Talent Smart Podcast

Season 3 - Episode 9 - Anna Westerhoff-Mason - Building High-Performing Teams in Startup & Scale-Up Environments

Anna Westerhoff-Mason - Building High-Performing Teams in Startup & Scale-Up Environments In this insightful episode, we discuss high-performing teams in startup and scale-up environments and we uncover what does that actually look like day-to-day — not in theory, but in reality.  We unpick the importance of Defining culture early and what should leaders focus on first: values, behaviours, or outcomes, together with exploring how much of culture is intentionally designed versus organically formed in the early stages. We talk about hiring in a start up, what matters more than technical skill when building a high-performing early team. Anna gives an insight into how to maintain your culture as your company grows and why we often see how it starts strong but gets diluted as teams scale. We also delve into Leadership, trust and psychological safety and the importance of talent retention & sustaining performance and why consistent communications and feedback from leadership is vital. Anna also gives her three key actions that you can take in the next 90 days to strengthen team performance and culture.

Season 3 - Episode 8 - Lyndsay MacLeod - Building Lean, High-Velocity Global Engineering Teams

What does it really take to build world-class engineering teams at global scale — and sustain velocity without sacrificing quality? In this episode, we sit down with Lyndsay MacLeod, an award-winning Continuous Improvement leader with 20+ years of experience driving large-scale transformation across engineering, manufacturing and financial services. This isn’t theory. It’s hard-won insight from someone who has led change across complex, distributed, high-pressure environments. We explore: * The mindset behind true lean leadership — beyond process and frameworks * How to scale lean principles across dozens (or hundreds) of engineers globally * Building psychological safety and ownership across time zones and cultures * Turning delivery setbacks into growth, not blame * Balancing velocity with long-term code quality and resilience * Communicating lean trade-offs to senior stakeholders and boards * The blueprint for a next-generation global engineering organisation If you lead engineering teams, oversee digital transformation, or responsible for technology risk and delivery at scale — this conversation is for you. Lyndsay shares practical frameworks, cultural insights, and leadership lessons that separate high-performing global teams from those stuck in “agile theatre.” Lean isn’t about going faster. It’s about building organisations that learn faster. Listen now.

Season 3 - Episode 7 - Claire Talbot – Creating a culture for success

Claire Talbot – Creating a culture for success We welcomed Claire Talbot. Claire is the VP of IT at Smartest Energy, a people-powered energy company that helps businesses buy, sell and trade energy with confidence. Within this role, she is responsible for the design, development and implementation of their Enterprise information systems, software applications, IT support and infrastructure systems.  Having studied Computer Science, Claire started her careers as a computer programmer.  Throughout her career she has moved up to a senior role within IT working at board level across a variety of businesses in manufacturing, retail, and utilities.  A strong support of Women in Technology Claire regularly speaks at schools and mentors’ young women starting their career within. In this episode, we discussed how understanding Your Team Beyond the Workplace is highly beneficial for everyone. Claire talks about the importance of truly knowing your team members, including aspects of their personal and home lives. Claire explained how cultivating a No-Blame culture, where mistakes are treated as learning opportunities is crucial. Claire used the metaphor of a good leader being an umbrella; when it rains being a shield and stepping aside when the sun shines.  In addition, she explains that people are your best asset as a CIO – “otherwise, all you have is technology”.

Season 3 - Episode 6 - Nicholas Smith - "How communication skills define careers"

Nicholas Smith - "How communication skills define careers"   Nicholas is a highly experienced Chief Operating Officer and Technology Strategy and Transformation Executive, with over 20 years of experience in solving enterprise-wide business and technology problems for large organisations in Financial Services and Central Government. He has a proven track record in driving Operational Excellence, enhancing the Colleague Experience, defining and driving execution of Technology and Organisation Strategy.   In this episode, Nicholas shares his secrets to communication and how to build an ethos within your organisation of open, simple and authentic communication that returns amazing results.   We learn about how a strategy lives or dies on how well you can articulate it, and how simplicity of message is key to success.   Nicholas shares with us his ingredients (and how to implement them) for building an organisation that is underpinned by great communication. These are: 1) Be ruthless in your hiring strategy 2) Be interested in what you do / your business 3) Work hard (at the right things) 4) Great communications throughout the team 5) People are more than assets—look after them 6) Be the custodian of careers (develop your people)

Season 3 - Episode 5 - Sarah Morris - CX Strategy & Business Value

Sarah is a leader in customer experience, consulting, strategy and operations. Identifying opportunities & driving value in large business transformation within operating models, processes, technologies, data, & insights.  She holds a consistent record for delivering results, driving operational excellence & delivering complex transformation programmes, and growing multi-million £ practices.  Her industry experience spans across a number of sectors, including: Energy, FS, Public Sector, Retail, Transport & Utilities. She has led multifunctional & diverse teams in UK, EMEA, North America & APAC.   In this episode Sarah shares a little about her journey and how she developed a passion for Customer Experience. We uncover what “great Customer Experience” really means in 2026 and how to assess an organisation’s maturity. We explore why CX should be considered a business-critical strategy rather than just a marketing or service function. We discover what are the essential components to a successful CX strategy and where should businesses start and how important is cross-functional alignment (sales, ops, tech, finance) in delivering a successful CX strategy. We also debunk the myth that CX is “intangible” and Sarah shares how you demonstrate its ROI in a way that resonates with executives and shareholders, including what financial metrics should businesses track when evaluating CX performance. In addition, we discuss the importance of customer retention and how CX affects the P&L.