Show Notes:
Rob goes in-person for this one, recording live at Takkion HQ in Denver with CHRO Marie Wardenski. Takkion is a major player in clean energy with around 2,000 employees, 85% of whom are traveling wind technicians who never have the option to work from home, which makes the people function both critical and complex. Marie brings 20 years of HR experience across higher education, chemical distribution, oil and gas, and now renewables, and she has a lot to say about how HR earns its seat at the table, why the "policy police" reputation existed and how it gets dismantled, and what it actually takes to ascend to a CHRO role. This one is grounded, candid, and full of practical wisdom for anyone trying to build a career in people leadership.

Key Takeaways:

• HR metrics only land with senior leadership when they are already framed in terms of business goals, not HR goals
• The policy police reputation was earned, and dismantling it requires HR to be proactive, not reactive, and visibly tied to strategic outcomes
• If you have a computer problem, you call IT. If you have a people problem, you call HR. Every problem is ultimately a people problem
• Being in office requires just as much intentionality as being remote. Physical proximity does not automatically create collaboration
• Business acumen is not optional for senior HR leaders. You will need to build it deliberately outside of your day-to-day work
• Understand the business you are in. HR can work in any industry, but the leaders who rise are the ones who become genuine thought partners to operations, not just subject matter experts in their own function

Links:

Marie on LinkedIn

LHH Recruitment Solutions

A Beautiful Working World

A Soundbeam Studios Production

Selena is the Executive Director and Global Head of Talent Management at Cytokinetics, and brings a global perspective shaped by her upbringing in Beijing, a career that has wound through consulting, M&A integration at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and culture transformation at Gilead. The conversation covers how to lead people through business transformation rather than just announce it, why 360 feedback only works when the recipient is ready to receive it, the architect versus contractor framework for thinking about senior leadership, and why HR needs to stop defending legacy processes and start asking harder questions about whether they still work. This one is for HR and talent leaders who want to think more provocatively about the function and their own role in it.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• 360 feedback only works when the recipient is genuinely ready to receive it. Rolling it out org-wide without a readiness check is a waste of everyone's time.
• Feedback meant to vent and feedback meant to help are not the same thing and should not be weighed the same way.
• The architect sets the vision and the blueprint. The contractor executes the room. Organizations in transformation need leaders who can hold both, not just one.
• The 70-20-10 learning model says 70% of development happens on the job, yet most L&D budgets still go to the 10% classroom training bucket. Ask why before defending it.

🔗 Links

Selena on LinkedIn

LHH Recruitment Solutions

A Beautiful Working World

A Soundbeam Studios Production

Katie Rakusin, Director of Talent Acquisition at Merit America. has seen the AI hiring surge hit in real time: 33,000 applications in five months, 10,000 in May alone, and yes, the bots have officially arrived. The conversation covers how her team is restructuring its entire hiring process around the assumption that candidates are using AI, why stopping bot detection might actually be the smarter move, and how a real four-day work week gets built and protected at scale. Katie also makes a strong case for why human judgment should be the last thing you automate, and what early-career TA pros need to hear about staying relevant in a market that keeps changing underneath them.

Katie on LinkedIn

LHH Recruitment Solutions

A Beautiful Working World

A Soundbeam Studios Production

Key takeaways

• Stop trying to detect AI in applications. The detective work is exhausting, biased, and misses great candidates
• It's not "did you use AI?" It's "can you defend and own what's on the page?"
• AI can surface and prioritize candidates, but a human must make every decision on whether someone moves forward. Surfacing is not the same as deciding.
• A four-day work week only works if leadership actually models it.
• Write your rubric before you turn on any AI screening tool, or you will just be scaling your existing biases across thousands of candidates.