Brandon Hall Group- Excellence at Work

Hosted by Rachel Cooke

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Episodes

100

Latest episode

May 2026

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About the show

HCMx Radio is the only podcast in the human capital management arena that features current market research and industry leaders that are driving innovation, modeling business success and enabling competitive performance into each episode. This podcast is produced by independent HCM research and analyst firm, Brandon Hall Group. It is hosted by Rachel Cooke, Michael Rochelle, Mike Cooke and Brandon Hall Group's Analyst Team.

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60 recent

May 20, 2026Episode 32828 min

Episode 328: From the CHRO Seat: AI Implementation Is a People Challenge First

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work podcast, host Rachel Cooke, COO of Brandon Hall Group, sits down with Lisa Cannell, Senior Managing Director of University of Virginia Darden Executive Education and Lifelong Learning, for a conversation that is equal parts strategic wake-up call and practical playbook. Lisa brings 25 years of HR and organizational development experience across corporations and higher education, and what she offers is not a technology perspective on AI but a deeply human one. Her argument is simple and urgent: organizations are getting AI adoption wrong not because they lack tools or talent, but because they are underestimating the people challenge at the center of it. This conversation covers why CHROs are sitting on a rare strategic opportunity, what most organizations are missing in their AI rollouts, and how Darden is helping leadership teams move beyond pilots and into transformation.

May 6, 2026Episode 32711 min

Episode 327: From Activity to Impact: The Wake-Up Call for Learning and Development Leaders

In this Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work Podcast, Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer and Principal Analyst at Brandon Hall Group, joins Anastasia Tsimiklis, Chief Marketing Officer at Explorance, to explore why this is a defining moment for learning and development and what L&D leaders must do to prove their impact, earn their seat at the table, and drive measurable business outcomes. This conversation offers a sneak peek at Michael's keynote, "Performance or Irrelevance: The Moment of Truth for L&D and Talent," taking place at Explorance World 2026 in Boston, June 16-19 at Boston University.

May 1, 2026Episode 32638 min

Excellence at Work Podcast 326: How TraineryHCM Is Weaving AI Into the Fabric of Learning Technology

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work podcast, host, David Wentworth, Managing Director of Learning and Talent, Brandon Hall Group, sits down with Mahesh Kumar, Founder of TraineryHCM, for a wide-ranging conversation that is equal parts origin story and industry forecast. Mahesh brings an unconventional lens to the world of HR technology, one shaped by over two decades on Wall Street across three continents. What emerged from that career was not a planned pivot into SaaS, but what Mahesh himself calls an "accidental" one. The result is a company built with the sensibilities of an enterprise operator: obsessed with scalability, skeptical of hype, and relentlessly focused on client outcomes. This conversation covers how TraineryHCM came to be, what scalability really means in today's learning technology landscape, and how Mahesh is thinking about AI, not as a feature to bolt on, but as something to weave into the fabric of a product.

April 29, 2026Episode 32523 min

Excellence At Work Podcast 325: The Control Tower of Sustainability: How Boehringer Ingelheim Turned Learning Into a Business Strategy

In this Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work Podcast, Rachel Cooke, Chief Operating Officer at Brandon Hall Group, Michael Murphy, Director of the U.S. Office of Sustainable Development for Generations at Boehringer Ingelheim, and Jason Parrish, Director of Corporate Programs at UGA Executive Education, explore how Boehringer Ingelheim's award-winning Sustainable Development Excellence (SDX) program is building a culture of sustainability from the inside out, and why the best solutions to the world's biggest challenges are built through partnership.

April 13, 2026Episode 32426 min

Excellence at Work Podcast Episode 324: How Paylocity's Leading Advantage Program Is Redefining Leadership Pipeline Development

In this episode of the Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work podcast, host Rachel Cooke, COO of Brandon Hall Group, sits down with Angela Ostermann, Senior Manager of Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness at Paylocity, to unpack what it really takes to build a high-performing leadership pipeline before people ever step into the role. Drawing on Paylocity's award-winning Leading Advantage program, which earned a Gold in Leadership and a Silver in Learning and Development from Brandon Hall Group, Angela brings a practitioner's lens to one of the most pressing challenges in organizational development today: turning high-potential individual contributors into confident, capable, and strategically aligned leaders. Angela shares the philosophy behind Leading Advantage, a program purpose-built not for theory, but for real-world application. Designed specifically for Paylocity's operations group, the company's largest and most business-critical division, the program brings together high-performing ICs and prepares them for leadership through structured learning, on-the-job activities, professional coaching, and peer mentorship. The conversation also explores how deep business immersion, cross-functional collaboration, and ongoing iteration have made this program a genuine growth lever and not just a training initiative.

April 9, 2026Episode 32334 min

Excellence at Work Podcast 323: Building Capability in the Age of AI: What L&D Leaders Need to Know

In this Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work Podcast, Rachel Cooke, Chief Operating Officer at Brandon Hall Group, and Scott Kinney, CEO of NovoEd, explore how organizations can navigate volatility, build workforce capability at speed, and make smart, sustainable decisions about AI in learning and development.

April 9, 2026Episode 32226 min

Episode 322: The Great L&D Reset: How Managed Learning Services Are Redefining the Function

In this Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work Podcast, Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer at the Brandon Hall Group, and Soma Bhaduri, Senior Vice President and Business Head at Liberate, explore how the L&D function is being fundamentally rewired and why managed learning services may be the most strategic move available to learning leaders navigating today's pace of change.

April 9, 2026Episode 32122 min

Episode 321: How iSolved's COI Program Is Changing the Way Advisors Serve Clients

In this Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work Podcast, Meredith Riley, Chief Sales Officer for New Business at iSolved, explores how iSolved's Center of Influence (COI) program is transforming the way trusted business advisors deliver value to their clients. From benefit brokers to business bankers and accountants, Meredith breaks down why strategic HCM partnerships are no longer optional in today's rapidly evolving business landscape.

April 9, 2026Episode 32028 min

Episode 320: How Trusted Advisors Are Delivering More Value Through Strategic HCM Partnerships

In this Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work Podcast, Spencer Johnson, Treasury Management Officer at Zions Bank, and Suzanne Santana, Regional Vice President of Sales for the West at iSolved, explore how iSolved's Center of Influence (COI) program is redefining the way trusted business advisors like bankers and brokers deliver strategic value to their small and mid-sized business clients.

March 25, 2026Episode 31928 min

Excellence at Work Podcast 319: Unlocking the Real ROI of AI in the Workplace

In this Brandon Hall Group™ Excellence at Work Podcast, Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer and Principal Analyst, sits down with Peter Mulford, Chief AI Officer and Head of Artificial Intelligence and Innovation at BTS. Together, they explore where organizations truly stand on their AI journeys, why so many are leaving value on the table, and what it actually takes to drive meaningful, measurable ROI from AI, not just incremental productivity gains.