What if AI transformation isn't really a technology challenge at all? Jess talks with OneDigital executives Mike Sullivan and Vinay Gidwaney about why they see AI as a talent, leadership, and workforce transformation challenge, and why L&D should be at the center of it, leading the transformation. They explore what it means to treat AI as talent, redesign work around human and AI strengths, activate leaders for new ways of working, and move L&D beyond content creation into a much more strategic role.

• Why AI transformation is fundamentally a talent and behavior change challenge, not simply a technology rollout
• What changes when organizations begin thinking about AI as talent
• Why giving employees access to AI is not enough to create meaningful adoption or business impact
• How leaders can accelerate AI adoption and behavior change across their teams
• Why the future workforce is a blended workforce of humans and AI
• How leaders can distinguish between reducible work that AI may handle and irreducible work that depends on human judgment, creativity, empathy, and experience
• Why organizations may need to stop tweaking existing job descriptions and instead completely rethink how work gets done
• The emerging leadership responsibility to manage both human talent and AI talent
• How L&D can help managers unbundle work, rethink roles, and redesign teams for an AI-enabled future
• Why people, not AI itself, may become an organization's greatest source of competitive advantage
• How L&D's role in capturing, codifying, and spreading organizational intelligence becomes even more valuable in an AI-enabled workplace
• What L&D professionals can do now to move from spectators of AI transformation to active leaders shaping what comes next

About Mike Sullivan

Mike Sullivan has spent more than four decades at the intersection of business strategy, mergers & acquisitions and all facets of an evolving American workplace. He has seen firsthand what separates companies that thrive from those that stall. As Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer of OneDigital, he has helped build one of the most dynamic insurance and financial services firms in the country, guiding its expansion through acquisition, partnership, and entry into new markets. Outside OneDigital, he is an active investor and board member across a broad set of firms and industry verticals.

About Vinay Gidwaney

As Chief Product Officer (CPO) at OneDigital, Vinay Gidwaney is passionate about creating opportunities for employees and families to make better decisions around their finances through OneDigital's integrated offerings. He leads a strong team of technology experts and developers who deliver the latest in innovative products and solutions to OneDigital's customer base.

Find and Connect with Mike and Vinay

• Mike Sullivan LinkedIn
• Vinay Gidwaney LinkedIn
• Book: Workforce Intelligence: The PEOPLE-FIRST Playbook for Leading Your Company Through AI TRANSFORMATION

Find and Connect with Jess Almlie

• LinkedIn
• Website: www.jessalmlie.com
• Book: L&D Order Taker No More! Become a Strategic Business Partner
• L&D Strategic Business Partner Team Assessment and Team Development Roadmap
• Contact Jess

Leadership development has become far too complicated. In this episode, Jess and Matt Gjertsen strip away the jargon and return to the fundamentals busy managers can actually use. They explore the Minimum Viable Manager mindset, three core skills every leader needs, and why iteration matters more than perfection. You'll also hear how L&D can help employees navigate the career change into management, make feedback a daily habit, and combine high-impact in-person experiences with digital learning to create lasting behavior change.

Jess and Matt Discuss

• Why leadership development has become unnecessarily complicated
• How first principles thinking can simplify manager development
• The Minimum Viable Manager mindset and the power of iteration
• Three essential manager skills: building trust, setting expectations, and giving feedback
• How a clear definition of done prevents the delegation doom loop
• Why managers should ask for feedback before giving it
• Why becoming a manager is a career change, not a promotion
• How L&D can help employees decide whether management is right for them
• Why in-person learning still matters for behavior change
• How to reframe leadership development as a facilitated conversation

About Matt Gjertsen

Matt Gjertsen is the founder of BUILT, a leadership-development company focused on helping technical professionals become exceptional people leaders. A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Matt spent nine years as an instructor pilot before leading training and development at SpaceX. With two decades of experience developing high-performing teams, he now helps organizations strengthen their managers, improve performance, and prepare leaders to solve complex challenges.

Find and Connect with Matt Gjertsen

• LinkedIn
• Website: BUILT Leaders
• Book: Minimum Viable Manager

Find and Connect with Jess Almlie

• LinkedIn
• Website: www.jessalmlie.com
• Book: L&D Order Taker No More! Become a Strategic Business Partner
• L&D Strategic Business Partner Team Assessment and Team Development Roadmap
• Contact Jess

Our learning design could be better if we understood how the brain is taking in and processing what we share. It would help us to know what's effective, and what's having the opposite effect. In this episode, Jess sits down with learning scientist Lauren Waldman to explore why neuroscience should be a foundational skill for every L&D professional. They discuss how memory really works, why most training never reaches long-term memory, how cognitive overload undermines learning, and practical ways to design experiences that work with the brain instead of against it.

• Why every L&D professional should understand how the brain learns
• The difference between content delivery and the biological process of learning
• How working memory limits affect learning design
• Why repetition and retrieval are essential for long-term memory
• How cognitive overload prevents learners from retaining information
• Practical ways to reduce distractions and guide learner attention
• Designing learning that supports focus instead of competing for it
• Using neuroscience to confidently push back on stakeholder requests that hinder learning
• A simple design question every L&D team should ask before building training

About Lauren Waldman

Lauren Waldman is a learning scientist, founder of Learning Pirate, and one of the leading voices bringing neuroscience into the world of learning and development. With advanced neuroscience studies from Harvard, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Michigan, she helps organizations design learning experiences that align with how the brain actually learns. Lauren is a sought-after keynote speaker known for challenging conventional thinking and making brain science practical, engaging, and impossible to ignore.

Find and Connect with Lauren Waldman

• LinkedIn
• Learning Pirate Website: https://www.learningpirate.com/

Find and Connect with Jess Almlie

• LinkedIn
• Website: www.jessalmlie.com
• Book: L&D Order Taker No More! Become a Strategic Business Partner
• L&D Strategic Business Partner Team Assessment and Team Development Roadmap
• Contact Jess

Additional Links from This Episode

• L&D Must Change Episode 22: Designing and Measuring on Purpose with Chris Taylor
• L&D Must Change Episode 45: Ensure Learning is Worth the Expense with Melanie Martinelli