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Most companies wait too long to develop their next generation of leaders.

In this episode, Amy sits down with Randy Hain, executive coach, author, and founder of Serving Partners, to talk about the gap most organizations ignore: investing in early-career professionals before they become senior leaders.

Randy brings over 30 years of experience as a senior executive and now coaches leaders across Fortune 10,000 companies. Through that work, he has seen a consistent pattern. Organizations pour time, money, and energy into senior leaders, but often leave younger professionals to develop “by accident.”

His latest book, Practical Virtue, challenges that approach. It combines leadership skills with the disciplined practice of values like kindness, patience, vulnerability, clarity, and candor. Randy draws a clear distinction between values and virtue. Values are what you believe. Virtue is what you practice consistently enough that it becomes who you are.

The conversation also explores what Randy is seeing in Gen Z professionals today. Contrary to common assumptions, he describes a group that is eager to learn and wants to be developed, but often struggles with confidence, curiosity, and relationship-building in professional environments.

Amy and Randy discuss what leaders can do about it, including a simple but structured approach to mentorship through Randy’s “One Plus Three Project.”

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why leadership development often happens too late
• The difference between values and virtue in leadership
• What younger professionals are actually asking for
• Why confidence and curiosity are showing up differently in Gen Z
• How to implement simple, structured mentorship inside your company

This episode is especially relevant for founders, CEOs, and senior leaders who want to build stronger teams and avoid future leadership gaps.

Connect
Guest: Randy Hain
Company: https://www.serviampartners.com/
Book: Practical Virtue

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The path from college to career is not working the way it used to.

In this episode of Business Origin Stories, the founder of YoPro shares what he’s seeing firsthand after working with more than 70 young professionals trying to land jobs in today’s market. His perspective comes from 25 years in marketing working with Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies, followed by a layoff that pushed him to start his own business.

YoPro focuses on helping college students and recent graduates navigate what he calls a “hostile job market.” Through one-on-one coaching, his team helps students build confidence, develop a clear story, and learn how to network and interview effectively.

What makes this conversation especially relevant is the gap he highlights between what colleges teach and what employers expect. Students are often strong in academics but lack the skills needed to communicate their value, build relationships, and stand out in interviews.

You’ll hear how his program works, including how they:

• Help students identify what makes them unique and turn it into a compelling elevator pitch
• Build resumes that align with that positioning
• Teach practical networking strategies, including outreach to people they’ve never met
• Prepare students for different types of interviewers through simulation and practice

He also shares what he’s seeing across this generation. Many young professionals are rethinking their relationship with work after watching their parents experience layoffs and instability. At the same time, companies are struggling to adapt to their communication style and expectations.

This episode also explores what employers need to understand if they want to successfully hire and retain this generation, especially as AI continues to reshape entry-level roles.

If you are a CEO, parent, or leader responsible for hiring, this conversation will give you a clearer picture of what is actually happening and what needs to change.

Connect with Chris: https://www.theyopro.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-a-greene/

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What happens when the traits that made you successful start working against you?

In this episode, Claudia Beck, founder of Better Together Group, shares her journey from a 30-year corporate career to coaching senior executives on conscious leadership. After reaching senior leadership and experiencing a forced exit, Claudia was confronted with a fundamental question: who do you want to be when you are no longer operating at full speed?

Claudia now works with highly intelligent, high-performing leaders who want to improve their relational capacity and lead more intentionally. Her work focuses on helping leaders move from automatic behaviors like control, perfectionism, or shutdown into conscious choice.

This conversation explores the tension many leaders face today. Organizations reward results, speed, and competition. But as AI accelerates execution and automation, the differentiator is shifting toward human connection, awareness, and emotional intelligence.

Claudia also shares the personal realities behind her transition into entrepreneurship, including grief, identity loss, and the mindset shifts required to trust uncertainty without a steady paycheck.

Inside this episode, we cover:

• What “conscious leadership” actually means in practice
• Why high achievers struggle to slow down
• The difference between automatic behavior and intentional choice
• How AI is reshaping the role of human connection in leadership
• The emotional and psychological transition from corporate to entrepreneurship
• Practical ways leaders can reconnect with their inner wisdom

Claudia introduces a progression from intellectual intelligence to emotional intelligence to what she calls systems intelligence, where leaders understand how their behavior impacts others and the broader environment.

She also shares simple but powerful practices, including questioning your first thought, reconnecting with your body, and learning to say no to what is not aligned.

This episode is for leaders who are successful on paper but sense that something deeper needs to change.

Connect with Claudia Beck:
Website: bettertogethergroup.co

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@amyschutte_

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What if the number you’re chasing in business isn’t actually the number you need?

In this episode, Amy sits down with Carrie Veatch, who helps entrepreneurs build time, location, and financial freedom in a way that is grounded in their real life, not arbitrary goals.

Carrie’s work starts with a simple but often avoided question: what do you actually need? Instead of chasing external benchmarks, she guides clients to define their personal version of financial freedom and build a roadmap that aligns income, time, and lifestyle.

Her path into this work was not linear. It began with curiosity, a desire to create independence, and early exposure to ideas from Tim Ferriss. Over time, that evolved through real estate investing, living abroad for five years, and building a co-hosting business in the short-term rental space.

In this conversation, Carrie shares both strategy and lived experience, including the internal challenges that come with money, identity, and leadership.

You’ll hear:

• Why most financial goals are disconnected from reality
• How to calculate your true “freedom number”
• Where people get stuck when facing debt and finances
• What co-hosting is and how to start with little to no risk
• Why networking is still one of the most effective growth strategies
• What happens when you achieve freedom and still feel stuck

Carrie also opens up about the emotional side of entrepreneurship, including navigating identity shifts, unmet expectations, and redefining success after reaching initial goals.

This episode is both practical and reflective. It gives you clear entry points into new income streams like co-hosting, while also challenging you to rethink what you are actually building toward.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re chasing numbers without clarity, this conversation will help you reset your approach.

Connect with Carrie: https://setyourselffreellc.com/

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@amyschutte_

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Most leaders don’t think about HR until something breaks. But by then, it’s already costing time, energy, and momentum.

In this episode of Business Origin Stories, Neil Katz shares how his fractional HR firm helps companies remove the operational burden of people management so leaders can focus on growth.

Neil works with businesses ranging from five to five hundred employees, helping them navigate everything from hiring and onboarding to performance management and compliance. His core belief is simple. Leaders should not spend their time solving problems that experts can handle faster and more effectively.

He explains how his team gives leaders back 4 to 12 hours per week by managing the “drama and trauma” that comes with people operations.

But this conversation goes beyond systems and efficiency. Neil shares the mindset shifts that shaped his journey from corporate leadership to entrepreneurship, including the moment he took a risk without knowing the outcome and the role his wife played in pushing him forward.

Inside this episode, we cover:

• Why waiting for HR problems makes them harder and more expensive to solve
• How fractional support creates access to expertise without full-time cost
• What actually builds trust between founders and external experts
• Why growth requires discomfort and how to approach mistakes
• How to identify what your people truly enjoy and where they perform best
• The role of AI in business and why human connection still matters

Neil also breaks down how he helps leaders think differently, not by directing them, but by asking better questions and creating space for better decisions.

If you are leading a growing company and feel pulled into areas outside your expertise, this episode will help you rethink how you use your time and where to bring in support.

Connect with Neil Katz:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilkatzhr
• Website: https://exceptionalhrsolutions.com

Instagram:

@amyschutte_

Work with us: www.hudsonandco.co

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AI is no longer optional. But rushing into it may be the most expensive mistake your business can make.

In this episode of Business Origin Stories, Matt Murphy shares what he’s learned from deploying AI inside real companies and why most of those efforts fail.

With 30 years in technology and the last five focused on AI, Matt has worked across ERP, cloud, HRIS, and enterprise systems. Today, as CEO of The Faction Group, he helps businesses implement AI in a way that actually works.

His biggest insight: AI doesn’t fail. Businesses fail to prepare for it.

Matt breaks down what “AI readiness” really means and why two factors consistently determine success or failure:

• Data readiness
• People alignment

He explains how messy data leads to scaled chaos, and why ignoring your team’s experience can stop adoption entirely. In one example, a fully functional AI solution failed simply because it removed a task employees actually enjoyed doing.

This episode also explores the hidden reality of “shadow AI,” where employees are already using AI tools without company oversight, creating both opportunity and risk.

Beyond readiness, Matt shares how AI is changing the nature of work itself. Tasks are being automated, but leadership, orchestration, and decision-making are becoming more important than ever.

You’ll also hear how Matt applied AI inside his own business by building an internal AI agent named Bertha. Acting as a chief of staff, Bertha manages priorities, reviews daily performance, and keeps the business aligned to its goals.

This shift led to a major transformation:

• Four companies reduced to one
• Clear product focus
• Increased operational clarity
• Stronger business momentum

If you’re trying to figure out how to approach AI without overwhelming your team or risking your business, this conversation will give you a practical framework.

Connect with Matt Murphy:
LinkedIn: Matt Murphy (CEO, The Faction Group)
Social: @gofaction / @gofactiongroup

https://gofactiongroup.com/

Instagram:

@amyschutte_

Work with us: www.hudsonandco.co

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Many founders imagine that selling their company will be the finish line. But for many leaders, the exit is actually the beginning of a new identity crisis.

In this episode of Business Origin Stories, Amy Schutte sits down with Peter Corbett, former agency founder turned executive coach, to explore what happens after entrepreneurial success.

Peter built a digital agency that grew to roughly 100 full-time employees and another 150 contractors in a given year before selling the company to a public organization at age 36. Like many founders, his life had been completely centered on the business. When the sale closed, the sudden absence of that role created what he describes as a form of ego death.

The phone stopped ringing. The conferences stopped. The context that had defined his identity disappeared.

Instead of immediately launching another venture, Peter took a very different path. He trained in a Zen hospice program in New York and spent nine months working with sick and dying patients in a hospital. That experience reshaped how he thinks about leadership, value, and the human side of success.

Today, Peter works as an executive coach primarily with founders and CEOs. His coaching practice blends business strategy with personal development, relationships, spiritual inquiry, and even biological health metrics. He believes many high achievers reach a point where the traditional markers of success no longer provide meaning.

In this conversation, Peter shares how that shift happens and what leaders can do about it.

Inside this episode, you’ll hear:

• What it actually feels like after selling a company
• Why many founders struggle with identity after an exit
• How Peter’s hospice training changed how he views leadership and value
• The role presence and self-awareness play in sustainable leadership
• Why burnout and awe cannot coexist in the nervous system
• How Peter now works with founders through coaching, retreats, and immersive experiences

Peter also shares the story behind his unusual workspace inside the historic Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, where he hosts conversations and tea ceremonies inside a lotus bell tent designed to encourage deeper dialogue.

For leaders navigating transition, burnout, or the next chapter after success, this conversation offers a thoughtful perspective on what sustainable well-being can actually look like.

Connect with Peter:

Website: https://stillrush.co

Instagram / LinkedIn: Corbett3000

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@amyschutte_

Work with us: www.hudsonandco.co

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When a leader walks into a struggling organization, the instinct is often to fix things fast. But Mark McFatridge learned early in his career that real turnaround work begins with listening.

After earning his first bank president role, Mark relocated from Indianapolis to Springfield, Missouri to lead the worst performing banking group in the company. He didn’t know the team, the community, or the culture. What he did know was that walking in with a heavy hand would fail.

Instead, he spent his first 30 to 45 days engaging the organization. He walked the halls, sat in break rooms, and asked employees two questions:

• What do we do well?
• What do we suck at?

From those conversations he built a report he called “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” That process eventually shaped the leadership framework he would later formalize as the Four E’s:

• Engagement — Listen first. Understand the culture and identify what works and what does not.
• Education — Clarify the vision and help the team understand how the business actually works.
• Empowerment — Give people the authority and tools to act on that vision.
• Execution — Create accountability so the team follows through.

Mark used this framework repeatedly during his banking career as he turned around multiple struggling regions.

Later, after retiring from banking in 2017, he launched Quaid, a peer community designed specifically for CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs. The model brings small groups of leaders together in “circles” of eight to ten members who meet regularly to challenge each other, share experiences, and hold each other accountable.

The idea came from Mark’s own experience joining a CEO peer organization earlier in his career. That community changed the way he approached leadership, and he wanted to create that same level of support for others.

Inside this conversation, we explore:

• What leaders should do during their first 30–45 days in a struggling organization
• Why culture change begins with listening rather than directives
• The structure Mark uses to facilitate CEO peer groups
• Why leadership challenges almost always come back to people

Mark also shares one principle that guides both his leadership and his work facilitating CEO circles: listen to understand, not to respond.

If you lead a company, manage a team, or are responsible for fixing something that isn’t working, this episode offers practical insight into how strong leadership actually shows up.

Connect with Mark

Website: www.quadecircle.com
LinkedIn: Mark McFatridge
Podcast: Igniting the CEO Within

Instagram:

@amyschutte_

Work with us: www.hudsonandco.co