Lead Human - A Podcast About the Future of Work By Eli Harrell

EP #5 Nicolas Bivero: The Best Remote Teams Aren't Built on Talent Alone

Most companies say they're people-first. Fewer can show you what that actually looks like when growth gets uncomfortable, when key people go on leave, when a global pandemic forces you to rebuild how you onboard both employees and clients from scratch. In this episode, I sat down with Nico Bivero, Co-founder of PenBrothers — one of the fastest-growing outsourcing companies in the Philippines. Nico grew up in South America, studied in Switzerland, spent years building teams for a Japanese logistics company, and has now called Manila home for fifteen years. His perspective on leadership is shaped by all of it. We get into what it actually takes to build a people-first culture over time — not as a statement of values, but as a set of behaviors, processes, and choices that compound. Nico talks about where the cracks showed up as PenBrothers scaled, how a data-driven onboarding initiative called HyperCare took their new client success rate from around 50% to 86%, and why involving the people who execute a process in designing it isn't just good leadership — it's the only way change actually sticks. We also talk about the cultural gaps that show up when Western clients work with Filipino teams for the first time, why AI is making their model more human rather than less, and what Nico believes the Philippines needs to become known for beyond the talent it exports. This is a conversation about the long game — in business, in culture, and in people. What We Talked About * How Nico's first exposure to Filipino talent — as the sole foreigner building teams for a Japanese shipping company starting in 2005 — planted the seed for everything he's built since * Why "people first" isn't a philosophy you arrive at in university — and how working in Japan and the Philippines taught him that the right team, built with care, outperforms a group of A-players who don't jive * The long-game mindset he borrowed from Japanese business culture: not thinking quarter to quarter, but building something sustainable over five, ten, fifteen years — and the patience that requires from a self-described impatient person * The modeling gap: why you can't tell your team it's about the long game and then walk into a meeting angry about last week's numbers — and how Nico keeps himself honest about this * The hidden process risk inside growing companies: when key people leave or go on maternity leave and you realize the systems were never actually the reason things were working * How COVID exposed the gap in their onboarding process — and how Pen Brothers turned that into HyperCare, an intensive cross-cultural onboarding system for both new employees and new clients * The data behind HyperCare: client success rates that moved from roughly 50% to 86% after six months — discovered not from intuition, but from looking at what their best account executives were already doing differently * Cross-cultural communication in Filipino-Western remote teams: the British politeness trap, the importance of comprehension questions, and why "ask even if it seems obvious" is the advice Nico gives every new hire * How change actually sticks in an organization: co-creating the process with the people who have to execute it — slower on the front end, much faster on implementation * Why AI is making Pen Brothers more people-first, not less — by freeing up customer success and HR to have more time for actual human connection instead of reviewing email threads * Using AI for first-round candidate interviews as an opt-in tool — widening the talent funnel while making the experience easier for candidates to schedule on their own time * What it would take for the Philippines to be known not just for talent, but for leadership — and why it requires the private sector, industry, and government working together to grow the economy and bring experienced Filipinos home * Nico's 10-year vision: clients who say they couldn't be what they are without their Filipino team — and Filipino professionals who grew into senior leadership through the exposure Pen Brothers gave them "You can have great people, but if you don't make them work together and you don't have the right team structure, the whole ship won't function — and it will stop working pretty quickly." — Nicolas Bivero, CEO & Co-founder, PenBrothers Resources Mentioned * "Acquired" Podcast (recommended by Nico) — business history storytelling covering how major companies were founded, grew, and navigated their biggest challenges; episodes run 3–4 hours and Nico says 80% is deep company history; great for founders who want perspective on their own challenges

EP #4 Char Rivera - The Jobs AI Can't Replace: Leading People in the Age of Technology

What does it actually take to build a team that trusts you — and each other? In this conversation, I sit down with Char, a human-centric leader who has spent her career in the outsourcing space building teams from the inside out. Every senior leader and team lead in her organization started from rank and file. That's not a coincidence — it's a philosophy. We get into the distinction between managing tasks and managing people, and why so many leaders confuse the two for years before something forces them to wake up. Char talks about how her entire culture is anchored in a single core value — Malasakit, the Filipino concept of genuine, heartfelt care — and how that one word shapes everything from recruitment to accountability conversations. We also dig into one of the tensions I hear about constantly: how do you hold people accountable and still lead with compassion? Char draws a line I haven't heard drawn this clearly before — empathy is feeling it, compassion is doing something about it. And it turns out that doing something about it is exactly what drives performance. We also talk about AI, what it means for teams doing outsourcing work, and why the leaders who will thrive aren't the ones who resist technology — they're the ones who use it to go deeper with their people, not further from them. This is a conversation about trust, about caring enough to act, and about what it looks like to lead humans in a way that makes them actually want to stay. What We Talked About * How Char's leadership philosophy started when someone simply believed in her potential — before she had even proven it — and why that single experience shaped everything about how she develops people today * The shift from managing tasks to managing humans: why she used to think leadership was about driving performance and what changed when she realized people need the right support to perform at their best * Why speed is a short-term play — and how structure, clarity, and accountability create sustainability over urgency * How to understand what actually motivates people, and why passion is a choice — not something people stumble into * Malasakit as a core value: the single Filipino concept of genuine care that anchors her entire culture, introduced from day one in recruitment, not buried in an onboarding deck * Why she personally meets every batch of new hires on their first day — spending 15–30 minutes making sure they know her outside her title, and feel known beyond their resume * Trust as a mutual act: why great leaders both earn trust and extend it — and what happens when two people who are each trustworthy still have low trust between them * The Trust Battery exercise: a simple team activity where people ask each other "how much do you trust me?" — and the surprising realizations and action plans that follow * How she builds homegrown leaders: every senior in her organization started at rank and file, developed through shadowing, challenge, and the radical transparency of showing her own struggles out loud * Why she leads with a flat, linear mindset rather than a pyramid — and how showing vulnerability as a confident leader doesn't undermine authority, it creates it * The empathy vs. compassion distinction: empathy is understanding how someone feels, compassion is doing something because of it — and why she pushes her leaders to move from one to the other * How compassion directly connects to performance: the story of a team member missing KPIs because of a new baby and a misaligned shift — and how one small change turned it around * Why punitive accountability backfires — it activates fear, not growth — and what genuinely compassionate accountability looks like in practice * AI and the future of outsourcing: why technology doesn't make human leadership less relevant — it makes it more essential — and how her team is upskilling from transactional roles into coaching-centric ones * "How is this person smart?" — reframing how leaders evaluate talent in an AI-augmented world * Training your algorithm intentionally: why Chat recommends TikTok and YouTube as real leadership learning tools — and the mindset of curating your digital inputs the same way you'd curate a reading list "Empathy is putting yourself in their shoes. Compassion is actually doing something because of it. It's the action that is crucial — not just the feeling." — Char Rivera

EP # 3 Penn Lat: People-First Leadership Even in the Difficult Moments

I sat down with Penny, Co-CEO of Virtua Solutions, a remote staffing company that's been quietly doing something most companies just talk about — keeping people. At 95% employee retention, some team members still around from 2014, Penny's built something rare: a team that actually wants to stay. But this conversation isn't a highlight reel. Penny gets honest about the moments that humbled her — including a hard lesson about communicating change to her team the wrong way, one that cost Virtua a client. That story alone is worth the listen. We go deep on what "people first" actually looks like when performance is slipping and a client is frustrated. We talk about why slowing down isn't weakness — it's leadership. And we get into something I think we don't talk about enough: emotional regulation as a core leadership skill. Not a wellness trend. A real, practical requirement if you want to show up steady for your team. Penny also shares how she and her co-founder Francis model the culture they want — not through leadership manuals, but through how they show up in every meeting, every check-in, every joke. And we get into something close to my heart: the deference culture in the Philippines, why it holds our leaders back, and what it's going to take to move past it. If you're a people manager, HR leader, or founder trying to figure out how to build a team worth staying on — this one's for you. WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT * How Penny's early experience as a remote worker for a US-based SaaS startup gave her the blueprint for the kind of leader and culture she wanted to build * The founding of Virtua Solutions in 2017 — and how the company has held a 95% employee retention rate, with some team members still around since 2014 * The costly mistake of communicating a major change to her team using business logic instead of leading with what it meant for the people — and losing a client because of it * Why slowing down is one of the most underrated leadership skills, especially for fast-moving, systems-oriented leaders * Emotional regulation as a real leadership practice — not a buzzword — and Penny's honest account of learning to regulate her own state before bringing hard news to the team * The breathwork and mindfulness techniques Penny actually uses, and why she's still figuring out what sticks for her personality * What "people first" looks like in practice when someone is underperforming — understanding the full story before jumping to solutions, and using trusted peers as a bridge when direct conversations shut people down * The skill vs. will distinction in performance conversations — and why you can't coach your way out of what you don't understand first * How Penny and Francis model the leadership culture they want, rather than prescribing it — and why that approach produces leaders who put their own spin on it, which is the point * The role of humor and lightness in building psychological safety — and why breaking the ice (or "breaking" someone, in Penny's words) is actually a signal that trust has been built * Hierarchy in the Filipino workplace — where it comes from, why it's largely subconscious, and the quiet cost it has on how teams communicate and perform * The deference Filipinos can show toward Western or foreign leaders, and why Penny frames it as a shared human experience rather than a culture problem * What's shifting (and what isn't) as Gen Z enters the workforce with more international exposure and fewer ingrained sir/ma'am habits * What Virtua is still building toward: a culture-specific leadership training program that defines what it means to lead a team the Virtua way * The one thing Penny would tell every new leader: understand yourself first — your emotions, your triggers, your communication patterns — because how you manage yourself is how you'll manage others EPISODE QUOTE "If you don't understand your own complexities as a person, how would you understand that the people on your team also have complexities?" — Penny, Co-CEO, Virtua Solutions

EP # 2 Mia Lim: You Need To Stop Speaking HR & Start Speaking Human

Most HR leaders walk into organizations armed with frameworks, programs, and best practices. Mia walked in and just... listened. In this episode, I sat down with Mia, Head of People for TALA in the Philippines and Vietnam — a leader whose career path is anything but traditional. She started in brand management, moved through change management and consulting, got certified as an executive coach, and eventually found her way to one of the most people-forward roles in the Philippine tech space. What makes Mia's perspective rare isn't her credentials. It's her relentless insistence on context — on actually understanding what people's work lives look like before designing anything for them. They go deep on what real organizational transformation requires, why change so often fails at the last mile, and how a forwarded email she wasn't supposed to see became one of the most important leadership lessons of her career. They also talk about the future of work in the Philippines — what AI and automation could mean for human dignity in the workplace, why companies without HR at the table are more vulnerable than they think, and what Filipino organizations need to shift to unlock the leadership potential already sitting inside their teams. This is one of those conversations that will make you rethink how you show up — whether you're in HR, leading a team, or building a company. WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT * How Mia's non-traditional path — from brand management to consulting to executive coaching — shaped the way she thinks about people work * The pandemic moment that changed everything: why her boss kept telling her to get out of her bubble, and why it took years before she truly understood what that meant * Why context is the most underrated superpower in HR — and what it actually looks like to spend your first six months in a role just listening * The last mile problem in change management — why frameworks and programs fail when they're not translated into the language of the people they're designed for * Why organizational transformation has to start at the top — and the 20/80 rule Mia uses to balance time with senior leaders versus the rest of the organization * The performance rating wake-up call — how TALA discovered that 75% of their people were rated 4 or 5 out of 5, why that was not good, and what they did about it * Building a coaching culture at scale — why frequency of coaching wasn't the problem for frontline managers, and how fixing visibility into metrics transformed coaching quality overnight * The forwarded email she wasn't supposed to see — and what the brutal feedback inside it eventually taught her about pushing agendas without understanding context * The why to what shift — one of the most practical coaching tools in the episode, and why changing just the first word of a question can transform how people think about problems * Why HR needs a real seat at the table — and the very real business risk of building organizations where people are treated as replaceable boxes * The Good Job Strategy by Zeynep Ton — why creating good jobs is a strategic business choice, not just an HR aspiration * Bringing dignity back to work — what that phrase actually means, and why AI and automation could be the thing that finally makes it possible * What Filipino senior leaders need to shift — why giving people context and bringing them on the journey is the single biggest unlock for leadership potential in this country * The cascade moment — how one team lead's championship of a new performance policy became an unexpected and moving proof point for human-centered change BOOKS MENTIONED * The Good Job Strategy — Zeynep Ton * Work Rules — Laszlo Bock

EP #1 Mena Ramos: The Inner Work of Building Something Real

In this episode of the Lead Human, Eli shared a conversation with Dr. Mena Ramos Co-Founder & Co-CEO of GUSI. Global Ultrasound Institute (GUSI) is on a mission to revolutionize patient care worldwide — equipping medical professionals with the skills and tools to use Point of Care Ultrasound at the bedside, enabling faster, more informed clinical decisions that save lives. Through an innovative wrap-around learning platform combining AI-enabled technology, virtual mentorship, and tele-ultrasound, GUSI is bridging the gap between cutting-edge healthcare technology and everyday medical practice — one scan at a time. At the helm of that mission is Dr. Mena Ramos — family physician, entrepreneur, philosopher, and musician. As Co-Founder and Co-CEO of GUSI, she is operationalizing AI-enabled POCUS for measurable healthcare outcomes across teams spanning the Philippines, the United States, and Europe. But in this episode of Lead Human, Eli sits down with Mena to explore something beyond the company — the inner work behind the leadership. Mena opens up about what building GUSI taught her about herself — why growing a company strips away the professional mask and demands that you show up as a whole person. They explore the role of self-awareness in making better decisions under pressure, why emotional intelligence remains one of the most undervalued assets in business, how HR became one of the most critical systems in GUSI's growth, and why epistemic humility — the courage to say I don't have all the answers — might be the most important leadership skill of all. In this episode, we get into: * Why building a company forces you to show up as a whole person — and why that's actually a good thing * How self-awareness became her most important leadership tool — and what it cost her before she developed it * Why emotional intelligence is still one of the most undervalued assets in any business * How HR became essential infrastructure at Global Ultrasound Institute — not an afterthought * What epistemic humility looks like in practice — and why leading with "I don't have all the answers" unlocks more than confidence ever could If this conversation resonated with you, we hope you stick around — there's a lot more where this came from. And if you know someone who would benefit from hearing this, share it with them.