productively support it.WHAT YOU’LL LEARN• The disti
The Transformation Triangle: How L&D can Thrive in the Age of AI with Donald Taylor
The Transformation Triangle: How L&D can Thrive in the Age of AI with Donald Taylor Sep 22, 2026 37:35 Don Taylor chairs the Learning Technologies Conference in London and has run the L&D Global Sentiment Survey for more than a decade. In this conversation, Andy and Don dig into the 2026 survey findings and Don's latest research with co-researcher Egle Vinauskaite, The Transformation Triangle, the fifth report in their AI in L&D series.Don explains why AI hype has peaked and become part of
10 (More) Lessons on AI Transformation From the Artificial Intelligence Show
10 (More) Lessons on AI Transformation From the Artificial Intelligence Show Sep 15, 2026 26:50 In this solo episode, Andy Storch shares ten lessons pulled from The Artificial Intelligence Show's new AI Transformations series, which interviews leaders at companies that have gone through real AI transformations — Good Karma Brands, Zapier, HubSpot, and Peapack Private Bank. Andy connects each lesson back to what it means for talent development and L&D professionals specifically, and share
Turning Resistance Into Resilience in the Age of AI with Sue Bethanis
Turning Resistance Into Resilience in the Age of AI with Sue Bethanis Sep 8, 2026 31:07 In this episode, Sue Bethanis shares what nearly three decades of executive coaching have taught her about leading people through disruption, and why AI adoption is as much a human challenge as a technical one. Sue is CEO and founder of Mariposa Leadership, author of Leadership Chronicles of a Corporate Sage, and host of Wise Talk and Wise Space. She has coached more than 400 executives at compani
Rolling Out AI Enablement in Three Phases at ECI with Katie Tonda
Rolling Out AI Enablement in Three Phases at ECI with Katie Tonda Sep 1, 2026 43:53 In this episode, Katie Tonda shares how she is leading a company-wide AI transformation and rebuilding leadership development from the ground up at ECI Software Solutions. Katie is Global Senior Director of Learning and Development at ECI, a private equity backed software company supporting around 2,400 employees globally, and she came there deliberately after building her career at two of the lar
Reengineering Culture in the Age of AI at Vodacom with Njabulo Mashigo
Reengineering Culture in the Age of AI at Vodacom with Njabulo Mashigo Aug 24, 2026 39:38 In this episode, Njabulo Mashigo shares how deliberate culture work has helped make Vodacom South Africa the number one top employer in the country three years running, a first in that market. Njabulo is HR Executive Director at Vodacom South Africa, the largest market in the Vodafone Group, and describes herself as a people strategist and culture evangelist. Across 24 years and three industries,
10 Lessons on AI Transformation: What's Actually Working Inside Organizations
10 Lessons on AI Transformation: What's Actually Working Inside Organizations Aug 17, 2026 28:30 In this solo episode, Andy Storch shares the top 10 lessons he has gathered on AI transformation over the last several months, drawing from podcast interviews, private one-on-one conversations, industry conferences, and the virtual roundtables he has been hosting with L&D leaders. The picture that emerges is consistent: the technology is rarely the hard part. What determines whether an AI roll
The Three T’s of AI Rollouts: Training, Time, and Tools with Alex Zubko
The Three T’s of AI Rollouts: Training, Time, and Tools with Alex Zubko Aug 10, 2026 36:17 In this episode, Alex Zubko shares what she is seeing inside organizations trying to make AI transformation actually work. Alex has been in the AI trenches since 2022, when she pivoted a company into AI right as ChatGPT launched, and she now works with private equity firms, fintech companies, and beyond, doing everything from education to hands-on consulting to executive coaching. She and Andy dig
Turning AI Anxiety Into AI Agency at Exclaimer with Antonia Bowler
Turning AI Anxiety Into AI Agency at Exclaimer with Antonia Bowler Aug 4, 2026 35:27 In this episode, Antonia Bowler shares how her organization approached AI adoption by putting people first. Antonia is a people leader at Exclaimer, a private equity backed software company, where she has led an AI enablement effort grounded in psychological safety and the human side of the technology. She and Andy explore why trust has to come before adoption, how the company countered the common
The Pause Principle: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World with Shawn Vanderhoven
The Pause Principle: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World with Shawn Vanderhoven Jul 28, 2026 39:03 In this episode, Shawn Vanderhoven shares what he learned researching how the best leaders help their teams focus in a relentlessly distracting world. Shawn is a longtime partner at the Wiseman Group, where he leads the executive development practice, a collaborator on the New York Times bestseller Multipliers, and the author of the new book Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World. After

Recommended