The Catalyst by Softchoice

Hosted by Softchoice

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Episodes

109

Latest episode

Jun 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

A documentary-style podcast about how IT leaders tackle high-stakes transformations. Each episode weaves together real voices, expert insights, and compelling narratives that reveal universal challenges and practical wisdom. Season 7: "Small Teams, Big Dreams" explores the human stories behind IT transformations—from AI adoption experiments to burnout crises, from toxic job markets to infrastructure decisions that matter. These aren't polished case studies. These are authentic accounts from IT professionals navigating the same impossible gaps between expectations and resources that you face every day. From Softchoice, a World Wide Technology company.

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June 3, 2026Episode 227 min

The AI Ethics Episode: Whose Job Is It?

Somewhere in your organization, an AI decision is sitting on someone’s desk right now. Who owns it? In most mid-market companies, nobody does — or rather, it’s landed on the IT leader who was already doing three other jobs.In this episode of The Catalyst, we follow Jeremy Wight, CTO of CareMessage — a patient engagement platform serving 22 million low-income patients across the US — who had to write his organization’s AI policy himself. No committee. No playbook. Just the weight of getting it right for some of the most vulnerable people in the healthcare system.Alongside Jeremy, we hear from Reid Blackman, author of The Ethical Nightmare Challenge and founder of Virtue, who argues that the standard policy-first approach to AI governance is already broken — and offers a framework any team can implement in weeks, not years. Olivia Gambelin, AI ethicist and author of Responsible AI, reframes the vendor selection question entirely: it’s not about auditing their product, it’s about whether their values align with yours. And Anthony Vinci, former intelligence officer and author of The Fourth Intelligence Revolution, draws an unexpected parallel — between the integrity required of a spy with no rulebook, and the integrity required of an IT leader doing the same.====This episode is brought to you by HPE.From AI to data center and network modernization, HPE delivers a cloud-like experience right on your own infrastructure — the full portfolio, from one partner. softchoice.com/technology-partners/hewlett-packard-enterprise ====In this episode:Why the policy-first approach to AI governance is broken — and what to do insteadA practical three-question framework any team can implement this weekHow to evaluate AI vendors by values alignment, not just product capabilityWhat it actually looks like when one IT leader has to make these calls alone — with 22 million patients on the lineFeatured guests: Jeremy Wight (CTO, CareMessage) • Reid Blackman (Founder/CEO, Virtue) • Olivia Gambelin (AI Ethicist & Author) • Anthony Vinci (CEO, VICO) • Craig McQueen (VP Microsoft Practice, Softchoice)#AIEthics #ResponsibleAI #ITLeadership #AIGovernance #TheCatalyst #Softchoice #MidMarket #HPE===Show Notes & ResourcesGuestsJeremy Wight, CTO — CareMessage: caremessage.orgReid Blackman, Founder/CEO — Virtue: reidblackman.com • The Ethical Nightmare Challenge (book, April 2025) • Ethical Machines (HBR Press, 2022)Olivia Gambelin, AI Ethicist: oliviagambelin.com • Responsible AI: Implement an Ethical Approach in Your Organization • Values Canvas framework — free download at oliviagambelin.comAnthony Vinci, CEO — VICO: anthonyvinci.com • The Fourth Intelligence Revolution (Henry Holt, 2025) • VICO forecasting platform: vico.aiCraig McQueen, VP Microsoft Practice — Softchoice, a World Wide Technology CompanySponsorHPE via Softchoice: softchoice.com/technology-partners/hewlett-packard-enterpriseSoftchoice AI & Ethics resources: softchoice.com/EASThe Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

May 13, 2026Episode 128 min

The Inheriting a Mess Episode: When the Building Is Already On Fire, What Do You Do?

Every IT leader has a “day one” story. The moment they opened the server closet, logged into the admin console, or reviewed the vendor contracts and realized the job they were hired for isn’t the job they actually have.In this episode of The Catalyst, we follow Chris Schopf, an IT operations team lead who walked into a new job to find twelve-year-old servers, two unfinished infrastructure projects, and a team that had been poached by the outgoing manager. Then we hear from Leon Adato, a 37-year IT veteran who’s made a career of walking into other people’s messes, and Ned Bellavance, a former consultant who warns that not every mess is actually a mess. Some of it is “purposeful chaos” you just don’t understand yet.What you’ll learn:How to tell the difference between a real disaster and “purposeful chaos” with reasons you don’t understand yetWhy Chris convinced his CEO to stop all projects for two weeks — and how it saved the teamThe three-word business framework that gets IT leaders budget, staff, and permission to fix the mess: revenue, cost, riskWhy learning to “speak business” doesn’t make you less technical — it makes you bilingualFeaturing:Chris Schopf — IT Security Architect Leon Adato — Principal Technical Marketing Engineer, CriblNed Bellavance — Founder, Ned in the Cloud | Podcast Host From Softchoice, a World Wide Technology company — this is The Catalyst.The Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

May 7, 2026Episode 132 min

What's Next on The Catalyst: Season 8

After our biggest season ever — nearly 80,000 downloads, a top 2% global ranking, and a documentary-style approach unlike any other show in B2B tech — host Katey Teekasingh is back to set up what's coming next.Season 8 takes on the questions mid-market IT leaders are quietly wrestling with right now: the rise of accidental AI ethics officers. The imposter feeling that follows even the most senior leaders. The SaaSpocalypse threatening to undo years of cost optimization. What happens when you inherit a mess. The new realities of security and the return to the office. And a lot more.We're bringing you the human side of IT — told like a documentary, not a Q&A.New episodes every second Wednesday. Only on The Catalyst — from Softchoice, a World Wide Technology company.Subscribe now and join the thousands of IT leaders already listening.Listen to back episodes and more: https://www.softchoice.com/podcast The Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

April 22, 2026Episode 1224 min

The Vibe Coding Episode: The Pilot is Dead. Long Live the Pilot.

For decades, building software meant doing eighty percent of the hard work before you had anything to show for it. AI just flipped that equation. And it's creating a risk nobody planned for.In this episode of The Catalyst, host Katey Teekasingh explores vibe coding — the technology that lets anyone build software by describing what they want in plain language. It was named Collins Dictionary's 2025 Word of the Year. It's already inside your organization. And in late 2025, it might have taken down Amazon's own cloud for thirteen hours.Three experts break down where vibe coding genuinely helps, where it's dangerous, and what to put in place before it touches anything that matters.In This EpisodeWhy “the pilot is dead, long live the pilot” — and what that means for how mid-market IT teams test new ideasThe 80/20 flip that makes AI-generated code fundamentally different from everything before itWhat happened at Amazon when an AI coding tool deleted a live production environmentThe five questions every IT leader should answer before a single line of AI code gets generatedGuestsGreg Whalen, CTO, Prove AIRon Espinosa, Director, Google Category, SoftchoiceSean Larkin, AI Principal Architect, SoftchoiceSupport Our SponsorThis episode of The Catalyst is brought to you by Veeam Data Cloud Vault — fully managed, secure cloud storage for your backups, with no surprise bills and zero configuration headaches. Sign up for their AWS Demo Series and see it in action:https://veeam.com/aws-native-backup-demo-series.htmlThe Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

April 8, 2026Episode 1124 min

The Curiosity Episode: You're Not What You Know

What got you here won't get you there. For most IT leaders, the path to the top was paved with expertise — knowing the systems, owning the decisions, having the answers. But something happens when that playbook stops working. Not a crash. Not a failure. Just a quiet plateau that tells you something needs to change.In this episode of The Catalyst, we explore what's on the other side of that wall: a shift toward curiosity, empowerment, and a fundamentally different way of leading. Featuring leadership coach Kirsten Schmidtke, curiosity researcher Dr. Deb Clary, and Benevity VP of Engineering Rob Woolley — three voices who all landed in the same place.What you'll take away:Why expertise becomes a trap for senior IT leaders — and how to recognize when it's happening to youThe one behaviour change Rob Woolley made that created what he calls "titanic shifts" in his leadershipWhat MIT-commissioned research reveals about the direct link between curiosity and organizational performanceWhy the best leaders aren't the ones with the most answers — and what they do insteadFeaturing: Rob Woolley, VP Core Platform & Data Engineering at Benevity | Kirsten Schmidtke, Leadership Coach & Growth Advisor | Dr. Deb Clary, Author of The Curiosity Curve (Fast Company Press)Learn more about Kirsten at kirstenschmidtke.com Take Deb's curiosity assessment at debraclary.com #ITLeadership #MidMarketIT #TheCatalyst #CuriousLeadership #Softchoice #LeadershipDevelopment #FutureOfITThe Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

March 11, 2026Episode 1028 min

The Agentic AI Episode: What IT Leaders Need to Know

Every vendor in the industry is slapping the word "agentic" on their roadmap. But, what is agentic AI, really? And should IT leaders care?In this episode, we bring together three voices with very different answers: a skeptic who says it's rebranded orchestration, a strategist who says the reasoning layer is genuinely new, and a founder betting his company on it. Together, they cut through the noise and answer the question every IT leader is quietly asking: what should I actually do about agentic AI in 2026?Key takeaways:Why 80% of AI projects fail — and it has nothing to do with the technologyThe difference between "embedded agents" you're already using and custom agents you probably don't need yet"Start with your decisions, not your technology" — a practical framework for mid-market teamsHow to move AI from "pet project" to operationalized infrastructureFeaturing: Sean Larkin, Principal Architect at Softchoice, a World Wide Technology company | Scott Trump, Founder & CEO of Treva AI (former AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle) | Skip Vanderburg, Founder of Prioriti AI#AgenticAI #MidMarketIT #AIStrategy #TheCatalyst #Softchoice #ITLeadershipThe Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

February 25, 2026Episode 924 min

The Incident Response Episode: What Really Happens When Ransomware Hits

When David Koopmans' IT manager started sending strange messages to employees, David knew something was wrong. By then, threat actors had been inside his network for 30 days.What followed was a ransomware nightmare that cost $14 million, put David in the hospital, and ended with him being let go—despite years of warning leadership they needed to invest in security.In this episode, we follow David's story from chaos to recovery, with expert context from Fortinet's incident response team on what actually happens when the call comes in (spoiler: it's always Friday afternoon), the critical mistakes that make attacks worse, and why 30 minutes a week of preparation could be the difference between survival and catastrophe.Key Takeaways:Why "we're not a target" is the most dangerous assumption in securitThe common mistake that lets attackers hit you twiceHow tabletop exercises helped one company respond to a near-identical real incidentThe 30-minute weekly habit that separates prepared teams from overwhelmed onesFeaturing: David Koopmans (CIO, MMT Ambulance), Josh Brewer (Softchoice), John Simmons (FortiGuard IR Lead, Americas), John Hollenberger (FortiGuard Proactive Lead)====This episode is brought to you by FortinetWhen a cyber incident hits, the difference between chaos and recovery comes down to preparation. Learn how FortiGuard Incident Response Services can help your team respond faster and recover stronger at softchoice.com/fortinet====Resources• FortiGuard Incident Response Services: softchoice.com/fortinet• Book: "Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercises: From Planning to Execution" by John Hollenberger (No Starch Press, October 2024)The Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

February 11, 2026Episode 826 min

The Multi-Cloud Mandate: How Agentic AI Became the Unexpected Answer

Multi-cloud used to be a dirty word — something that happened to you through mergers, shadow IT, or teams gone rogue with corporate cards. But the walls came down, the standards converged, and best-of-breed finally seemed within reach. Then AI arrived with a whole new layer of complexity.Or did it?In this episode, we explore how agentic AI might actually solve the thing that made multi-cloud hard in the first place. Three cloud experts—Jack French from World Wide Technology, Alex Kozaris from Softchoice's AWS practice, and Ron Espinosa from Softchoice's Google Cloud team—break down what's changed, what matters for mid-market teams, and why the "gold record" might finally be possible. Key Takeaways:• Why 90% of organizations are already multi-cloud (whether they planned to be or not)• How abstraction layers and platform engineering help smaller teams manage complexity• What each major cloud does best: AWS for builders, Microsoft for productivity, Google for data/AI• The compliance curve ball forcing some organizations into multi-cloud for AI governance• How agentic AI creates "connective tissue" that makes integration problems irrelevant Featuring:• Jack French, Senior Director of Cloud, World Wide Technology• Alex Kozaris, Public Cloud Leader for AWS, Softchoice• Ron Espinosa, Google Cloud Category Director, SoftchoiceThe Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

January 28, 2026Episode 720 min

The Save Money Episode: Foundation Over Flash

Everyone's chasing AI. Meanwhile, most organizations are wasting 25-30% of their software budget on tools nobody uses.In this episode, we meet James Malek, Senior VP of IT Infrastructure at Lexitas, who inherited chaos—45 acquisitions in five years, no structured IT department, and a hodgepodge of contracts everywhere. Instead of chasing the next shiny thing, James took a different approach: foundation first.What his team discovered when they finally got visibility into their software estate—including 300 employees using ChatGPT at a legal services company handling sensitive data—changed everything.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why software waste persists despite decades of awareness—and what actually fixes it• How one company consolidated seven separate ShareFile contracts into one• The shadow AI problem hiding in your organization right now• Why you can't do it all yourself—and what to do insteadFeaturing:• James Malek, Senior VP of IT Infrastructure, Lexitas• Elizabeth D'Amico, Manager, SAM Programs & Enablement, Softchoice• Josh Brewer, Account Executive, SoftchoiceThe Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

January 14, 2026Episode 627 min

The School’s Broken Episode: What AI Did to Education—And Who's Fixing It

AI is transforming education—but not evenly, and not easily.In this episode of The Catalyst, we step inside classrooms, school boards, and districts, navigating the AI revolution with tight budgets, limited staff, and high stakes for students. From fears around cheating and data privacy to confusion over licensing and unused tools already paid for, this conversation reveals what AI adoption really looks like in public education.Featuring educators, IT leaders, and policy thinkers on the front lines, the episode explores what schools are getting wrong, what’s quietly working, and why the biggest barrier to AI in education may no longer be money—but people and readiness.You’ll hear from:Drew Olsson, Director of AI & Instructional Technology, Agua Fria Union High School DistrictSophie McQueen, Resource Teacher & Board Consultant, Conseil scolaire ViaMondeJosé Antonio Bowen, Senior Fellow, AAC&U; Author, Teaching with AISandali Amunugama, Microsoft Education Specialist, SoftchoiceKey takeaways:Why academic integrity fears are masking a deeper relationship problemHow most schools already have AI tools they aren’t usingWhat happens when AI costs drop—but training and trust don’tWhy meaningful adoption spreads teacher-to-teacher, not top-downThis episode is a candid look at what it takes to move forward when guidance is unclear, expectations are high, and standing still isn’t an option.—Learn how Softchoice, a World Wide Technology company, helps public sector and education teams do more: softchoice.com/public-sector.The Catalyst by Softchoice is the podcast dedicated to exploring the intersection of humans and technology.

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