Leading Women in Tech Podcast

Hosted by Toni Collis

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100

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Jun 2026

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About the show

For ambitious women ready to rise, lead, and thrive — without burning out. Are you delivering results… but still waiting to be seen as a true leader? Tired of performance reviews with praise — but no promotion? Hosted by Dr. Toni Collis, executive coach for women in tech, this podcast is your go-to leadership toolkit. Whether you're a rising Director, lone female VP, or overextended operator tired of being overlooked — you're in the right place. Each week, Toni shares real-world leadership strategies, career advancement frameworks, and executive presence tools to help you: ✅ Build strategic visibility ✅ Communicate like a trusted exec ✅ Navigate politics with integrity ✅ Advocate for yourself (without overworking) ✅ Lead with confidence, clarity, and influence You'll also hear powerful interviews with women who've paved the way — and candid conversations on the unspoken challenges women face in male-dominated industries. ✨ If you're ready to go from "she's great" to "she's the obvious next Exec" — hit follow.

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June 16, 2026Episode 30538 min

305: High-Performance Leadership Starts With This: Burnout, Self-Care and Small Changes with Sheetal Ajmani

Burnout isn't a personal failure. It's a clinical condition with three specific characteristics — and understanding exactly what it is may be the first step toward actually recovering from it. Sheetal Ajmani, physician turned speaker, coach, and consultant, joins Toni for a conversation that reframes burnout and self-care from the ground up. Sheetal practiced pediatrics for over 16 years and experienced burnout multiple times across her career — the first time in 2006, when nobody was talking about it, and the most recent in 2022, when she made the decision to step away from clinical medicine entirely. This episode goes deep on what burnout actually is, why high-achieving women are so skilled at missing the signs, and what self-care genuinely needs to look like to make a difference — hint: it's not the bubble bath. What we cover: ⏹ The clinical definition of burnout — three characteristics, and why naming them matters ⏹ Eustress vs distress: where helpful stress ends and burnout begins ⏹ Why high-achieving women are the last to see burnout coming in themselves ⏹ Anticipatory burnout — the specific exhaustion that comes from knowing a change is coming but not being able to make it yet ⏹ Self-care redefined: why the most impactful forms take less time than you think ⏹ Micro moments of self-care — what they look like and how to find yours ⏹ The difference between self-care and self-improvement (they are not the same thing) ⏹ The Ayurvedic whole-person lens on well-being — and why your emotions, relationships, and career all affect your health ⏹ The one thing Sheetal wants every woman to start doing today ⏹ Why small changes make a larger impact than grand wellness gestures ⏹ The inner critic that adds layers of judgment on top of an already hard experience ⏹ Why burnout is an individual stress response within a social context — and what that means for systemic change Connect with Sheetal Ajmani ⏹ Website: radiantlivinginstitute.com ⏹ Podcast: Essential Self Care: https://www.radiantlivinginstitute.com/podcasts/essential-self-care ⏹ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sheetalajmani

June 9, 2026Episode 30253 min

304: How to Shine In A Crisis: The Adaptive Crisis Leadership Toolkit for Staying Grounded When Everything Shifts

When everything is shifting — a restructure, a board crisis, a project on the edge of collapse, or just the relentless uncertainty of leading a team through sustained change — the expectation is that you hold it together. You stay steady. You have the answers. But nobody tells you how. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, Toni Collis builds out the adaptive leadership toolkit every senior leader needs for navigating a genuine crisis — not the kind of crisis leadership that sounds good in a conference keynote, but the practical, honest, unglamorous work of staying grounded when everything around you is shifting. This is not about eliminating the pressure. It is about developing the specific capabilities that let you remain clear, present, and effective within it. What's covered: Why crisis leadership is a trainable capability, not a personality trait — and why the unruffled leader you're comparing yourself to is a fiction The team-speed problem: why your team is not where you are emotionally, and what it actually means to meet people where they are Crisis communication as a leadership skill — not just a PR function. The specific language that calms, orients, and aligns your team when they're in crisis mode. And why you need to say it far more times than you think The internal dimension: staying grounded in yourself before you can hold space for anyone else Protecting decision quality when the stakes are highest — the difference between genuine urgency and anxiety-driven urgency The blame game, why a crisis is never the time to play it, and the story from early in Toni's career that has stayed with her ever since The isolation of senior leadership in a crisis — and the structural responses that make it manageable Related episodes: Episode 170 - Does it have to be lonely at the top? Drawing the line between being a boss and a friend Episode 243 - Struggling to Be Heard? Master Leadership Communication Strategies and Coach Upwards Episode 248 - Recognizing the Signs: Identifying Early Indicators of Burnout Episode 250 — Leading Through Change Episode 274 - How to Stop Overthinking at Work: Tools for Clear, Confident Leadership Decisions. Episode 278 - When No One Listens — How to Lead When Your Voice Isn't Heard Episode 294 — Burnout-Proof Leadership Episode 298 - When the Stakes Are High, Does Your Voice Go Quiet? How to Communicate With Clarity Under Pressure Ready to work through a genuinely difficult period with support? Book a strategy call: tonicollis.com/lets-chat

June 2, 2026Episode 30337 min

303: How to Become an Industry Leader: Serendipity, Quiet Confidence and the C-Suite with Charli Rogers

What does it actually take to become an industry leader when you never planned to be one? Charli Rogers, Chief Customer Officer at Botify, joins Toni for a conversation that covers the full arc of her leadership journey — from an accidental start in tech to leading customer success teams of 150-200 people across multiple continents, to taking her first CCO seat at a company sitting right at the intersection of search, AI discoverability, and the future of how brands get found. This conversation covers all things great leadership from quiet confidence, allyship in executive teams, what holding space for women in a boardroom actually looks like in practice, and the language shift — "and" versus "but" — that Charli teaches every woman she mentors. Charli also gets honest about the biggest challenge she's navigating right now: how do you lead an AI-forward customer experience function while keeping the team delivering, changing everything about how you operate, and nobody really knows what the next two years look like? If you're figuring out what kind of leader you want to be, how to back yourself at the next level, or how to build allies in rooms that weren't always built for you — this is the episode. What we cover: ◾ The serendipitous career path from accidental tech foray to Chief Customer Officer ◾ Why Charli put her hand up for people leadership before she felt ready — and what happened next ◾ Quiet confidence: what it really looks like at the executive level and why it's different from the performative kind ◾ The "and" vs "but" language shift and why words matter more than most leaders realize vAllyship in the exec room — what it looks like when it becomes second nature rather than a conscious act ◾ Holding space for women in a male-dominated executive team: practical, not theoretical ◾ AI in customer experience — leading an AI-forward function while the team keeps delivering today ◾ Building a virtual board of directors and why network investment is a long-term leadership strategy ◾ The worst piece of advice Charli was ever given: "dial it down, Charli" ◾ Confidence plus capacity: why both are non-negotiable and how to know when it's time to speak up **Useful links** ◾ Connect with today's guest and sponsor, Charli Rogers and Botify: ◾ Charli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlirogers/ ◾ Botify: https://www.botify.com/ This episode was sponsored by our guest, Charli Rogers at Botify. Thank you Charli for helping to bring Leading Women in Tech to this community!

May 26, 2026Episode 30244 min

302: Career Pivots: When You're Ready for Something New

Are you brilliant at your job — but starting to wonder if this is really it? One of the most common and least-talked-about challenges facing senior women in tech is the moment when something needs to change, but you don't know exactly what, and the fear of getting it wrong is keeping you exactly where you are. This is not a "how to find a new job" episode. It is an episode about how to think clearly and strategically about career pivots — before you make a reactive decision you spend the next two years recovering from. Whether you're bored and feeling guilty about it, you know you need to leave but can't see where to go, or you're ready to pivot but don't know where to start — this episode is for you. Keep listening to learn more about: Why the restlessness you're feeling is not a character flaw — it's a signal worth taking seriously The four types of "something needs to change" — and why getting the diagnosis right is what separates a strategic pivot from a reactive one The full range of options available to you — including internal pivots, functional moves, smaller organisations, fractional leadership, and entrepreneurship A five-step framework for thinking through a career pivot strategically without making a decision from your most exhausted place What's really underneath the fear — and why the identity question is the thing that keeps most women stuck What a good career pivot actually looks like — and the one first step to take this week Whether you're actively planning a change or just starting to sit with the question, this episode will help you think more clearly about what you actually want next.

May 19, 2026Episode 30144 min

301: Self-Awareness, AI and Leading as a Neurodivergent VP: How Noe Ramos Found Her Zone of Genius

What if the brain that made you feel like you never quite fit — the one that means you always carry 5 jobs even though technically you only have one, the brain that got bored the moment something stopped being challenging, and that saw the whole system when everyone else wanted you to stay in your lane — turned out to be exactly what the AI era needs? That's not a hypothetical. That's Noe Ramos. And it might just be you too. Noe is Vice President of AI Operations at Agiloft, where she leads the kind of AI transformation that actually works — not the kind that chases efficiency and calls it progress, but the kind that asks what humans need to thrive in a world increasingly shaped by these tools. Noe has spent 23 years being, in her own words, excellent at jobs that were never quite designed for her brain. And it wasn't until she found the right environment, understood her neurodivergence, and stopped filtering out the parts of herself that made her different that everything clicked. In this episode we talk self-awareness as a leadership tool, what it means to build a culture of genuine psychological safety, and why AI transformation is only as good as the humans at the center of it. What we cover: ⏹ 23 years being excellent at jobs never designed for her brain — and what changed ⏹ Systems thinking: what it really means, why women are discouraged from doing it, and how to keep doing it anyway ⏹ Finding the right environment — how Noe figured out what she actually needed and how to diagnose it in a company ⏹ Neurodivergence as a leadership superpower in the AI era ⏹ What authentic leadership really looks like when you've spent a career masking ⏹ Psychological safety: how showing up humanly as a leader creates a ripple effect through your whole team ⏹ Agiloft's human-first AI transformation approach — upskilling people existentially, not just technically ⏹ Role-based vs function-based thinking: why the shift matters for AI adoption ⏹ Visibility vs indispensability — and why being essential at the wrong level is a career trap ⏹ The worst piece of advice Noe was ever given — and the subtlety inside it ⏹ AI as a mirror: what are you bringing to the tool? **Useful links** Connect with today's guest and sponsor, Noe Ramos at Agiloft: ⏹ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/noeramos ⏹ Agiloft: agiloft.com Book a strategy call with Toni: tonicollis.com/lets-chat/ This episode was sponsored by our guest, Noe Ramos. Thank you Noe and Agiloft for helping to bring Leading Women in Tech to this community!

May 12, 2026Episode 30040 min

300: Women in Leadership: 300 Episodes, 1500 Women, and Everything I've Changed My Mind About

Three hundred episodes. Approaching 1500 women coached across corporate tech, startups, and academia. And a long list of things I used to believe that I no longer do. Episode 300 of Leading Women in Tech is different from any episode I've made before. This is not a tips episode. It is not a framework. It is my honest account of what seven years of conversations and nearly 1500 coaching relationships has actually taught me about women in leadership — including the places where the conventional wisdom is wrong, the advice I've heard given to women again and again that has caused real damage, and what I would say now that I would not have said at Episode 1. In this episode I cover: Why leaning in was the wrong answer — not because the system is unfair, but because it asks women to lean into a male model that was never designed for them Why getting a seat at the table was never the whole answer — and what the goal actually is The real problem with "just speak up more" and "just be more confident" — and why telling women to be more confident before they've had the chance to build it is one of the most common ways we set them up to fail Why "you can have it all, just not at the same time" does so much quiet damage — and what to say instead The zone of genius trap that nobody warns you about — and why staying in it is the goal, but only if you notice when it has changed Why you need a mentor, a coach, and a sponsor — and why most senior men in tech have all three while most women have only one What working harder actually costs women — and what to invest in instead Why we are more individual than society would have us believe, and what happens when women stop performing someone else's model of leadership And why, despite everything, I am genuinely optimistic. This episode is for the women who have been listening since the beginning, and for the women who are finding this podcast for the first time. It is my most honest episode yet.

May 5, 2026Episode 30040 min

299: Building a Positive Workplace Culture as a Woman CEO: Ownership, AI and Leading with Joy — with Anusha Iyer

Let's talk about building a positive workplace culture. What does it take to build a workplace where people truly own their work — not just show up for it? Anusha Iyer, Founder and CEO of Corsha, joins Toni to share the unfiltered journey from software engineer to CTO to CEO — and the leadership philosophy that underpins everything she's built along the way. Corsha secures machine-to-machine communications for the operational systems that run our world, from AI agents to robotic controllers in critical infrastructure. It's deep tech solving some of the most important and underprotected problems in cybersecurity today. But this conversation isn't just about technology. It's about ownership culture, the realities of founding a company as a woman, how to pivot without destroying your team, and why joy at work isn't a soft concept — it's a strategic one. Anusha also gets into the AI thread that's running through every organisation right now: why diverse voices need to be shaping these tools while the models are still being trained, and why using AI as an assistant rather than a replacement is a leadership decision, not just a preference. What we cover: The real financial and personal cost of starting a startup — and why it's worth it How to make strategic pivots without flip-flopping and exhausting your team The power of saying no — to customers, to money, to scope creep Building a positive workplace culture through ownership: the Joy at Work framework The CTO-to-CEO transition: what changes, what doesn't, and the vulnerability that makes it work Why the E in CEO stands for evangelist — and what that means for how you lead Communication training for the whole team, not just the C-suite AI as an assistant, not a replacement — and why women need to be in these tools now The 100% job spec problem — and the mindset shift women need to make Why diverse voices matter in AI training right now, while it still counts Connect with Anusha and Corhsa: https://corsha.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/anusha-iyer/ Resources mentioned in this episode Read the book Joy At Work by Dennis W. Bakke Emma Wainer, public speaking coach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmawainer/ Listen to Emma on the Podcast: Episode 107 - Being a great communicator with Emma Wainer Book a strategy call with Toni: tonicollis.com/lets-chat This episode was sponsored by our guest, Anusha Iyer. Thank you Anusha & Corsha for helping to bring Leading Women in Tech to this community!

April 28, 2026Episode 29836 min

298: How to Communicate With Clarity Under Pressure: Leadership Skills for Women in Tech

Do you communicate with clarity when the stakes are high — or does your voice go quiet at exactly the moment it matters most? In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, I break down one of the most underrated leadership skills for women in tech: communicating with clarity under pressure. Not when things are calm and you've had time to prepare — but when someone challenges you in front of the leadership team, when an executive asks a question you weren't expecting, or when you can feel the room watching to see how you respond. This is not about confidence. It's not about personality. It's about a conditioned nervous system response — and a set of practical, trainable tools to work with it. In this episode: ⏹ Why communication breaks down under pressure — the real physiology behind the freeze, the ramble, the hedge spiral, and the shutdown ⏹ Why this shows up differently for women in tech — and why "just be more confident" is both wrong and unhelpful ⏹ The reframe that changes everything: clarity under pressure is a trained skill, not a personality trait ⏹ Five practical tools you can start building this week, including the one-sentence anchor, the strategic pause, the pressure-proof redirect, and the high-stakes pre-mortem ⏹ Where to start — a sequenced action plan so you build the skill without overwhelming yourself If you've ever walked out of a meeting thinking "why didn't I just say X?", this episode will tell you exactly why — and exactly what to do about it. Learn more about communication: Episode 243 — Struggling to Be Heard? Master Leadership Communication Strategies and Coach Upwards Ready to work on this in the context of your specific leadership challenges? Book a strategy call: tonicollis.com/lets-chat/

April 21, 2026Episode 29741 min

297: AI Leadership Strategy: Your 90-Day Blueprint for Winning with AI — with Charlene Li

If your organization is running AI pilots that aren't moving the needle, waiting for the right moment to commit, or treating AI as a technology problem for IT to solve — this episode is the reset you need. Charlene Li, NYT bestselling author and one of the world's leading voices on disruptive leadership, joins Toni for her second appearance on Leading Women in Tech. When she was last on the show in Episode 225 (Run To Disruption), the AI conversation was just beginning to accelerate. Now, with her new book Winning with AI: The 90-Day Blueprint for Success freshly published, Charlene brings a framework that is both more urgent and more practical than anything most organisations are currently working with. This is a conversation about AI leadership strategy — not as a technology decision, but as a leadership and strategic imperative. And it has particular resonance for women in tech, who face a specific version of this challenge: the deeply conditioned pressure to be certain before acting, and what that costs us when the window for leadership is open right now. What we cover in this episode: ⏹ Why you don't need an AI strategy — you need an AI roadmap that serves your existing business strategy ⏹ The 95% pilot failure rate, and what to do instead of running pilots ⏹ The 18-month rolling AI roadmap: how to write strategy in ink and your roadmap in pencil ⏹ Speed as the new competitive moat — and what that means for leaders who wait for certainty before acting ⏹ The specific challenge women face: perfectionism, scrutiny, and the risk of sitting out the AI transition ⏹ What AI fluency actually looks like — and why becoming fluent publicly is a leadership act, not a vulnerability ⏹ The "how did you use AI to prepare for this meeting?" technique — and why it changes team culture fast ⏹ The superhuman thesis: what happens when uniquely human skills (empathy, judgment, wisdom, intuition) meet AI capability ⏹ Why the good people have to show up — and why women's voices are non-negotiable in shaping how AI is used Connect with Charlene — today's guest and sponsor: ⏹ Website: charleneli.com ⏹ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/charleneli ⏹ Book: winningwithaibook.com Mentioned in this episode: ⏹ Episode 225 — Run To Disruption with Charlene Li: tonicollis.com/leading-women-tech/225-run-to-disruption-charlene-li Connect with Toni: ⏹ tonicollis.com ⏹ tonicollis.com/lets-chat This episode was sponsored by our guest, Charlene Li. Thank you Charlene for helping to bring Leading Women in Tech to this community!

April 14, 2026Episode 29641 min

296: Office Politics for Women Who Hate Office Politics

Office politics. Just reading those words probably made you want to click away — and that reaction is exactly why this episode exists. If you're a high-achieving woman in tech who has built your career on results, integrity, and doing excellent work, the idea of navigating office politics probably feels like a compromise. Like you'd be becoming someone you don't recognise. But here's what nobody says out loud: not engaging with office politics is itself a political choice. And for most high-performing women in tech leadership, it's one that is quietly costing them promotions, visibility, and influence — regardless of how good their work is. In this episode, Executive Coach Dr Toni Collis breaks down the critical distinction between the toxic version of office politics (which you should absolutely avoid) and the strategic, integrity-consistent leadership work of building influence, visibility, and advocates — which most high-achieving women have been avoiding along with it. This is not about becoming a different person. It's about leading fully in the organisation you're actually in. What you'll learn in this episode: ⏹ Why we as high-achieving women often resist office politics — and the specific career cost of that resistance ⏹ The two completely different things most women are calling "office politics" — and why separating them changes everything ⏹ Five practical moves for building influence and strategic visibility without compromising your values ⏹ How to build advocates (not just allies) who speak up for you in the rooms you're not in ⏹ The integrity check that tells you whether you're building genuine influence or drifting into game-playing Links and resources mentioned: ⏹ Take the Office Politics Quiz for Women in Tech: tonicollis.com/resources/office-politics-quiz ⏹ Book a strategy call: tonicollis.com/lets-chat/ ⏹ Learn more about building your advocates: Episode 292 — From Tactical to Strategic: The Unspoken Rules for Women in Tech Stepping Into Executive Leadership ⏹ Learn more about communication: Episode 243 — Struggling to Be Heard? Master Leadership Communication Strategies and Coach Upwards If this episode resonated, please leave a review and share it with a woman in tech who needs to hear this conversation. Chapters: 00:00 — The coaching conversation that changed everything 01:15 — What this episode is and isn't about 03:08 — Why high-achieving women avoid office politics — and what it's costing them 09:44 — What navigating office politics with integrity actually looks like: three core reframes 18:49 — Five moves that build influence and strategic visibility without selling out 19:12 — Move 1: Map the landscape before you need it 21:25 — Move 2: Invest in relationships before you need them 24:33 — Move 3: Make your impact visible — strategically, not constantly 27:31 — Move 4: Learn to read the room and the organisation 30:15 — Move 5: Build advocates, not just allies 34:22 — The integrity check: how to know you're building influence, not playing games 37:39 — The Office Politics Playbook for Women in Tech Related episodes: ⏹ Episode 112 — If You Don't Openly Celebrate Your Achievements, Who Will? ⏹ Episode 228 — Mastering Your Value: Strategies to Stop Underselling Yourself ⏹ Episode 243 — Struggling to Be Heard? Master Leadership Communication Strategies and Coach Upwards ⏹ Episode 256 — No More Crickets: The Networking Strategy That Lands Jobs in 2025 ⏹ Episode 276 — Busy Does Not Equal Valuable: How to Prioritise Work That Gets You Promoted