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The Human ROI

The Human ROI

By: Elissa Mahendra
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The Human ROI examines the return organizations and individuals gain when talent strategy, culture, and value creation are intentionally aligned.


Hosted by executive talent strategist and leadership advisor Elissa Mahendra, the podcast explores how career development, leadership decisions, workplace culture, and emerging forces like AI are reshaping human performance and, ultimately, enterprise value.


Through thoughtful conversations with senior leaders, practitioners, and change-makers, The Human ROI looks beyond tools and trends to focus on what actually drives sustainable growth. Not strategy in isolation, but the disciplined investment in people, culture, and capability that turns transformation into results.


This podcast is for professionals building resilient careers, leaders responsible for teams and transformation, and organizations navigating growth, change, and the future of work who want performance that lasts.


Humans aren’t separate from ROI.

They’re how ROI is created.

© 2026 The Human ROI
Career Success Economics Management Management & Leadership Personal Development Personal Success
Episodes
  • The Future of Skills at Scale
    Jun 23 2026

    In this episode of The Human ROI Podcast, Elissa Mahendra is joined by Omer Glass, co-founder and CEO of GrowthSpace, to discuss the future of skill development, AI-enabled learning, and how organizations can turn capability building into measurable business returns.

    Leaders are being asked to move faster, close skill gaps, adopt AI, and prove the value of their people investments. But too often, learning and development is still measured by activity: course completions, attendance, program participation. Those numbers are easy to report and easy to mistake for impact. The harder question, and the one this conversation keeps coming back to, is whether any of it actually changed behavior or moved a metric the business cares about.

    Omer shares how GrowthSpace is helping organizations rethink that model through precision skill development: identifying the right gaps, matching employees with the right experts, and tying learning directly to business priorities. It is a shift from measuring effort to measuring return.

    Elissa and Omer also explore ExpertX, GrowthSpace's AI-powered solution for extending expert knowledge across an organization. From internal trainers and SMEs to senior leaders and top performers, ExpertX opens new possibilities for capturing institutional knowledge, supporting employees in the flow of work, and making expertise reachable across teams that could never access it before.

    This conversation is especially relevant for HR, talent, L&D, and business leaders thinking about how to grow capability, prepare their workforce for AI, and move from learning programs to real workforce transformation.

    In this episode, we discuss:

    → Why traditional learning programs struggle to show business impact
    → What precision skill development means and why it matters now
    → How organizations move from broad training to targeted capability building
    → Why skill development should start with the business problem, not the content
    → How AI extends internal expertise and institutional knowledge across the workforce
    → The role of ExpertX in knowledge transfer and employee support
    → Why learning ROI has to be tied to outcomes leaders actually care about
    → How HR and business leaders can start small, test, and build momentum


    🔗 EXPLORE MORE

    Connect with Omer Glass
    → LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/omerglass/
    → Website: https://www.growthspace.com/
    → ExpertX: https://www.growthspace.com/news/expertx-ai
    → Book a Demo: https://www.growthspace.com/book-a-demo

    Connect with Elissa Mahendra
    → LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emahendra/
    → LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-human-roi-7396293873473523713
    → The Human ROI Podcast: https://thehumanroi.buzzsprout.com/

    Support the show

    Thanks for joining the conversation on The Human ROI.

    Show More Show Less
    37 mins
  • Turn Your Expertise Into Opportunity
    Apr 17 2026

    In this episode of The Human ROI, I sit down with Melanie Borden, Founder of Borden Group and creator of the Human to Brand Movement, to unpack one of the biggest missed opportunities in today’s career landscape: visibility.

    Melanie has helped hundreds of executives, founders, and organizations translate their expertise into powerful digital presence and real business outcomes. Her work has been featured in Entrepreneur, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal, and in this conversation, she breaks down what’s really holding leaders back from showing up.

    We get into the psychology behind visibility, why even the most accomplished professionals hesitate to put themselves out there, and how to reframe personal brand from performance to service.

    We also explore:
    • Why doing great work is no longer enough on its own
    • How to reframe visibility from performance to service
    • What “building in public” looks like in practice
    • The difference between attention, influence, and real business impact
    • How to use AI as a tool without losing your voice
    • Simple ways to start showing up this week, even if you don’t feel ready

    Melanie shares practical, no-fluff ways to get started this week, plus how to scale your presence through community, partnerships, and consistent storytelling.

    If you’ve ever thought, “I know I have more to say, but I’m not putting it out there yet,” this episode is your nudge.

    🔗 EXPLORE MORE

    Connect with Melanie Borden
    → LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanieborden/
    → Website: https://humantobrand.com
    → Book: Theater of the Mind https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G53YGT9V

    Connect with Elissa Mahendra
    → LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emahendra/
    → LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-human-roi-7396293873473523713
    → The Human ROI Podcast: https://thehumanroi.buzzsprout.com/

    Support the show

    Thanks for joining the conversation on The Human ROI.

    Show More Show Less
    26 mins
  • Unleashing Your Hidden Potential in Corporate America
    Apr 17 2026

    In this episode of The Human ROI, Elissa Mahendra sits down with Jessica D. Winder, Chief People Officer, career coach, and author, to explore a critical gap in today’s workplace: the hidden potential sitting inside organizations and why it so often goes unrealized.

    Jessica shares her perspective from both sides of the table, as an HR executive and career coach, on why high-performing professionals are frequently overlooked despite delivering strong results. The conversation challenges the belief that hard work alone leads to recognition and instead highlights the real drivers of career growth: visibility, advocacy, and positioning.

    Together, they unpack how talent decisions are really made inside organizations, why leaders default to external hires, and how internal talent often goes untapped. Jessica also offers unfiltered, practical strategies for individuals to start advocating for their careers and actively campaign for their growth, clarifying what they want to be known for, communicating their impact, and building visibility both inside and outside their organization.

    For leaders, this episode is a call-out to rethink how they identify and develop talent. If you’re not actively uncovering and activating the potential already on your team, you’re leaving real value on the table.

    For individuals, it’s a wake-up call: your potential isn’t enough. It has to be seen, understood, and claimed.

    🔗 Explore More

    Connect with Jessica Winder:
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicawinder/
    Linktree (all resources): https://linktr.ee/HiddenGemCC

    Connect with Elissa Mahendra:
    → LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emahendra/
    → LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-human-roi-7396293873473523713
    → The Human ROI Podcast: https://thehumanroi.buzzsprout.com/

    Support the show

    Thanks for joining the conversation on The Human ROI.

    Show More Show Less
    28 mins
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