Let's talk Transformation : The business leaders podcast Podcast By Suzie Lewis cover art

Let's talk Transformation : The business leaders podcast

Let's talk Transformation : The business leaders podcast

By: Suzie Lewis
Listen for free

"Let's talk Transformation" is a podcast for busy yet curious leaders and executives who want to stay ahead of the curve and relevant in the age of AI. Join strategic yet practical conversations with experienced leaders ready to vulnerably share knowledge & learnings. You will be able to operationalise these insights and immediately apply with your team & peers to drive more inclusive & collaborative environments for sustainable transformation & innovation in the workplace and beyond. Hosted by Suzie Lewis, bilingual & bicultural, holding over 20 years of transformation experience in different sized organisations. Her approach is systemic, working on invisible dynamics to improve the quality & speed of decision making and creating a culture of learning. https://transformforvalue.comCopyright 2026 Suzie Lewis Economics Leadership Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • #170 Unlock Creativity & Focus : the 'flow' of transformation with Steven Puri

    #170 Unlock Creativity & Focus : the 'flow' of transformation with Steven Puri
    May 11 2026
    You need to treat time as sacred...In our 24/7 hustle culture this is no mean feat.. Imagine a workday where time seems to vanish, distractions fade, and your team produces their best work effortlessly. This isn’t a fantasy. It is the power of “flow states,” a concept gaining traction among forward-thinking leaders.Steven and I explore this concept of Flow, steven is a visionary who has navigated the worlds of IBM engineering and Academy Award-winning film production. Their conversation reveals how understanding and cultivating flow can transform productivity, performance, and overall happiness within any organization. Entering a flow state typically requires 15 to 23 minutes of uninterrupted focus and that interruptions reset this process.To facilitate flow, leaders must treat dedicated work time as sacred, encouraging “time blocking” where team members can focus without distractions like instant messages or impromptu meetings. This intentional protection of time allows for deep work and creative insightsSteven shares his unique perspective, having witnessed high performance in both highly creative and deeply technical fields. This dual experience provides a rare insight into universal patterns that drive sustainable success. His journey from IBM software engineer to visual effects producer for “Independence Day,” a VP at Fox, and now the creator of the SUkha company, a platform designed to help remote workers achieve focus and flow.We explore why leaders might be hesitant to adopt models that prioritize deep, creative work, often attributing this to a fear of losing control over their teams. This fear often stems from a hiring problem, if leaders effectively articulate a mission and values, they will attract engaged individuals who are intrinsically motivated. Trusting talented employees to pursue the mission without constant surveillance is crucial. We touch upon the increasing importance of “inner game” skills and fostering creativity in an AI-dominated world to ensure both relevance and fulfillment.Leaders should protect time for deep strategic thinking, as this is often given away to busywork, impeding true leadership, care and innovation. Steven’s company, SUKHA, built on the Sanskrit word for happiness through self-fulfillment, provides tools to foster these conditions for remote knowledge workers. By offering distraction blockers, curated soundscapes, and smart assistants, SUKHA helps individuals consistently enter flow states.The result? 94-96% month-over-month retention, showing people truly value the ability to achieve deep work and finish their tasks efficiently.What’s the one thing you will commit to protecting in your week to foster deep thought and move your strategic objectives forward?The main insights you'll get from this episode are :There are patterns that are common among high performers that must work in a hybrid world that can oscillate between periods of remote working followed by intense in-person periods.LLMs are great for automating established patterns but leaders must also know how to manage and create the right conditions for people to thrive in this setup - Sukha helps people create flow states for healthy productivity.Productivity can be defined more broadly as extracting people’s greatness and creativity, i.e. creating a flow state which provides an uplift as opposed to energy depletion.The trick to translating an understanding of flow into real-world situations is to treat time as sacred, e.g. by using time-blocking and -boxing, working according to chronotype, and changing working methods.Small insights can lead to huge competitive advantages, but they are difficult to measure and make tangible; leaders are also fearful of being unsure what their people are doing and losing ‘control’.This can be traced back to hiring the ‘wrong’ people: if leaders articulate the company’s mission and values correctly, they will naturally attract the type of person that wants to work in the organisation. Systems in organisations have antibodies to a culture of creativity and are structured around demonstrating results as a means to get things done, whereas Sukha – meaning happiness through self-fulfilment in Sanskrit – aims for flow. The Sukha platform offers the right aural environment, a smart assistant for optimisation, and blocks distractions to enable people to enter flow and build self-belief in defiance of the all-pervasive ‘steal your life’ model.Every leader (everyone) should aim to protect what we give away free for others to monetise: time for deep thought - before giving in to temptation or distraction, we can think of one thing every day that we can do to move our life forward.Find out more about Steven and his work here : steven@thesukha.cohttps://www.thesukha.co/
    Show more Show less
    50 mins
  • #169 Transformative AI: Navigating the Hyperconnected World with Matt Evans

    #169 Transformative AI: Navigating the Hyperconnected World with Matt Evans
    May 4 2026

    The biggest danger in today’s hyperconnected world isn’t moving too slowly. It’s moving too fast without understanding the system.

    The world today operates with unprecedented interconnectedness, where a single decision in technology can impact climate systems, and policy shifts can ripple across global supply chains. We no longer manage isolated organizations. Instead, leaders navigate a complex, living ecosystem. This fundamental shift requires a new kind of awareness and a deeper understanding of the systems at play.

    Matt & I explore the evolution of leadership from data-savvy to AI-savvy, drawing on insights matt's decades of experience in technology, ecosystems, and supply chains. He understands how interconnected decisions impact industries, communities, and even the planet. His journey from deep tech innovations to corporate data science and now to Earth Savvy provides a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities for modern leaders.

    Today’s hyperconnected world means we must understand connections; an architecture based on AI agents enables us to ask our own questions about the world around us to get simple insights/answers one at a time.

    In this hyperconnected landscape, understanding what happens outside your immediate business becomes crucial. While asking the right questions remains vital for leaders, AI offers something more profound. AI provides the ability to go deeper, to question assumptions more thoroughly, and to imagine connections in ways previously impossible. AI agents can perform work on our behalf, multiplying our abilities in driving transformation, but they need to be directed by human input and questions. The key is to ground AI use in our desired direction and questions, rather than simply outsourcing our thinking to an AI model.

    What’s one aspect of your business where you’re actively exploring broader systemic connections, rather than just refining existing processes?

    The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

    • To project into the future, leaders must heed current circumstances elsewhere in the world; experts know the key questions to ask but need help to get the answer from huge volumes of data.
    • Being data savvy now means being AI savvy, and asking the right questions is at the heart of transformation; AI brings an ability to go deep and question ourselves first and foremost.
    • AI agents can work on our behalf and act as multipliers for our own abilities as long as they are directed by human questions – but moving too fast and ignoring the system is dangerous.
    • Human-agentic collaboration complexifies decisions and a core skill for leaders is true systems thinking, i.e. understanding your own hypothesis to fit into an AI framework - simplicity and focus are vital to get answers.
    • A big deep tech issue is to make data understandable and valuable - innovation is no longer about creating new products/solutions/tools, but about curation and removing complexity.
    • Leadership is moving from control to orchestration – in future, thriving organisations will build connections/value chains internally; AI is both a blessing and a curse here as it can stop humans connecting.
    • AI is no different from previous automations but the insights it delivers need to be human; the increasing power of software will help us understand the data and enable us to simplify processes via agents.
    • Satellite data will be as integral to our lives in future as GPS data is today; earth observation data is much richer than GPS data and we will come to rely on it - EarthSavvy will provide the platform while we ‘update our human software’.
    • Leaders should consider all touchpoints outside the organisation over a large surface area to build a mental model for change - taking an inventory as a starting point shows where you fit into the broader system around you.

    Find out more about Matt and his work here :

    https://earthsavvy.ai/

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-evans-8756726/
    Show more Show less
    35 mins
  • #168 Transforming Finance with Jasmine Ahmed

    #168 Transforming Finance with Jasmine Ahmed
    Apr 27 2026

    Finance leaders often find themselves measuring the past, but what if finance could drive future decisions?

    Jasmine and I discuss transforming finance from a transaction-focused department to a value-driven decision enabler.

    This episode explores how finance leaders can leverage EQ, rethink ROI in a platform-driven economy, and overcome traditional mindsets to drive organizational growth and stay relevant.

    We explore the challenge of moving finance teams away from rigid adherence to spreadsheets and past data, advocating for a more holistic, forward-looking approach.

    This discussion centers on the overlooked power of finance in driving organizational value, emphasizing the need for cultural shifts and investment in human capital alongside technological advancements.

    The age of AI requires more generalists as tech is no longer a dedicated, highly specialised vertical; in future, the finance structure and function will be more horizontal and fluid, high-performing, and interdisciplinary, combining human and digital talent.

    Jasmine shares her insights and experience as a finance and transformation executive.

    The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

    • The finance function must become value- not transaction-driven and balance EQ (addressing what’s not in the numbers) and IQ (traditionally rewarded) in order to enable decisions.
    • Letting go of numbers can cause anxiety for those who work with them, but finance transformation business cases must invest in talent and culture, not just tech, to change operations and how value is created.
    • Adoption happens after the (tech) go-live, which requires ongoing subsequent effort to have conversations and integrate this into the transformation - the finance department must talk to people to understand the intangibles.
    • AI is simply a sophistication of the algorithm, it cannot offer EQ or creativity are not covered by AI, therefore talent must have and understand both EQ and IQ – this requires interviewing for growth mindset as opposed to technical skills.
    • Digital literacy/fluency in finance means understanding how data models are designed and maintained and using critical thinking to drive improved design and maintenance independently of the tool.
    • Operating models must evolve to break down functional silos and verticals and instead have horizontal fluid talent that are subsequently upskilled – it is a long-term investment rather than a quick fix, and it uplifts the entire organisation.
    • Development programs for all leaders should be skills-based, with promotion based not on ‘what’, but on ‘how’; after developing real leadership skills, leaders should then be accountable to deliver against those skills.
    • The age of AI requires more generalists as tech is no longer a dedicated, highly specialised vertical; in future, the finance structure and function will be more horizontal and fluid, high-performing, and interdisciplinary, combining human and digital talent.
    • Functions, individuals, and organisations must all continuously reimagine how they create value beyond the superficial layer, requiring continuous investment to lead from the front, not the back, and recruiting for adaptability.

    Find out more about Jasmine and her work here :

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasmineahmedt/
    Show more Show less
    37 mins
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_c
No reviews yet