Business Roundtable

Most owners think their biggest risks show up on the balance sheet. Helena Ferrari says the expensive ones are hiding in how your leaders show up every day.Helena Ferrari (GPHR, PHR) is a fractional Chief HR Officer, board director, and risk mitigation advisor who has saved companies more than $150M across 15 countries. She has a gift for taking "soft" HR problems and putting a hard dollar figure on them before they become a lawsuit, a settlement, or a revolving door.In this conversation with host David Carr, Helena unpacks:- Why the costliest risks live in your leaders, not your balance sheet- A 60% turnover problem dollarized to $6M a year — and fixed for a fraction of that- A wage-and-hour audit that surfaced a $900K exposure from missed meal breaks- Why every company needs an AI policy right now- Interview questions that are quietly illegal (one cost a company $120K)- Handling layoffs without triggering the WARN Act or bias claims- Why HR belongs at the board table — and at the deal seat before the LOI- Succession planning that keeps your IP from walking out the door- Three questions every leader should ask themselves this weekHer throughline is freeing: your people aren't the problem. Most damage comes from accidental mistakes by leaders who were never trained to lead. Fix the system, dollarize the risk, and you protect both the business and the people in it.More from Helena Ferrari:Website & book (Protect Your Profit Line): https://www.thehrrx.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenaferrari/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.Connect with Steward Your Business:Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/ccCall: +1 909.404.9865Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarrWatch more episodes  and subscribe on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

What does it really mean to build a lasting legacy and can you begin shaping it while you are still living it? In this episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, David Carr sits down with physicist, philanthropist, and author Raul Brazad to explore how leaders can pivot with intention and create meaningful impact beyond professional success.After a distinguished career as a senior physicist working on long-horizon nuclear fusion projects, Raul began asking a deeper question: What change can I make that I can actually see in my lifetime? That question led him from the national laboratory to global nonprofit leadership, serving as President of Butterflies USA and board chair of Amandla Development.Raul shares the concept behind his book, Impact Shift: The Art of Pivoting for Meaningful Change, and explains why transformation does not require a dramatic leap. Instead, it begins with micro-pivots — small, intentional steps outside your comfort zone. He challenges listeners to replace the question “Why should I?” with “Why not?” and to confront the self-censorship that often holds leaders back. Together, David and Raul explore:Why legacy is about how people remember how you made them feelHow passion, purpose, and impact create meaning over timeRecognizing when you are “playing not to lose” instead of playing to winThe danger of comfort and incremental stagnationHow small experiments build confidence and clarityWhy giving with a “warm hand” creates deeper fulfillmentRaul also shares powerful stories from his nonprofit work, including how a cooperative bank for street children in India reshaped a young boy’s vision of his own future — and why those visible, human outcomes reshaped Raul’s definition of success. If you are a leader who feels successful yet unsettled… accomplished yet curious… this episode offers a framework for thoughtful transition without reckless change. Because growth is not always about climbing higher — sometimes it is about shifting toward deeper purpose.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.Connect with Steward Your Business:Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/ccCall: +1 909.404.9865Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarrWatch more episodes  and subscribe on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

Most founders think they have a hiring problem. Pranav Dalal says it is usually a capacity problem, and that distinction changes everything about how you scale.Pranav is the founder and CEO of Office Beacon, a global outsourcing and remote staffing firm he has built over 25 years into a company of more than 5,500 employees across six countries. He started right after the dot com crash wiped out his first career, and the lessons from those early years still run the business today: never undervalue yourself, and never price yourself out of the market either.With David Carr, Pranav gets candid about the difference between being a visionary and being a bottleneck, and how knowing which one you are changes how you lead. You will hear how a single remote virtual assistant can hand a founder back hours a day, how Pranav approaches AI as an opportunity instead of a threat, and why he still runs quarterly town halls to keep culture from becoming transactional.If you are a founder wondering whether your next move should be more headcount or more structure, start here.Connect with Pranav: Office Beacon: https://www.officebeacon.com Pranav Dalal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pranavdalal/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.Connect with Steward Your Business:Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/ccCall: +1 909.404.9865Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarrWatch more episodes  and subscribe on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

Most leaders think a confident "yes" in a meeting means the deal, the buy-in, or the hard conversation is settled. Jake Stahl says that's exactly when people start quietly disappearing.Jake built NeuroStrategy after 15+ years of training sales teams, including leading a region to over $65 million in annual sales, and noticing that good pitches still failed to land. His discovery: everyone has a second, hidden profile that's actually making the decision, and it rarely matches the polite one sitting across the table.In this conversation, Jake and David get into:Why a live "yes" often turns into a cold, unanswered emailWhat NeuroStrategy sees that DISC and Myers-Briggs assessments missA real story about reading someone's body language in real time, mid-conversationThe opioid addiction and two-year spiral that cost Jake his marriage, his home, and his career, and what rebuilding taught him about being seen, heard, and respectedWhy do people resist the memory your idea brings up, not the idea itselfJake is the creator of NeuroStrategy, founder of Orchestraight, and author of Own the Room: How to Communicate to Be Seen, Heard, and Respected.Connect with Jake:Website: https://orchestraight.org Book: Own the Room, How to Communicate to Be Seen, Heard, and Respected — https://a.co/d/05qViUIZPodcast: Own the Room with Jake StahlLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakestahl/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.Connect with Steward Your Business:Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/ccCall: +1 909.404.9865Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarrWatch more episodes  and subscribe on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

Everyone is racing to adopt AI. Almost no one is asking the harder question: what kind of leader are you becoming as AI gets more powerful? Technology will not fix a broken culture or poor leadership. It amplifies whatever is already there.In this conversation, David Carr sits down with two guests who think about this differently. Christopher Skinner, founder of Stealth Dog Labs, works at the intersection of AI, cognition, and leadership. Chris Wessling, The Process Dude, helps leaders escape the day to day by building systems that scale.Christopher explains why AI is running on the wrong specifications, why it was never designed to listen, and the three legs every healthy relationship needs: safety, challenge, and investment. Chris brings the process lens, if there is pain in a business, there is a process problem, and shares how one discovery conversation uncovered a 700,000 dollar fix hiding in a company's estimates. Then Christopher shows how the words a company uses can reveal where it is really heading, sometimes years before the numbers do.The takeaway: before you lean on AI, get an honest baseline of your culture, your communication, and your decision making. Then the tool can actually help.ConnectChristopher Skinner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherjskinner/Stealth Dog Labs: https://www.stealthdog.comConnect with Chris Wessling, The Process Dude, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theprocessdude/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.Connect with Steward Your Business:Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/ccCall: +1 909.404.9865Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarrWatch more episodes  and subscribe on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business