Hiring is the highest-leverage decision a leader makes.

Choose the wrong person and they can drain energy, slow the team down, and create problems for months. Choose well and you strengthen the entire organisation.

In this episode, former Amazon Bar Raiser Sean O’Neill shares the interviewing techniques he developed after conducting thousands of interviews and hiring hundreds of people across Amazon, Tesco, and global technology organisations.

Sean explains how great interviewers uncover real evidence of ability using experiential questions, the STAR method, and what he calls the investigative journalist approach to interviewing.

You’ll learn how to probe beyond polished answers, distinguish drivers from passengers, and spot candidates who can talk a great game but lack real depth, skills that matter even more in a world of AI-assisted candidates and increasingly rehearsed interviews.

Whether you hire people, manage teams, or want to perform better in interviews yourself, this episode will help you understand what great interviewing actually looks like.

This is Part 1 of a two-part Hiring Masterclass. In Part 2, we go inside the hiring debrief, where the real decision gets made.

Sean also shares the interview and hiring debrief template he has used for years to help teams run structured hiring discussions and make confident decisions.

AI is moving fast. Faster than most of us can fully process.

It promises efficiency, creativity, and progress. But what might we be losing along the way?

In this episode, Eloisa Tovee explores the hidden costs of AI, from the impact on jobs, critical thinking, and creativity to deeper concerns around bias, online harm, misinformation, and the erosion of human connection.

As a UN Delegate for Women in the UK and a writer working at the centre of this shift, Eloisa brings a clear, grounded perspective on how AI is shaping society, and who is most affected.

This conversation goes beyond the hype to ask better questions: what are we trading off, who is being left behind, and how do we stay human in an AI-driven world?

Burnout rarely arrives overnight. For many leaders, it builds quietly over time, until one day it suddenly becomes impossible to ignore.

In this episode, Jeremy speaks with Andy Skipper, CEO and Founder of CTO Craft, about why burnout is so common among CTOs and senior technology leaders, how it develops gradually, and what happens when leaders finally hit the wall.

Andy shares his own experience of burning out early in his CTO career and the PTSD-like symptoms that followed after leaving the role. Together, they explore how the pressure of startup environments, unclear expectations, and the transition from engineer to leader can slowly push people toward exhaustion, self-doubt, and cynicism.

They discuss how to recognise the warning signs in yourself and others, why burnout can spread through teams and organisations if left unchecked, and what practical steps leaders and companies can take to prevent it.

Andy also introduces a simple four-stage approach to dealing with burnout:

• recognising it early
• taking immediate action
• changing the conditions that caused it
• building a healthier long-term environment

If you’re a CTO, engineering leader, founder, or ambitious technologist who feels close to the edge — or you simply want to build a sustainable career without sacrificing your health — this episode offers practical insight and reassurance from someone who has been through it and now helps thousands of leaders find their way back.

We were all given the same advice. Pick a lane. Specialise. Stick to the plan. Work hard. Climb steadily.

For decades, that approach made sense. In a stable world, depth and certainty were safe bets.

But the world of work isn’t stable anymore.

In this episode, Jeremy sits down with Kieran Cornwall to challenge the very foundation of modern career advice. Together, they explore why rigid career paths can quietly limit your potential, and why a fundamental shift in mindset may be the difference between stagnating and thriving.

This isn’t an argument against specialisation. It’s an argument against rigidity.

Kieran shares the perspective he’s built across banking, media, software engineering and consulting and explains why careers built on direction rather than fixed plans are better equipped for uncertainty.

You’ll hear:

• Why following a predefined “career map” can box you in
• The difference between certainty and direction
• Why adaptability is becoming a defining advantage
• How to think beyond the lane you were trained to stay in
• What it really means to build range without drifting

If you’ve ever felt stuck, boxed in, or unsure whether the path you’re on still fits this conversation will challenge how you think about progress, growth and long-term success.

Because the safest career strategy may no longer be playing it safe.

Leaving corporate to work independently sounds simple. Take your experience, pick your clients, set your own terms.

In reality, many consultants, fractional leaders, and NEDs discover something else instead: unpredictable income, one “client that feels like a job”, and a constant low-level anxiety about what happens next.

In this episode, I sit down with Dan Gwalter to unpack why this happens and how to avoid it.

Dan has lived this journey end to end. After leaving a FTSE 100 technology leadership role, he built a profitable consulting business the hard way, learned where most independents go wrong, and turned those lessons into a clear operating model that helps others build businesses they can actually rely on.

This conversation is not about hacks, personal branding tricks, or “just post more on LinkedIn”. It’s about structure.

Together, we explore:

• Why most independent professionals aren’t failing — they’re just operating without a system
• The difference between being a “fractional employee” and running a real business
• How to define the right clients, the right offers, and the right problems to solve
• Why visibility alone doesn’t create clients — and what actually does
• How to design an operating rhythm that works alongside delivery, not against it
• The psychological side of independence: confidence, self-doubt, and identity shifts

Dan also walks through the core elements of The Fractional Formula: an operating model designed to help consultants, fractional leaders, and NEDs build predictable deal flow, reduce fragility, and create momentum they can sustain.

If you’re thinking about going independent, already working as a consultant or fractional leader, or building a portfolio career and want it to feel stable rather than stressful, this episode will give you clarity, reassurance, and a practical path forward.

This is about building a business you can rely on, not winging it and hoping for the best.

If you’ve got the seed of an idea you keep pushing aside, you owe it to yourself to explore it.

Not to quit your job. Not to take a reckless leap. But to see whether it could become something real.

This episode is for senior leaders who feel successful on paper but quietly stuck; people who sense there’s more they could be building, yet don’t know where to start or how to do it safely.

We are joined by Ken Valledy, who talks through a practical, low-risk way to turn a side hustle into a real business; one that gives you options and a way out of the corporate rat race, without blowing up your life.

You’ll hear:

• Why leaving your job isn’t the goal; starting is
• How small steps create momentum long before money shows up
• What happens when you say your idea out loud for the first time
• How to test, shape, and validate an idea while keeping your job
• The five simple moves that take you from “what if?” to real progress

Ken shares his R.E.A.C.T. model, a framework designed to help you go from zero to one: getting your idea out of your head, into the world, and onto a path that could eventually support you full time.

If you feel the itch to do something of your own and don’t want to look back in five years wishing you’d tried, this conversation will help you take the first step.

In this episode, we sit down with Freddie Quek—Research Associate at Henley Business School, award-winning technology leader, advisor, and founder of #JoiningTheDots—to explore a question every tech professional needs to confront: What is our responsibility as technology leaders in a world where millions are still digitally excluded?

Freddie has led digital transformation across global organisations, including RELX, Wiley and Times Higher Education, where he helped develop the World University Rankings and SDG Impact Dashboard. Recognised by Computer Weekly and CIO 100 as one of the UK’s top technology leaders, he brings a rare blend of technical depth, social purpose, and strategic clarity.

Together, we dig into:

• Why 30% of the world being offline is not someone else’s problem.
• How digital exclusion shows up in everyday life — even for people who think they’re “tech savvy.”
• The Triple Bottom Line (Profit, Planet, People) and why it’s becoming essential leadership, not optional ethics.
• How AI and rapid technological change are widening new forms of inequality.
• What organisations, teams, and individual technologists can do today to make a measurable difference.
• Why solving this won’t come from charity — it will come from collective action across the tech sector.

Freddie also shares the story behind #JoiningTheDots and the newly formed NextPath Device Consortium, a sector-wide initiative helping the UK tackle device access, e-waste, and digital poverty at scale.

If you work in technology — in any role, at any level — this conversation will challenge how you see your influence and show you how to use your “superpower” for something bigger than your job description.

Most people treat interviews like an exam: tense, rehearsed, high-stakes. But what if the real key to performing well is the same thing that makes a great first date: connection, curiosity, and being your authentic self?

In this episode, Marylin Schlamkow returns to the show to share a fresh, more human way to approach interviews. Drawing on the surprising parallels between dating and interviewing, she breaks the process into three stages — before, during, and after — and shows how simple behavioural shifts can help you stay calm, build rapport, and show up with confidence.

We cover how to understand your values and principles, research effectively without overdoing it, create genuine two-way conversations, tell stronger stories, ask better questions, handle ghosting and rejection, and reflect in a way that actually improves your performance in your future interviews.

Whether you’re job-hunting now or preparing for a move, this episode gives you practical tools to interview in a way that feels more natural and produces better results.

You’ll learn:

• Why interviewing feels so much like dating (and how that helps)
• How to prepare in a calmer, more intentional way
• How to build rapport and create a real conversation
• How to talk about yourself without performing
• What to do after the interview, including ghosting, rejection, and reflection
• The one mindset shift that improves every interview

If interviews make you anxious or you simply want to show up as your authentic self and create a stronger connection, this one’s for you.