Shows
Climbing the StackCareer planning for CIOs: Define your last job first, then reverse-engineer the path | Rusty AtkinsonThe director-to-VP jump breaks most technology leaders. Rusty Atkinson saw it coming. After realizing he was an above-average engineer but never the head geek in the room, he made a calculated bet: leadership ability would take him further than technical depth. Twenty years later, as VP of Technology at Clearway Health and author of "The Integrity Edge," he's built a repeatable framework for climbing to the C-suite. His approach centers on what he calls the "integrity edge" - the measurable engagement, loyalty, and innovation you earn when teams know they're protected and trusted. But getting there required learning that...
2026-02-1739 min
Climbing the StackThe 90-day framework that moved IT from whack-a-mole to strategic execution | Kumud KokalKumud Kokal's career path defied his CPA father's expectations, pivoting from accounting to software engineering during the Internet's early days. Over 25 years, he built technical fluency across wildly different business models, from Intuit's consumer finance to Airbnb's hospitality platform to FBN's agriculture technology, before landing as CIO at Kiteworks. His framework for career decisions remains consistent: evaluate opportunities through the lens of "how hard can this be?" At FBN, that question led him to dairy farms in Minnesota, watching a fifth-generation farmer track 400 head of cattle producing 29,000 gallons of milk daily by sight alone. The experience taught him that...
2026-02-0335 min
Climbing the StackStop-start-continue: The one question that unlocks IT-business alignment | Bob GenchiBob Genchi's seven years at Gap Inc. became his "postgraduate education" in IT. He watched a major IBM outsourcing initiative that initially promised efficiency turn into a morale-destroying productivity sink. The experience taught him to prioritize what traditional metrics miss entirely: user sentiment and organizational trust. Now as CIO/CISO at Scale Venture Partners, he advises early-stage portfolio companies on scaling IT operations while bringing that hard-won perspective on what actually works versus what looks good in a business case.
Topics discussed:
Gap Inc.'s IBM outsourcing as a cautionary tale in prioritizing cost reduction over...
2026-01-2037 min
Climbing the StackHire people smarter than you: The VP mindset shift | Noni AzharNoni Azhar turned a consulting career into C-suite leadership by mastering what most IT leaders miss: the skill of making stakeholders believe your solution was their idea. As CIO at ProService Hawaii, he shares the frameworks that carried him from technical consulting through each inflection point—IC to manager, director to VP, VP to CIO—and why self-compassion during those transitions separates leaders who scale from those who stall.
Topics discussed:
The consulting-to-internal IT transition and why being "right for free" requires different influence tactics than charging for expertise
Chess-board thinking for stakeholder management: seeing problems from...
2026-01-0728 min
Climbing the StackThe morale fix most IT leaders miss: Why listening beats solving when teams struggle | Trevor GreggTrevor Gregg supervises county IT operations and runs Columbia College's Google-funded IT pre-apprenticeship program. When he inherited a service desk with morale in the basement, he did something most IT leaders never consider: he brought a county board supervisor directly to his team—not to announce fixes, but to listen without offering solutions.
That single move solved what performance reviews and skip-levels couldn't touch. His team needed to feel heard before they could move forward. The insight applies directly to IT leadership: when morale craters, your instinct to problem-solve actively prevents recovery. Your team already knows the te...
2025-12-1635 min
Venture with GraceMadison Faulkner, NEA Partner on Data Infra, Dev Tools & Applied AIMadison is a Partner at NEA investing in early-stage data, infrastructure, developer tools, data science, and AI and she also leads the data and AI initiative internally for data-driven investment decision-making. She has invested in and works with companies including Factory, Datafold, Metabase, Foresight Data, Delphina, Fixify, World Labs, Sakana and more. Prior to investing, Madison was Head of Data Science and Machine Learning at growth startup Thrasio, Head of Data Science at Greycroft, and led a data science team at Facebook focused on the ad auction and deep learning with FAIR. Madison received a BS in Engineering from...
2025-12-051h 00
Climbing the StackThe First 60 Days: What New VPs Actually Do Differently | Tom Quinn"How many IAM tickets do you close a day?" When Tom Quinn asked his team, the answer was "a lot." That non-answer cost them six hours just to compile basic metrics. Two weeks later: four hours. Two more weeks: one hour. Then real-time. That progression unlocked the insight that 80% of tickets came from one call center with high turnover — leading to automated role-based provisioning that saved 20 hours per week.
Quinn's measurement-first approach at T. Rowe Price proves you can't automate what you don't measure, but more importantly, the act of measuring itself becomes the first automation win. Hi...
2025-12-0255 min
Climbing the StackFrom Director to CIO: What Actually Changes | Mark SettleMost IT leaders spend their first week as CIO in meet-and-greets. Mark Settle spent his time sitting in quarterly sales reviews in Minneapolis—where executives looked at him confused, asking why he'd want to be there. That confusion was the point. He was building field credibility that would matter when things got hard.
The VP-to-CIO transition isn't what people expect. As a VP, your CIO shields you from unhappy business partners—even if people complain about your data warehouse, the CIO knows nobody could run it better. As CIO, that protection disappears. You can't succeed unless all your...
2025-11-1842 min
Scale Like a CEOScaling Startups: Challenges, Management & The Role of AI | Scale Like a CEO“Cutting costs with AI” sounds sharp until the bots get confused and your help desk catches fire. We sat down with Matt Peters of Fixify to unpack a smarter path: design for the mix—pair automation and agentic AI with skilled people who step in at the right moments—and invest in the management muscle that keeps quality rising as complexity grows.Matt explains how Fixify handles roughly 75% of break‑fix tickets by integrating with existing stacks, not ripping and replacing. We dig into the false choice of quality versus cost, why seven direct reports remains a meaningful...
2025-11-0525 min
Climbing the StackCareer Jungle Gym Vs Career Ladder: Karl Mosgofian's Path To IT LeadershipMost directors think the CIO job is about making bigger technical decisions. Karl Mosgofian discovered it's about learning an entirely different language: investment language. When your "perfect" solution reaches the CEO, they're choosing between 30 competing priorities and can fund maybe 6. His brutal mentor with the red pen taught him the empathy framework: if you can't see your presentation through the CEO's eyes, you're dead in the water.
Karl's journey from programmer to CIO at Gainsight spanned over three decades in IT leadership, transforming IT from support function into growth catalyst. His networking evolution went from awkward forced...
2025-11-0431 min
The Executive RoomScaling with Care: Matt Peters on Human-Centered InnovationIn this episode of The Executive Room, host Kimberly Afonso welcomes Matt Peters, co-founder and CEO of Fixify, an AI-powered outsourced IT help desk dedicated to making users feel cared for. With decades of experience as a software developer, network engineer, and leader at tech companies, Matt brings a unique perspective on humanizing IT through intelligent automation and thoughtful service.Listen in as Matt shares the origin story behind Fixify, how culture and leadership shape growth, and why he believes every employee has “superpowers” to unlock. Discover his candid insights on building strong teams, investing in people, and...
2025-10-0833 min
Never Too EarlyFounder Therapy with Matt PetersIn this episode of Never Too Early's Founder Therapy Series, Lauren Ipsen from Decibel sits down with Matt Peters, the former Chief Product Officer at Expel and now a tech entrepreneur. They discuss his journey to becoming a founder, including his early career experiences, the challenges of building his company Fixify, and the learnings from product development to managing investors. Matt shares invaluable insights on the importance of understanding customer needs, building a strong team, and maintaining emotional resilience in the startup world.00:00 Introduction to Never Too Early00:20 Meet Matt Peters: From CPO to Founder01:03...
2025-01-3142 min
The Predictable Revenue Podcast374: The Truth About Validating Your Startup Idea with Mase IssaStarting a company often feels like standing at a crossroads, overwhelmed by countless possibilities and opinions. That’s the situation Fixify’s co-founder, Mase Issa, and his team found themselves in when brainstorming their next venture. Highlights include: Where did Fixify's First 10 Customers Come From? (08:40), Betting on Success as a Founder (11:30), And more... Are you looking to create repeatable, scalable, and predictable revenue? We can help! ► https://predictable.fm/get-growth
2025-01-3026 minThe Predictable Revenue Podcast374: The Truth About Validating Your Startup Idea with Mase IssaStarting a company often feels like standing at a crossroads, overwhelmed by countless possibilities and opinions. That's the situation Fixify's co-founder, Mase Issa, and his team found themselves in when brainstorming their next venture. Highlights include: Where did Fixify's First 10 Customers Come From? (08:40), Betting on Success as a Founder (11:30), And more... Are you looking to create repeatable, scalable, and predictable revenue? We can help! ► https://predictable.fm/get-growth
2025-01-3026 min
The Bearhug Experience(Funding Recap #29) Bearhug Recruiting's Early & Growth Stage Tech Startup Funding Recap! 10/28/24Here’s this week’s startup funding recap:
1. Pantheon AI, led by David Mace, has raised a $25 million Series A funding round. Pantheon provides artificial intelligence-enabled architectural services that streamline processes for developers, owners, and tenants.
2. BiltOn, led by Omer Slavin, has raised a $15 million Series B funding round. BiltOn provides construction operations and risk management software tailored for owners and general contractors.
3. Carbon Ridge, led by Chase Dwyer, has raised a $9.5 million Series A funding round. Carbon Ridge develops modular onboard carbon capture and storage (OCCS) solutions for the maritime shipping industry to r...
2024-10-2911 min
Business of Tech: Daily 10-Minute IT Services InsightsAmazon's Office Mandate, AI Innovations, Email Security Surge, and Big Tech's Profit ChallengesThis episode delves into the ongoing remote work debate, particularly focusing on Amazon's recent mandate requiring employees to return to the office five days a week starting in 2025. This decision has sparked significant backlash, with a Newsweek study indicating that a majority of remote workers would consider resigning if forced back into the office. The dissatisfaction is echoed in a poll revealing that 91% of Amazon employees are unhappy with the policy, and many express concerns about its impact on work-life balance and flexibility.The episode also highlights the evolving landscape of managed service providers (MSPs) and help...
2024-10-2514 min
Service MVP Sales Training Podcast with Joe CrisaraEpisode 53 - Service Contractring Future Trends With Darren Dixon From FixifyOur host, Joe Crisara has a discussion with Darren Dixon from Fixify on episode 53, of The Service MVP Podcast. "We had 26 locations we did $145 Million and we had a good sized business with many franchisees."-Darren Dixon, Fixify Check out another fantastic episode of The Service MVP Podcast...If you want learn more feel free to reach out Joe and his team at Service MVP!Here's Joe's contact information - Contact Joe Crisara Service MVP.Support the show
2023-12-1132 min
李将军英语时间李将军英语时间0522-拿死工资为什么不好 2018点击每期节目
可以看到具体文稿内容
A Fixed Income Is a Sucker Bet
By Steve Pavlina
Do you live on a fixed income, earning the same amount of money paycheck after paycheck? Maybe you pick up a cost of living adjustment or a raise now and then (or suffer a pay cut or reduction in hours), but barring any major changes like getting promoted, fired, or laid off, is your income fairly stable and predictable? Do you have a good sense of what you’re going to earn during the next 3 months? Would it be exceedingly unlikely for you to earn double or triple – or half – of that anticipated amount?
If th...
2018-05-2200 min
李将军英语时间李将军英语时间0522-拿死工资为什么不好 2018 点击每期节目 可以看到具体文稿内容 A Fixed Income Is a Sucker BetBy Steve PavlinaDo you live on a fixed income, earning the same amount of money paycheck after paycheck? Maybe you pick up a cost of living adjustment or a raise now and then (or suffer a pay cut or reduction in hours), but barring any major changes like getting promoted, fired, or laid off, is your income fairly stable and predictable? Do you have a good sense of what you’re going to earn during the next 3 months? Would it be exceedingly unlikely for you to ea...
2018-05-2204 min