THE PRACTICE
learning, brand & culture.
Learning shapes how we grow. Brand shapes how we show up. Culture and collaboration shape how we work together. These are the threads that run through everything we do, and everything we write about here.
hr world summit: a recap
🇵🇹 Just wrapped HR World Summit.
The mood was… honest. 🥴😅 There’s mild trauma-bonding even among seasoned People leaders: anxiety around AI, as everyone works out how to match the speed of the technology, + the push from higher up, with the slower realities of how orgs adopt it.
Trust is a legit barrier and this challenge goes beyond our respective company walls: when politics + permission structures “reward” big-name companies for making sudden, drastic cuts, it ripples through our collective consciousness, and our People teams are left to rewrite these narratives from the inside.
My thoughts + favorite takeaways for impact right now:
Learning & Collaboration’s Sweet Spot (2-min)
There's a recipe for creating impactful learning & collaboration experiences. It comes down to a sweet spot I've found working with some of the world's most recognizable brands.
“What Is A Learning Philosophy?” (1 min)
Many orgs have Marketing / Product / Design / Service philosophies to guide how decisions get made across teams, regions + roles and how we show up for customers. Why not articulate what our companies believe about People Development (and share these ideas with the world)? 💁♀️
L&D’s True Value (1 min)
L&D teams can deliver speed, scale & metrics yet I would argue our value lies in shaping subtler dynamics.
Designing For Alignment, Collaboration & Belonging (1 min)
Belonging, alignment, and collaboration need to (and can be!) designed for.
Scaling Organizational Culture (2 min)
Cultural ambition has to be explicitly expressed + given guardrails, especially when scaling. Otherwise the strongest or loudest voices will create it.🎙️ I've seen this firsthand (with varying degrees of success, candidly) at renowned brands like lululemon, Zalando, Adidas, Apple and On and talked through a couple of ways I've worked to impact it w/ Adam Lacey & The Assemble You team.
U.S. Soccer Federation: High-Performance Leadership
“People need to know their input will impact the work, not just validate a leader's thinking.”
Human-Centered Onboarding
🙋♂️ Ever felt imposter syndrome on Day One of a new job? You're not alone — 65% of us have, 22% say it dragged down our first-week performance, and ~50% experienced some sort of physio-emotional response 🥴 (Forbes)… So what to do about it?
Speaking @ Go Tech World 2025, Bucharest
🙋 To CEOs, CHROs & CPOs in my network:
"Is your L&D function a culture amplifier — or have you relegated it merely to content creation + workshop facilitation?"
I'm speaking at GoTech World 2025 in Bucharest on November 11th about this exact distinction.
"𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲, 𝗔𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱: 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗜𝘁 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗕𝗲"
In an era where AI is changing how we learn, a clear cultural North Star can keep growth aligned + on-brand.
Community Exploration: The Human Side Of A.I. In L&D (w/ Sana)
It was refreshing — and, candidly, moving — to have real conversations about everything from excitement to the nerves people might feel around AI. Using Sana’s state-of-the-art product, we surfaced the feelings, insights + real conversations many of us are having with our teams about integrating AI into learning & collaboration.
A one-pager for your team.
A one-page overview of how we work, ready to forward.