Most professionals take one path or the other. You either build something from scratch in the startup world, or you learn to operate at scale inside a large organization. Very few people have done both — and almost nobody teaches what you learn from the combination.

Jennifer Viens is a senior enterprise leader who has spent her career at the intersection of AI, data, and cloud — scaling complex businesses across healthcare, life sciences, and the public sector. But before the Fortune 500 world, she was in startups — where you own the outcome completely, the client relationship is everything, and there is no system to hide behind. That combination gives her a perspective most executives simply don’t have. In this conversation, she breaks down the builder mentality — what it is, why a clear vision and a client-first mindset are the foundation of everything, and what professionals who start with that operating system are able to build that everyone else can’t.

In this episode:

• What the builder mentality actually is — and why the startup world develops it faster and more completely than any corporate environment ever will
• Why having a clear vision and staying close to the client are not soft skills — they are the operating system that everything else runs on
• What building the right ecosystem around sales and growth actually requires — and the clarity of vision that startup founders develop that most corporate professionals never do
• The first move someone early in their career can make to start operating like a builder — regardless of their title, their company, or how much authority they have

Real Work Ready helps early professionals build the operating system for a career that lasts. Learn more at realworkready.com

Connect with Jennifer Viens:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-viens/

Connect with Laura:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramassetti/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realworkreadyhq

Email: info@realworkready.com

Website: https://www.realworkready.com

No One Tells You This is a Real Work Ready™ podcast. Every episode is a conversation with leaders, executives, and professionals who finally decided to say what nobody said to them — the unwritten rules, the invisible dynamics, and the things that actually determine who succeeds.

Laura Massetti
Founder of Real Work Ready™

www.realworkready.com

Most people who look successful on paper are running on something they can’t quite name. Not ambition. Not drive. Fear. And the problem is, fear is an excellent motivator — right up until it isn’t.

Chris Woods grew up without a father in a blue-collar neighborhood of Boston, put himself through college, earned an MBA from NYU Stern, rose through Google, and went on to serve as Global Chief Growth Officer for four investor-backed companies. At 40 years old — exactly the age his father was when he died — he flatlined in a hospital bed. That moment forced him to look honestly at how he had been defining success. He is now a certified executive coach and author of Balls and Brains — a framework for building a career on your real strengths instead of your deepest fears. This conversation is the one he wishes someone had played for him at the start.

In this episode:

• What fear-driven behavior actually looks like early in a career — when it looks exactly like ambition, hustle, and doing all the right things
• What flatlining at the same age his father died forced Chris to confront about how he had been defining success
• The difference between a career built on your strengths and one built on what you think you’re supposed to be
• The first move someone early in their career can make right now to start operating from strength instead of fear

Real Work Ready helps early professionals build the operating system for a career that lasts. Learn more at realworkready.com

Connect with Chris:

Website: https://chriswoodscoach.com

Book: https://ballsandbrains.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriswoodsglobal/

Email: chriswoodsglobal@gmail.com

Connect with Laura:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramassetti/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realworkreadyhq

Email: info@realworkready.com

Website: https://www.realworkready.com

No One Tells You This is a Real Work Ready™ podcast. Every episode is a conversation with leaders, executives, and professionals who finally decided to say what nobody said to them — the unwritten rules, the invisible dynamics, and the things that actually determine who succeeds.

Laura Massetti
Founder of Real Work Ready™

www.realworkready.com

Every day inside your organization, small decisions are being made — a new step added, a rule tightened, a process introduced. Each one seems logical. Together, they slowly make the company harder to deal with. And nobody notices, because from the inside, everything feels more controlled.

Sonia Etxebarria has spent 30 years helping some of the world’s largest companies — including Toyota, Endesa, and Renfe — see what they can’t see from the inside. As founder of Akuyari and co-author of Profitable Customer Experience, she has a sharp diagnosis for why organizations keep getting this wrong: it is not a CX problem. It is a decision problem. In this conversation, she breaks down what that means, what it costs, and what every early professional needs to understand about the gap between what organizations say they value and what they actually do.

In this episode:

• Why most companies think they have a customer experience problem — when the real issue is how decisions get made
• What the small business world teaches about accountability and client focus that large organizations slowly unlearn
• What early professionals can actually do — without authority or budget — to start operating with a customer-centred mindset from day one
• The mindset shift that separates professionals who create real impact from those who stay busy without moving forward

Real Work Ready helps early professionals build the operating system for a career that lasts. Learn more at realworkready.com

Connect with Sonia:

Website: https://www.soniaetxebarria.com

Akuyari: https://www.akuyari.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonia-etxebarria/

Email: sonia@soniaetxebarria.com

Connect with Laura:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramassetti/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realworkreadyhq

Email: info@realworkready.com

Website: https://www.realworkready.com

No One Tells You This is a Real Work Ready™ podcast. Every episode is a conversation with leaders, executives, and professionals who finally decided to say what nobody said to them — the unwritten rules, the invisible dynamics, and the things that actually determine who succeeds.

Laura Massetti
Founder of Real Work Ready™

www.realworkready.com

If your business feels busy but fragile — if the growth stops the moment you ease off the gas — you don’t have a marketing problem. You have a leverage problem.

Stephen Solademi has spent his career diagnosing exactly that gap. As founder of SOS Creativity Group, he has helped Shopify e-commerce brands and DTC founders generate over £120M in revenue — not by chasing more traffic, but by building the fundamentals that compound. His firm operates on a performance model: growth first, payment follows. In this conversation, he breaks down what the leverage gap actually is, what it takes to build something that lasts, and what every early professional needs to understand about the difference between looking busy and actually moving forward.

In this episode:

• Why most businesses have a leverage problem — not a traffic problem — and what that distinction actually means
• What leading multiple acquisitions and building teams under pressure taught Stephen about what holds a business together
• The difference between growth that compounds and growth that collapses the moment you stop pushing
• What early professionals and aspiring builders consistently get wrong about success — and what to do instead

Real Work Ready helps early professionals build the operating system for a career that lasts. Learn more at realworkready.com

Connect with Stephen:

Website: https://soscreativity.co.uk

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soscreativity/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephensolademi/

Connect with Laura:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramassetti/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realworkreadyhq

Email: info@realworkready.com

Website: https://www.realworkready.com

No One Tells You This is a Real Work Ready™ podcast. Every episode is a conversation with leaders, executives, and professionals who finally decided to say what nobody said to them — the unwritten rules, the invisible dynamics, and the things that actually determine who succeeds.

Laura Massetti
Founder of Real Work Ready™

www.realworkready.com

Most leaders will tell you that change is hard. Very few can tell you what it actually feels like to lead it, from the inside, at the top, across two companies and two countries at the same time.

In this episode, I sit down with Alessandro Caprara, CEO of SteelcoBelimed Infection Control and Steelco Group, simultaneously leading two separate entities across Italy and Switzerland with over 2,000 employees across three countries. An engineer by training, Alessandro built his career from the ground up through technical, operational, and commercial leadership — making him one of the rare executives who understands both how things are built and how organizations actually run. In his first year at the helm of SteelcoBelimed, he made two landmark investments: an Academy in Riese Pio X and an Innovation Hub in Zug — built on a deep conviction that solutions only realize their full value when the people using them are truly trained and equipped. He has navigated some of the most demanding transformation environments in the medical and pharmaceutical industries, including a complex international joint venture between Miele and Metall Zug. And he has done all of it while remaining rooted in the Veneto — proof that world-class leadership doesn't require leaving home.

This conversation is about what it really takes to lead through change — and how to make good decisions when you do not have all the answers.

If you are early in your career and trying to understand what real leadership under pressure looks like — not the textbook version, but the one you have to live — this episode is for you. If you are already leading and navigating a transition that is bigger and harder than anyone warned you about, this one is for you too.

🔗 Connect with Alessandro Caprara:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandrocaprara/

🔗 Connect with Laura:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramassetti/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realworkreadyhq

Email: info@realworkready.com

Website: https://www.realworkready.com

No One Tells You This is a Real Work Ready™ podcast. Every episode is a conversation with leaders, executives, and professionals who finally decided to say what nobody said to them — the unwritten rules, the invisible dynamics, and the things that actually determine who succeeds.

Laura Massetti
Founder of Real Work Ready™

www.realworkready.com

Most professionals spend years learning the hard way what nobody told them at the start.

They were technically excellent. They got promoted. They delivered results. And then they hit a wall — not because they lacked skill, but because they were missing something nobody ever taught them.

In this episode, I sit down with Chawan Mehra — a technology executive who has spent his career at the intersection of deep technical expertise and large-scale human leadership. As Vice President of Software Engineering at Intel, he led AI accelerator software development for major global customers, scaled an engineering program from 15 people to 500 in nine months, and guided 400 engineers through one of the most demanding workforce transitions in the industry. He is also a passionate mentor — and this conversation is built entirely around what he wants the next generation to know before they have to figure it out the hard way.

If you are early in your career and trying to figure out how to grow, this episode is for you. If you are making the move into leadership and feeling the gap nobody warned you about, this is for you too.

IN THIS EPISODE
The engineering fundamentals that hold true across every technology cycle — and what gets lost when people skip them
What young professionals get wrong most often in their first five years
What it actually takes to build a high-performing team from scratch — beyond hiring good people
How to lead across global teams with very different cultures, working styles, and expectations
What great communication looks like in practice for a technical leader
The specific signals that tell Chawan someone is ready to be invested in and developed
The advice he gives most often to the engineers and leaders he mentors today

🔗 Connect with Chawan Mehra:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chawan-mehra/
Email: chawan.mehra@gmail.com

🔗 Connect with Laura:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramassetti/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realworkreadyhq
Email: info@realworkready.com
Website: https://www.realworkready.com

No One Tells You This is a Real Work Ready™ podcast. Every episode is a conversation with leaders, executives, and professionals who finally decided to say what nobody said to them — the unwritten rules, the invisible dynamics, and the things that actually determine who succeeds.

Laura Massetti
Founder of Real Work Ready™

www.realworkready.com

🎙️ Join the Real Work Ready Founding Waitlist:
https://real-work-ready.kit.com/1e70df47de

Most people who move into leadership do it without a map.

They were excellent at the work. They carried the number. They got promoted. And then everything they were rewarded for started working against them.

In this episode, I sit down with Luca Lozzi — a commercial leader and sales leadership consultant based in Milan, Italy, leading and advising teams across Europe. We talk about what managers are actually evaluating, why the leap from individual contributor to leader is so much harder than anyone warns you about, and what it really takes to build a team that operates without you carrying them.

If you are early in your career, this one is for you. If you are already leading and feeling the tension Luca describes, this one is for you too.

IN THIS EPISODE
Why capable, talented people struggle to make the IC-to-leader transition — and what is actually going on underneath
What you have to unlearn when you make the shift — the instincts that made you great that now work against you
The coaching vs. doing tension — and how to hold that line under pressure
What good judgment and operational trust actually look like from the manager’s side
The most common mistake first-time managers make that nobody warned them about
What it looks like when a team genuinely operates independently — and why investing in people pays off in ways the short game never does

🔗 Connect with Luca Lozzi:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luca-lozzi/

🔗 Connect with Laura:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramassetti/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realworkreadyhq
Email: info@realworkready.com
Website: https://www.realworkready.com

No One Tells You This is a Real Work Ready™ podcast. Every episode is a conversation with leaders, executives, and professionals who finally decided to say what nobody said to them — the unwritten rules, the invisible dynamics, and the things that actually determine who succeeds.

Laura Massetti
Founder of Real Work Ready™

www.realworkready.com

🎙️ Join the Real Work Ready Founding Waitlist: https://real-work-ready.kit.com/1e70df47de

Most professionals spend their careers building toward something — a title, a role, a seat at the table. And then one day, the most capable ones do something nobody expects. They walk away from it. Not because they failed. Because they finally figured out who they actually are. In this episode, I sit down with Kelly L. Kuhn — a global executive who spent decades leading at the highest levels of the travel and hospitality industry across Asia, the UK, Europe, and the United States. As the first-ever Chief Customer Officer at CWT, she personally led a multi-billion-dollar global P&L and transformed how an entire enterprise thought about its customers. She has built and led high-performing teams across some of the world's most complex, fast-moving geographies. And then — deliberately, and on her own terms — she stepped away from the executive seat to build something entirely her own: a plural career as a non-executive director on two public company boards, an executive coach, and a trusted advisor to leaders navigating transformational change.
Kelly's personal philosophy — getting comfortable with being uncomfortable — is not a tagline. It is how she has led across three decades, across continents, and through some of the hardest moments of her career. This conversation is about what that actually looks like in practice. The real definition of a professional brand. What it costs to build credibility across cultures and roles. And what you discover about yourself when the title is gone.
If you are early in your career and trying to understand what a real professional brand means — not the LinkedIn headline version — this episode is for you. If you are navigating a transition and wondering who you are on the other side of it, this one is for you too.
In this episode
The real definition of a professional brand — and why most people confuse it with a title
What three decades of global leadership across Asia, EMEA, and the United States taught Kelly about how trust and credibility are actually built
The difference between a brand you build and a brand you earn — and what it looks like when someone is building the wrong one
The experiences and turning points that most shaped how Kelly leads and how she shows up
What it actually felt like to step away from the executive seat deliberately — and what that transition revealed about who she really was
What a "plural career" is, why Kelly chose it, and what it demands of you
What Kelly is seeing in the executives she coaches today — the gap between how leaders think about their brand and what is actually happening
What virtual and hybrid leadership exposed about the difference between polished and authentic
The windshield versus the rearview mirror — and why that lens changes everything about how you build forward

🔗 Connect with Kelly Kuhn:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellylkuhn/
Website: https://www.kellylkuhn.com/

🔗 Connect with Laura:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramassetti/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realworkreadyhq
Email: mailto:info@realworkready.com
Website: https://www.realworkready.com
No One Tells You This is a Real Work Ready™ podcast. Every episode is a conversation with leaders, executives, and professionals who finally decided to say what nobody said to them — the unwritten rules, the invisible dynamics, and the things that actually determine who succeeds.

Laura Massetti
Founder of Real Work Ready™

www.realworkready.com