In this episode of the Truth Works Podcast, host Jessica Neal welcomes Richard Ezekiel — a seasoned executive, strategist, and thought leader in the world of partnerships.

Richard’s career spans venture-backed startups, Fortune 500 companies, and the broader innovation ecosystem. He has built and led transformative partnerships that drive growth, create customer value, and bring together organizations that otherwise might have remained siloed. Over the years, Richard has worked alongside iconic leaders such as John Chambers, Reed Hastings, and Marc Andreessen, shaping high-impact alliances that have left a lasting mark on Silicon Valley and beyond.

He is the author of COELEVATE:

How to Unlock Business Growth and Consumer Value with Strategic Partnerships, a book that distills decades of real-world experience and mentorship into a practical framework for creating partnerships that endure. COELEVATE explores why 70% of partnerships fail, how to de-risk alliances, and how to treat partnerships as a disciplined business function capable of unlocking exponential growth.

Whether you’re a founder, executive, or someone navigating the complexities of organizational collaboration, Richard’s insights offer a roadmap to building relationships that matter.

Richard has a special PROMO code for Truth works listeners. Email us at yash@astrasmedia.com to avail them or dm Richard.

“If the book inspires you, the author would be grateful if you left a review—it really helps spread the word.”
👉 coelevatebook.com/ar

On this solo episode of Truth Works, host Jessica Neal sits down with Eduardo Briceño, author of The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action and one of the world’s leading voices on growth mindset.

From Caracas to Silicon Valley, VC to education, Eduardo unpacks how living in constant performance mode stalls progress—and how deliberately switching into the learning zone unlocks long-term excellence.

We get tactical: redesigning meeting agendas so learning isn’t an afterthought, building daily habits for reflection, modeling feedback, and balancing short-term execution with bold, long-term goals. Jessica shares inside stories from Netflix—farming for dissent, the informed captain model, leading with context, and why over-communication beats under-communication every time—while Eduardo shows how to turn those ideas into repeatable systems that compound.

You’ll learn:

• The difference between learning vs. performance zones—and when to be in each
• Simple agenda tweaks that make every meeting smarter
• How to normalize feedback and dissent without slowing execution
• A daily question leaders can use to keep teams unblocked and aligned

Find Eduardo’s TED Talks, newsletter, and more—and don’t forget to check out The Performance Paradox.

In this episode, Kweilin Ellingrud—Director at the McKinsey Global Institute and Senior Partner at McKinsey,

breaks down the gender pay gap as a solvable, data-driven problem. We trace where inequity actually begins (the “broken rung” at first promotion), how it compounds through performance reviews and caregiving penalties, and why “it’s just choices” doesn’t hold up once you control for role and tenure.

Kweilin shares the fixes leaders can implement this quarter: transparent pay bands, balanced promotion slates, skills-based hiring, disciplined pay equity audits, and manager training that sticks. We also explore how AI and productivity gains could widen or close the gap—depending on governance. You’ll leave with a six-step playbook, concrete KPIs to track progress, and quick experiments any org can run to make fair pay the default.