Keep Moving Forward

Welcome to Keep Moving Forward, a biweekly podcast from X-Team for tech professionals who are passionate about growth, leadership, and innovation. In this podcast, we'll talk to seasoned tech leaders, forward-thinking engineers, and visionary experts about the lessons they’ve learned on scaling high-performing teams, navigating complex challenges, and driving innovation. Subscribe now, share with your colleagues, and let’s keep moving forward together.

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Episodes 41

Why Managers Can't Be Mind Readers
6d ago · 33:43
An employee spent two years waiting for a promotion he never once asked for. His manager had no idea he wanted it. Ben Brooks, founder and CEO of PILOT, has watched that gap play out from both sides of the desk more times than he can count. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, he breaks down why assuming someone already knows what you want almost never works, why he built his company around a list of problems instead of one big idea, and where AI coaching quietly trades accountability for approval. They cover: - Why an employee waited two years to ask for a promotion he thought he'd already
Did Your AI Implementation Strategy Forget About the People Who Execute It?
26d ago · 50:37
Your AI implementation strategy is only as good as the talent you have to execute it. This episode of Keep Moving Forward is adapted from a live webinar hosted by Gemma Versace of X-Team in partnership with SmartBrief featuring Craig Stewart, senior vice president of product and engineering at Stord, Paola Jacobs, vice president of human resources at Stord, and Christine Park, chief people and AI transformation officer at Branch. They talk about why executives report far more confidence in their organization's AI talent than the people doing the day-to-day work actually feel, what AI talent re
You Won’t Find This Enterprise AI Adoption in a Dashboard
1mo ago · 36:40
Many organizations manage enterprise AI adoption through watching login counts. Track usage, watch the dashboard climb, call it done. Porter Orr watches for something different: a language shift, the moment a team stops calling the tool "it" and starts giving it a name. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Porter explains why measuring AI success only in cost savings is a mistake, how his team built adoption in stages, and the exact language shift that tells him a tool has been fully embraced in organizational workflows. They cover: - Why focusing only on cost savings with AI is thinking to
Why Better AI Governance Is Your Fastest Path to Scale
2mo ago · 28:34
Most organizations treat AI governance like a gate. Something legal wants before anyone can move. It’s actually not a gate. It’s an on-ramp. That’s why Rob Stone built it first and says that's exactly what let SS&C deploy at scale. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Gemma Versace sits down with Rob Stone, who runs the $550 million AI and automation business at SS&C Technologies, to talk about why AI governance is the fastest path to production and what it actually takes to move from pilots to agents to agentic AI. They cover: • Why unsanctioned AI use is already inside your organization •
AI for Managers: Why the Annual Review Is Already Prehistoric
2mo ago · 36:53
Giving employees formal feedback once a year is prehistoric. Once a quarter is medieval. And most organizations are still doing both. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Gemma Versace sits down with Arnaud Grunwald, chief product officer at ClearCo, to talk about why the philosophy behind the annual performance review no longer holds up and what AI for managers is about to replace it with. They cover: - Why the scheduled feedback model is already running out of road - What real AI adoption looks like beyond the product layer - How to build leadership alignment that holds under pressure - W
AI Literacy: Why Confidence ≠ Capability in Skill Assessment
3mo ago · 30:10
Most organizations think self-assessment tells them what their people are capable of. It doesn’t. It tells them how confident their people are. Those aren’t the same thing — and the gap between them is quietly distorting how teams get staffed, developed, and led. Dustin Clinard, CEO of Ignis AI, has spent close to two decades watching this play out. In this episode of the Keep Moving Forward podcast, I sit down with Dustin to dig into why self-assessment is so unreliable when it comes to skills, why L&D investment has been nearly impossible to measure, and why the most important shift an engin
Dan Bladen on Why Hybrid Work Goes Wrong
3mo ago · 28:32
Many companies are having the wrong conversation about hybrid work — and it could be costing them their best engineers. Dan Bladen, CEO of Kadence, has spent years helping organizations design smarter, more intentional ways of working. His take: the word "hybrid" has stopped being useful, return-to-office mandates are usually a leadership problem in disguise, and the distributed teams that built strong documentation habits for remote work are sitting on a structural AI advantage most of them haven't fully recognized yet. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Gemma Versace sits down with Dan
Kevin Andrews: When Experimentation Can't Outrun Accountability
4mo ago · 32:41
For most tech leaders, a bad call means a missed milestone. For Kevin Andrews, it means someone doesn't get paid. Kevin is President of PrismHR and CTO of Vensure Employer Solutions, two companies handling payroll and HR for more than 160,000 small businesses and processing nearly $160 billion in payroll annually. In this episode, host Gemma Versace talks with Kevin about what responsible AI adoption looks like when the stakes are this concrete. They get into the governance-first framework Kevin applies across his 400-person AI-enabled developer team, why no one actually has 20 years of AI exp
Esha Joshi: How to Make Communication Skills Training Actually Stick
4mo ago · 29:39
Your team completed the workshop. They did the role play. They said it was amazing. Then they went back to their desks and kept doing exactly what they were doing before. Esha Joshi, co-founder and Chief Customer Officer at Yoodli, has spent years watching this pattern repeat inside some of the world's largest companies. She says the problem with most communication skills training isn't the content. It's that behavior change never gets built into the workflow — and when it doesn't, nothing sticks. In this episode, Esha explains what actually drives adoption of AI-powered communication tools, w
Victoria Pelletier on Building Belief, Not Just Strategy, to Drive Real Transformation
5mo ago · 31:01
Your transformation roadmap is set. The strategy looks solid. Leadership is aligned. So why does nothing seem to actually change? Victoria Pelletier, global vice president at Kyndryl and keynote speaker, has led change through more than 40 mergers and acquisitions in some of the world's most complex technology environments. She argues that the biggest blocker to transformation is not technology. The obstacle is whether people believe in the change and whether the right leaders are in the right roles to carry it out. In this episode, Victoria explains how organizations mistake busy delivery for
Richard Sonnenblick on Why AI Decision Making Determines Enterprise Success
5mo ago · 31:24
Your enterprise AI agents are up and running. The outputs look polished. The answers sound confident. So why do decisions still feel risky? Richard Sonnenblick, Chief Data Scientist at Planview, has built decision systems in high risk industries where bad data leads to real consequences. He argues the biggest challenge with enterprise AI is not autonomy. It is data quality and human ownership. In this episode, Rich explains how outdated systems of record quietly train AI on optimistic fiction, why garbage in still means garbage out, and what practical agent driven workflows can prove ROI in th
Rajesh Natarajan: Trust Is an Architecture Decision
6mo ago · 29:38
Most AI adoption conversations focus on speed and capability. Raj Natarajan focuses on what those conversations skip: trust as a design requirement. In this episode, the global CTO of Gorilla Technology Group breaks down the five decisions that determine whether an AI system will be trusted long-term, and why sovereign AI is reshaping where data centers are built, how models are trained, and how systems are secured.
Vishnu V. Ram on Mentoring for Leadership Success
6mo ago · 33:35
Great leaders aren’t just experts in their field—they’re mentors, problem-solvers, and collaborators who empower others to succeed. In this episode, we talk to Vishnu V. Ram, Vice President of Engineering at Credit Karma, about his career journey, leadership philosophy, and the innovations driving Credit Karma’s success. Vishnu reflects on his early experiences during the dot-com boom, shares insights into navigating challenges in data science, and emphasizes the importance of mentorship, collaboration, and continuous learning. Vishnu offers actionable advice for tech leaders looking to build
Paul Gentile on Why AI Adoption Fails Without Trust
6mo ago · 33:15
Your AI rollout looked fine on paper. The launch happened. The training got done. The metrics held. So why is your team still running everything on spreadsheets? Paul Gentile, former senior director of pre-sales engineering and architecture at Broadcom, has spent years inside some of the largest enterprise tech environments in the world, and he says most AI adoption failures aren't technology problems. They're trust problems. And by the time leaders notice, it's already too late. In this episode, Paul breaks down the quiet signals that adoption is failing, why your highest performers are often
How nCino’s Will Jung Is Rewriting AI Strategy for Banking
8mo ago · 33:33
Most banks are using AI to cut costs and speed up workflows. Will Jung thinks they’re focusing on the wrong set of problems. As CTO of nCino — and a former bank exec himself — he’s looking for ways to reimagine the entire customer experience. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Will shares how his team is building explainable AI agents that augment expertise, why trust is the real unlock in regulated industries, and how engineering leaders can drive AI-native transformation through clarity, context, and culture.
Inside Thomson Reuters’ AI Adoption Strategy
8mo ago · 34:08
Joel Hron, chief technology officer at Thomson Reuters, shares the AI adoption strategy that his team used to achieve 80% uptake across a 5,000-person engineering organization. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Joel explains how innovation becomes everyone’s job, how he pushed through early failures, and how grounding AI work in deep subject matter expertise creates lasting competitive advantage.
AppDirect’s Andy Sen on Building a Bottom-Up AI Culture
9mo ago · 30:43
Andy Sen, chief technology officer and co-founder of AppDirect, shares how bottom-up experimentation accelerates AI adoption, strengthens ownership, and unlocks unexpected innovation across teams. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Andy breaks down why fear fades when people start to use AI, how celebration drives more progress than mandates, and what leaders should focus on when beginning their AI journey.
Planet DDS’s Mike Gibson on Empathy as a Performance Driver
9mo ago · 32:44
Mike Gibson, chief technology officer at Planet DDS, shares how empathy drives performance, why clarity builds trust, and how communication holds distributed teams together. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Mike explains how to lead through change with transparency, build autonomy through trust, and create the space teams need to innovate—even in fast-moving, high-stakes tech environments.
Fanatics’ Justin Kerestes on Remote Leadership, Scaling Fast, and Operational Excellence
10mo ago · 34:56
Justin Kerestes, SVP of Engineering at Fanatics Betting & Gaming, shares how trusted leadership is built through everyday interactions, why culture demands flexible leadership across contexts, and how to scale fast without sacrificing stability. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, he explains the ROI of 35 weekly 1:1s in a remote-first org, a practical operational excellence playbook, and where AI actually moves the needle in sports betting.
Ancestry’s Suresh Teckchandani on Non-Negotiables, Innovation, and the AI Shift
10mo ago · 31:12
Ancestry’s Suresh Teckchandani, VP of Product and Engineering, has led teams through transformation by defining non-negotiables, treating innovation as an everyday discipline, and preparing for AI’s impact on engineering. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, he explains why principles create alignment, how small innovations add up to big outcomes, and how AI can free teams to focus on what matters most.
GitLab’s Tim Zallmann on Building Distributed Teams That Move Fast
11mo ago · 42:08
Tim Zallmann, Vice President of Engineering at GitLab, has spent nearly a decade shaping one of the world’s largest fully remote organizations. His approach to leadership is built on trust, clarity, and adaptability — giving teams the confidence to move fast and innovate together. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Tim shares why proof of concepts are one of the most powerful tools for experimentation and alignment, how distributed teams can stay connected without slowing down, and why AI represents the most significant wave of innovation since the internet.
Zscaler’s Ayesha Mahmood on Leading With Adaptability and Empathy
11mo ago · 35:41
Ayesha Mahmood, vice president of software engineering at Zscaler, has built her career on adaptability, empathy, and a commitment to growth. From building frameworks at Apple that remain in use more than a decade later to leading global teams through rapid technology shifts, she believes leadership starts by meeting people where they are. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Ayesha shares lessons on situational leadership, how to balance developer experience and long-term strategy, and why adaptive user interfaces will transform cybersecurity.
Bala Muthiah: Building Teams and Cultures with Systems Thinking
1y ago · 36:38
Bala Muthiah, director of engineering at Lyft, believes that leadership is less about having the answers and more about creating space for people to grow. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Bala shares how volunteering at a local school inspired his shift into leadership, why clarity of purpose transforms teams, and how empathy and communication build resilient engineering cultures. Whether you’re navigating the move from individual contributor to leader or looking to strengthen your leadership style, Bala’s lessons on trust, purpose, and people-first thinking will guide you.
Disney Streaming’s Brandon Lonac on Building Engineering Teams With Respect and Clear Communication
1y ago · 35:32
Brandon Lonac is vice president of software engineering at Disney Streaming, where he's helping scale Hulu, integrate Disney+, and drive innovation for millions of viewers worldwide. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Brandon shares how respect and clear communication shape his engineering leadership. He discusses how to create inclusive team cultures, proactively manage technical debt, and empower teams through curiosity and autonomy. Brandon also explains why simple manners — like saying “please” and “thank you” — make a big difference in team performance and sense of safety. Whether yo
Abhishek Kumar: Why Great Engineering Leadership Starts With Mindset
1y ago · 40:15
Abhishek Kumar is vice president of engineering at Trellix, where he leads globally distributed teams focused on AI-driven threat detection and security innovation. In this episode of Keep Moving Forward, Abhishek shares how mindset influences hiring, why proactive leadership matters more than ever, and how mentorship helps develop the next generation of engineering leaders. He also reflects on lessons learned from two decades in cybersecurity. This conversation is packed with takeaways for anyone building and scaling engineering teams in complex, fast-moving environments.

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Keep Moving Forward

Episodes 41

Why Managers Can't Be Mind Readers

Did Your AI Implementation Strategy Forget About the People Who Execute It?

You Won’t Find This Enterprise AI Adoption in a Dashboard

Why Better AI Governance Is Your Fastest Path to Scale

AI for Managers: Why the Annual Review Is Already Prehistoric

AI Literacy: Why Confidence ≠ Capability in Skill Assessment

Dan Bladen on Why Hybrid Work Goes Wrong

Kevin Andrews: When Experimentation Can't Outrun Accountability

Esha Joshi: How to Make Communication Skills Training Actually Stick

Victoria Pelletier on Building Belief, Not Just Strategy, to Drive Real Transformation

Richard Sonnenblick on Why AI Decision Making Determines Enterprise Success

Rajesh Natarajan: Trust Is an Architecture Decision

Vishnu V. Ram on Mentoring for Leadership Success

Paul Gentile on Why AI Adoption Fails Without Trust

How nCino’s Will Jung Is Rewriting AI Strategy for Banking

Inside Thomson Reuters’ AI Adoption Strategy

AppDirect’s Andy Sen on Building a Bottom-Up AI Culture

Planet DDS’s Mike Gibson on Empathy as a Performance Driver

Fanatics’ Justin Kerestes on Remote Leadership, Scaling Fast, and Operational Excellence

Ancestry’s Suresh Teckchandani on Non-Negotiables, Innovation, and the AI Shift

GitLab’s Tim Zallmann on Building Distributed Teams That Move Fast

Zscaler’s Ayesha Mahmood on Leading With Adaptability and Empathy

Bala Muthiah: Building Teams and Cultures with Systems Thinking

Disney Streaming’s Brandon Lonac on Building Engineering Teams With Respect and Clear Communication

Abhishek Kumar: Why Great Engineering Leadership Starts With Mindset

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Episodes 41

Why Managers Can't Be Mind Readers

Did Your AI Implementation Strategy Forget About the People Who Execute It?

You Won’t Find This Enterprise AI Adoption in a Dashboard

Why Better AI Governance Is Your Fastest Path to Scale

AI for Managers: Why the Annual Review Is Already Prehistoric

AI Literacy: Why Confidence ≠ Capability in Skill Assessment

Dan Bladen on Why Hybrid Work Goes Wrong

Kevin Andrews: When Experimentation Can't Outrun Accountability

Esha Joshi: How to Make Communication Skills Training Actually Stick

Victoria Pelletier on Building Belief, Not Just Strategy, to Drive Real Transformation

Richard Sonnenblick on Why AI Decision Making Determines Enterprise Success

Rajesh Natarajan: Trust Is an Architecture Decision

Vishnu V. Ram on Mentoring for Leadership Success

Paul Gentile on Why AI Adoption Fails Without Trust

How nCino’s Will Jung Is Rewriting AI Strategy for Banking

Inside Thomson Reuters’ AI Adoption Strategy

AppDirect’s Andy Sen on Building a Bottom-Up AI Culture

Planet DDS’s Mike Gibson on Empathy as a Performance Driver

Fanatics’ Justin Kerestes on Remote Leadership, Scaling Fast, and Operational Excellence

Ancestry’s Suresh Teckchandani on Non-Negotiables, Innovation, and the AI Shift

GitLab’s Tim Zallmann on Building Distributed Teams That Move Fast

Zscaler’s Ayesha Mahmood on Leading With Adaptability and Empathy

Bala Muthiah: Building Teams and Cultures with Systems Thinking

Disney Streaming’s Brandon Lonac on Building Engineering Teams With Respect and Clear Communication

Abhishek Kumar: Why Great Engineering Leadership Starts With Mindset