Joanie interviews Juliette Powell, author, entrepreneur, technologist, and strategist. Juliette’s background is varied and extensive. She is a co-author of the book, The AI Dilemma, and her consulting services focus on global strategy and scenarios related to AI and data, banking, mobile, retail, social gaming, and responsible technology. Highlight…

Abby Malchow is a Manager of Small Business Partnerships at Amazon. She develops and manages partnerships that help drive success for early-stage entrepreneurs and small businesses through delivering programs and investments that support their continued growth. Abby appeared on Reinventing Nerds Episode 6 and talked about Women Vets in Tech when sh…

In this episode, Joanie interviews Franklin Taggart about his recent book about AI called, Straight from the Bot’s Mouth: A Conversation With ChatGPT About Artificial Intelligence. Franklin created the book using ChatGPT and had the whole project done in less than a week. In this interview, Franklin describes his experience as well as AI’s impact o…

Kamales Lardi is a digital tech expert, business advisor, speaker, teaching fellow, and an author. She recently published a book called The Human Side of Digital Business Transformation. Kamales is globally recognized as an influencer and Thought Leader in Digital Transformation. She has been advising multinational companies across various industri…

Sarah Tenisi is the CEO of TenisiTech, an IT Service provider firm. They to help companies build the IT foundation to support their business goals and manage the IT as the business evolves to ensure that the IT continues to be a tool not a hindrance. Sarah also hosts a podcast for people interested in technology and leadership called Tech Me Seriou…

Pat Cullen is the VP of Engineering at Carrot Fertility, the leading global fertility healthcare and family-forming benefits provider for employers and health plans. Pat oversees and directs Carrot’s information security, data, and engineering teams. He has more than a decade of experience as a technologist & thought-leader who builds effective tea…

Joanie has a conversation with an IT-manager-turned-coach, Kristeen Barth. Kristeen works with people and teams to challenge their current thinking, and she is committed to their growth experience. Kristeen also has a nerdy background. She has worked in IT project and product management as well as cultural integration. Her current work focuses on t…

Highlights: In this unique episode, Joanie presents a short overview of her new book, Consulting to Technical Leaders, Teams, and Organizations: Building Leadership in STEM Environments and responds to audience questions. She differentiates technical leaders and industries from nontechnical leaders and industries and answers questions on a variety …

Keith Mangold is a Senior Manager of IT Applications at Make-A-Wish Foundation. His passion is finding the right technology for organizations and helping improve their processes through innovative and new ideas. He loves playing with new tech, but his specialty is making the tech work for the organization’s needs. In this episode, Keith talks about…

Joanie hosts a special holiday episode with Fabrice Paracuellos. Fabrice is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of California. He helps individuals, couples, teams, and organizations with emotions, relationships, self-worth, and wellness. In addition, Fabrice has a technical background with multiple degrees in engineering and busi…

Katheryn Baker is Vice President at Artic Consulting, a consulting firm that provides technology solutions for business and data management. Katheryn is passionate about both technology and business and is skilled in Enterprise Software, Business Strategy, Productivity, Data, and Program Management. She’s joining us today from Anaheim, CA. Highligh…

Joanie has a conversation with Steve Hoffman, CEO of Founders Space, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators. Steve has trained hundreds of startup founders and corporate executives in the art of innovation and provided consulting to many of the world’s largest corporations, including Qualcomm, Huawei, Bosch, Intel, Disney, Warner Brothers,…

Franklin Taggart is the host of the podcast called Your Own Best Company. He coaches and leads a community of people who enjoy working alone. A lot of nerds work alone and it seemed like a good idea to learn more about what kind of support is out there for them. This is also a special episode because it is the 50th episode and Franklin was my first…

Joanie has a conversation with Angelo Ponzi, a marketing architect at The Ponzi Group. Angelo has more than 25 years of marketing experience in and outside of companies in industries ranging from semiconductors to financial to restaurants to beverage to ice cream. As a fractional Chief Marketing Officer (and marketing nerd!) he helps define market …

Joanie has a deeply personal conversation with Michael Puldy, CEO and Founder of Puldy Resiliency Partners, LLC. Michael has over three decades of technology, information risk management, and operations experience in the aerospace, banking and computer technology sectors, including at IBM. He is passionately focused on ways companies can improve th…

Vladimir Baranov is the founding CTO of AdvisorEngine, a fintech company that was recently acquired by Franklin Templeton. Vladimir has been building successful technology solutions primarily in the fintech industry for 15 years, and he shares his experience on managing the business/tech divide. Highlights: Q: What are some of the common challenges…

Joanie has a conversation with Manish Bhardia. Manish is a principal at Think AI, a software development and consulting firm, author of the book Teamwork and Collaboration: How to Select and Use Right Productivity Environment for You and Your Team, and co-host of True Stories in Tech podcast. Manish specializes in AI and cloud consulting and has mo…

Joanie interviews Lydia Chiu, a partner at Jub Jub Interactive. Jub Jub is a web application development company based in Orange County, CA. Lydia has over 15 years of programming and web development experience. She has a deep understanding of content management systems and enterprise application development. Listen to the episode to hear Lydia’s s…

Joanie has a conversation with Michelle Beauchamp about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the tech world. Michelle is the CEO of The Champ Group, a training and coaching firm that focuses on sales and diversity. One of the reasons Michelle is so special is that she is a very positive, encouraging person. She will inspire you in this episode. High…

Mike Kimball is an attorney who works on venture capital deals in the tech space. He knows what it takes to create and execute structures and agreements to foster fast growth. He also knows where entrepreneurial leaders fail. Mike has a wealth of experience from working on a nuclear submarine to working in big tech in Silicon Valley and negotiating…

Joanie has a conversation with Lynda Roth, a consultant who bridges IT expertise with business and lean management. Lynda founded LJR Consulting Services to provide assessment of existing business and IT processes and educate business executives about information technology options and lean business process to help them creatively reduce cost and i…

Highlights: Joanie has a conversation with Paul Johnson, Partner and Managing Director of Essilen Research. Essilen is a consulting company that helps tech leaders build robust and reliable tech organizations. Paul has over 20 years of experience at Qualcomm, where he worked his way up from a software developer to a senior director of engineering, …

Joanie has a conversation with Aseem Giri. Aseem has over twenty years of experience as an entrepreneur, private equity investor, and investment banker. He is also fond of art, serving as an Art Advisor and/or Finance Advisor to art-related businesses, and he hosts his own podcast, called ACHiEVE, where he interviews people about life-changing even…

Joanie has a conversation with Luis Socconini, the Director of the Lean Six Sigma Institute and master blackbelt in Lean Six Sigma. He is the author of several books on Lean practices and has run over 300 projects in Mexico, the United States, Spain, and South America. He is an engineer by training and he has several certificates in quality and man…

Joanie has a conversation with Bob Salomon, president of CIO Systems. One of the coolest things about Bob is his willingness to talk about how he’s dealt with dyslexia and ADD and how that actually motivated him to get into tech. Bob also talks about how they “make IT boring” at CIO Systems. They do IT security and support and help employees more b…

David Oates is a Crisis PR expert with 25 years of experience in the field. He helps organizations repair their brand’s reputation in the press and online. He can handle any Crisis PR situation and train others to do the same. As a U.S. Navy Public Affairs Officer and a corporate PR professional, he dealt with a broad range of Crisis PR issues. The…

Joanie interviews Eric Weiss, founder of Full Cycle Product Development. Eric has led massive development projects worth billions of dollars, including the Sony Playstation 3 and Qualcomm’s $9 Billion patent licensing machine. Eric is a product technology consultant and startup advisor and the author of Build the Right Things: How to Design and Bui…

A nerd at heart, Brian Jackson is the president and owner of Sandler Training of San Diego, a sales training company. Brian enjoys coaching customer-facing people who are engaged in selling within Software, Technology, Manufacturing, and Professional Services. Prior to owning Sandler, Brian invested over 20 years in hospital equipment & software sa…

Sanjiv Prabhakaran is a senior executive and entrepreneur with over 30 years of software development management and technical architecture experience in mobile and web applications for a wide variety of applications and industries. In early 2002, he founded Bytes, Inc. to provide low cost and rapid software outsourcing and project management servic…

Sean Ferrel founded Managed Solution in 2002. They provide consultative IT services for small-to-medium and enterprise clients. Sean tells his story of literally growing the company from his living room to a flourishing downtown San Diego enterprise. Hint: it starts with, “I was going to be a lawyer…” Within 3 years, the company was recognized as o…

Will Marshall is a co-founder and partner of UBM Law Group. He drafts and negotiates commercial contracts, especially SaaS and traditional software licensing agreements and takes care of all sorts of legal things that come up for businesses. He is also especially knowledgeable in issues that come up with small businesses and startups. If you are av…

Burt De Mill is the President of BDM Consulting, a San Diego based consulting firm that works with small and medium sized companies who are in the biotechnology tools and clinical diagnostics spaces. Burt helps companies define their products and markets, conduct new market research, and launch products. Burt talks about the challenges scientists e…

Adam Cuppy is the Chief Operating Officer at Zeal, a web and mobile apps development company. He is also an actor. He helps Zeal focus on how process drives success. He says he has “no idea” of what he does. Already, you can tell this is an entertaining episode. Really what he focuses on is business development, evangelism, speaking nationally and …

Joanie has a conversation with Gina Stetsko, Vice President of Manufacturing at Eupraxia Pharmaceuticals in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Gina has a been a leader in Pharmaceuticals for over 35 years and she’s held other executive positions in the pharmaceutical industry including: Vice President of Product Development, Vice President of Oper…

Joanie interviews Meetesh Karia, CTO of The Zebra, the nation’s leading insurance search engine. Meetesh’s interest in computers goes back to childhood. He taught himself several programming languages back in the 80s when he was a kid and played on his dad’s 8086 computer. He studied computer science and math and minored in psychology in college. M…

Joanie interviews Vladimir Baronov, who is a Founder and the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of AdvisorEngine. They build powerful and intuitive technology for financial advisors. Vladimir oversees the company’s software development and technological operations. He has nearly 15 years of experience designing and building successful technology soluti…

Joanie interviews Alex Balazs, Senior Vice President and Chief Architect at Intuit. Alex shares the story of his transformation from being a quiet engineer to becoming a communicative leader. He also shares his insights on inclusion and describes how he is supportive of women in tech. Being inclusive is key for Alex and he shares why. He is also on…

Dr. Lisa Kaczmarczyk is an award-winning computer science researcher, educator and book author. She provides independent evaluation services for academia and the hi-tech industry. These evaluations are used as evidence of project viability to secure funding from grant agencies and investors. Her clients have included Google, Stanford University, th…

Joanie has a conversation with Nihar Bhakta, who is a project team leader at Gossamer Bio. Nihar is a kidney transplant physician by training and has worked in biotech and pharma for about 14 years. Nihar has a very thoughtful approach to collaboration and teamwork and discusses the challenges that arise in biotech and pharma and what he’s done to …

Joanie interviews Joseph Molina, the Executive Director and CEO of the Veterans Chamber of Commerce. Joe draws from his experiences in the military, teaching at Cal Poly, being an entrepreneur, writing books, and working with veterans to bring us his lessons learned about the people skills needed to be an effective leader. He talks specifically to …

Are you looking for free legal advice? Tune in as Joanie interviews John Thornburgh, a patent litigator and principal at Fish & Richardson, about the people skills you need if you go to trial over your technology. Whether you’re suing or being sued, you may end up testifying some day and it’s a totally different language in court. They don’t speak …

Joanie has a conversation with Jamie Leben, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the Loveland Makerspace. A self-proclaimed nerd, Jamie has developed from a socially awkward kid to a community builder. He has a strong sales background as well. As a community leader, he exhibits humility, gratitude, teamwork, and giving. Highlights: Q: What is a Ma…

Joanie interviews Nick Armstrong, a Super Nerd who founded Fort Collins Comic Con. It’s a completely volunteer-run Comic Con that donates all of its proceeds to the local library reading programs. It has burgeoned into a thriving, welcoming community of generous geeks who bring joy to themselves and the broader community. It’s also a very affordabl…

Joanie interviews Vidya Dinamani, founder of Product Rebels. Vidya uses her impressive experience in product management to teach others how to do it. She calls herself a fully qualified nerd, having started her career coding, with a physics degree in her pocket. Vidya is quite articulate and has really nailed how developers and product managers can…

Joanie interviews JV Crum III, author of Conscious Millionaire: Grow Your Business by Making a Difference. In nerd speak, JV is a Jedi Master. Not only has he mastered the art of helping entrepreneurs make money, but he also uses the Force for good. JV says you have to get in touch with yourself and know what your purpose is before you will be able…

Joanie interviews Slava Khristich, CEO of Tateeda. Tateeda provides clients with software development resources in the USA and internationally to extend teams, complete complex projects and solve challenging tasks. Their model provides, among other things, improved communications between technical and non-technical people. You can see why he’s a pe…

Joanie Interviews Rebecca Johannsen, a people expert. Rebecca is a corporate trainer who has a Ph.D. in theater. She writes and directs plays and, of course, she’s a skilled actor. She’s taken her knowledge and skills in acting to teach executives soft skills. It’s a really interesting approach and I highly encourage you to listen to this episode. …

Joanie interviews Agnieszka Vestal, a software engineer at Grasstree Engineering who focuses on embedded software. An MIT graduate with an MBA in her pocket, Agnieszka adds global experience and a business perspective to her programming expertise. She’s also a long-time telecommuter and shares advice on how to make telecommuting more satisfying and…

Joanie interviews Duncan Davidson, CTO In Residence at Microsoft, Berlin. He provides service to and is a liaison between Microsoft and the CTOs at start-up companies that Microsoft supports through the ScaleUp accelerator program at Microsoft for Startups. What’s great about this interview is that Duncan shares his own experience with what he call…

Joanie interviews Mike Nowland, whose purpose in life is to help managers be better, do better, and live better. Joanie met Mike when he was working as the Corporate Training Manager for the Americas at ResMed. Now he’s the president of Enriched Learning and Development, LLC. Mike shares tips for technical people who move into leadership roles. Hig…