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Centaur Stage is a podcast by Cosmic Centaurs exploring bold ideas about the future of work and learning. In each episode, podcast host, CEO & Founder of Cosmic Centaurs Marilyn Zakhour is joined by incredible guests to share insights, opinions, and perspectives about the future of how we work and learn.
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After seven weeks of exploring systems thinking through the lens of leadership, culture, and transformation, the 2025 Cosmic Conference comes full circle with a powerful closing conversation. Professor José Santos, Affiliated Professor of Practice in Global Management at INSEAD, joins Marilyn Zakhour to challenge and deepen the conference’s central idea: Is the system really the strategy? Together, they explore how leaders can move from managing parts to understanding the whole and why seeing...
Culture isn’t the soft stuff, it’s the system that makes everything else work. In this lively conversation, Marilyn Zakhour and Tala Ode from Cosmic Centaurs unpack how culture shows up not in slogans or posters, but in the invisible systems that shape how organizations operate: how decisions are made, how meetings run, how feedback flows, and how people feel when they show up to work. Using the Omnichannel Organization™ framework, they explore how leaders can design culture through structure...
Time is the one system every leader struggles to manage — and the one that reveals how well all the others work. In this energizing conversation, Diren Bhatia, entrepreneur, coach, and founder of Cloudscape Technologies, joins Tala Ode to explore how leaders and founders can redesign their relationship with time. From his own journey of moving from a 14-hour-day founder to a “part-time CEO,” Diren shares how systems, rituals, and mindset shifts can help leaders free themselves from firefighti...
What does it take to lead transformation across one of the region’s most complex organizations, and make it human? In this powerful conversation, Ibraheem Sheerah, Chief Transformation Officer at Saudia Group, joins Marilyn Zakhour to share how he led one of the Kingdom’s most ambitious transformation journeys, reshaping not just an airline, but the ecosystem around it. Through stories that span from listening to a security guard’s advice to engaging pilots, suppliers, and customers in change...
How do you nudge a 13,000-person organization to move from managing change to creating the conditions for change? In this conversation, Chun Feng “Breeze” Dong, Associate Director of Organizational Development at Roche, joins Marilyn Zakhour to share how she and her team applied systems thinking to enable large-scale learning, collaboration, and innovation across global teams. Drawing from years of experimentation inside one of the world’s leading healthcare companies, Breeze shows how transf...
Parenthood is one of the most complex systems we’ll ever navigate — and for working parents, it often runs in parallel with another: work. In this heartfelt conversation Faten Fathallah, Marie Nakhle, Marilyn Zakhour, Tala Odeh, and Zeinab Makke from the Cosmic Centaurs team join Hadeel Kabosh to explore how they design, adapt, and sustain systems that help them thrive as both professionals and parents. Together, they reflect on: 🔹 How motherhood reshapes priorities, time, and definitio...
What does it mean to bring humanity back into our systems, and to see ourselves as part of them? In this conversation, Dr. José-Rodrigo Córdoba-Pachón, Associate Professor at Royal Holloway, University of London, joins Marilyn Zakhour to explore the intersection of systems thinking, rituals, and the art of being. Together, they reflect on how leaders can find balance between doing and being, structure and spontaneity, efficiency and presence. They discuss: 🔹 How philosophy, poetry, and ...
Innovation rarely fails because of a lack of ideas. It fails because the systems around it are built for compliance, not experimentation. In this episode, Wissam Adib, Executive Coach and former Advisor at the UAE Prime Minister’s Office, joins Marilyn Zakhour to explore what it really takes to build systems that foster innovation at scale. Drawing on two decades of experience shaping national innovation frameworks in the UAE, Wissam shares lessons that apply to both governments and organizat...
In leadership, we often focus on strategies, frameworks, and structures. But what keeps systems alive are the people within them — their purpose, presence, and connection. In this soulful conversation, Rawan Albina, Leadership & Wellbeing Academies Director at Chalhoub Group, joins Marilyn Zakhour to explore the human and emotional dimensions of systems. Together, they discuss how leaders can nurture balance, resilience, and meaning within complex organizations. They explore: 🔹 What it ...
Most leaders want high performance. Few know how to sustain it. In this energizing session, Stoyan Yankov, productivity & performance consultant, bestselling author, and co-creator of the PERFORM methodology, joins Marilyn Zakhour to unpack what it really takes to build teams that deliver results and stay energized. Together, they explore how leaders can: 🔹 Design systems that balance productivity and people 🔹 Turn clarity, planning, and focus into everyday habits 🔹 Bui...
Metrics can tell you if you’re moving, but not whether you’re moving in the right direction. In this conversation, Daniel Delati, Managing Partner at 360 Consulting, and Mazuba Haanyama, Independent Consultant, join Hadeel Kabosh from Cosmic Centaurs to explore what it really takes to design systems that make impact visible, measurable, and meaningful. Together, they dive into: 🔹 How leaders can deliver impact by design strategies anchored in purpose 🔹 Why clarity and curiosity are th...
What if you could train your brain to think more effectively, to see connections, anticipate ripple effects, and redesign the systems you operate in? In this episode of the 2025 Cosmic Conference: The System is the Strategy, Cosmic Centaurs CEO Marilyn Zakhour is joined by Dr. Derek Cabrera and Dr. Laura Cabrera, founders of the Cabrera Research Lab and professors at Cornell University. Together, they unpack what systems thinking really means and how leaders can move from firefighting to fut...
We often think of psychological safety as something created within teams — but what about the systems, structures, and incentives that surround them? 🌍 In this powerful Cosmic Conference 2025 session, Sander Hoeken, Co-Founder of The Fearless Organization Scan and Founder of CellSpace, joins Marilyn Zakhour, CEO of Cosmic Centaurs and Harvard Business Review author, to explore how organizations can build systems that sustain psychological safety at scale. Moderated by Marie Nakhle, Senior Con...
AI is not just another wave of technological change, it’s reshaping the very systems that govern how we work, lead, and create value. In this episode, Imad Lahad, Global Chair for AI & Intelligence at APCO, joins Marilyn Zakhour to explore what it means to lead through disruption when the old playbooks no longer apply. Together, they unpack how leaders can: 🔹 Redesign business models and infrastructures for an AI-driven world 🔹 Create new loops of value instead of chasing incr...
In this session from the 2025 Cosmic Conference, Marilyn Zakhour is joined by Darren Yeh, Managing Director at Omplexity Consulting, a systems change agency that partners with global institutions to align resources for systemic impact. Together, they explore: The essentials of systems thinking for leadersHow to apply systems mapping to uncover hidden interconnectionsReal-world case studies in organizational resilience and systems changePractical tools and mental models for navigating complex...
We’re kicking off the 2025 Cosmic Conference with an opening keynote you won’t want to miss. In this episode, Marilyn Zakhour, CEO & Founder of Cosmic Centaurs, introduces this year’s theme and makes the case for why systems thinking is an essential skill for leaders navigating complexity. Over the past year, many leaders have shared how they feel stuck in firefighting mode, solving urgent problems only to see the same issues resurface. What these stories reveal isn’t a failure of leaders...
What if the key to unlocking bold ideas, honest feedback, and high performance wasn’t talent or experience—but psychological safety? In this special episode marking Cosmic Centaurs’ 5th anniversary, our founder Marilyn Zakhour is joined by two remarkable guests: Sandra Salame, founder of Siira, and Sander Hoeken, co-founder of the Fearless Organization Scan and collaborator of Prof. Amy Edmondson (Harvard Business School), the pioneer of psychological safety. Together, they demystify psycholo...
What if the key to more engaged employees isn’t a new incentive program, but something much more human? In this episode, Marilyn Zakhour and Dr. Constance Noonan Hadley take you behind the scenes of their three-year research journey on team rituals—work that led to their widely read Harvard Business Review article. Together, they unpack the data that proves rituals boost team commitment, psychological safety, and job satisfaction—and they share personal stories from the research process, incl...
💫Up for a round of Pits & Peaks? It’s a ritual we do after events, projects and at the end of each month. We come together to share the incredible highs (peaks) and a few areas for improvement (pits) to discuss openly how we can level up our ways of working (collaboration) and the quality of our work (delivery). From hosting a 3.5 week long conference, to trying new with formats, we experimented a lot in the 2022 #CosmicConference, and we want to share our honest reflections with you!
Breeze Dong, Transformation & Enterprise Agile Coach @Roche, joined us at the #CosmicConference on Friday, October 21st, at 4 PM (GMT +4). Breeze shared her insights on human-centered design, systems thinking, and engagement at scale.
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