From Controlling Work to Activating People W/Bala Sathyanarayanan

HR Leadership at Scale Means Keeping People at the Center W/ Bettina Deynes

Bettina Deynes, Global Chief HR Officer at Carnival Corporation, joins We’re Not Recording to talk about what it really means to lead HR at massive global scale. From supporting 200,000 crew members and employees across 152 nationalities to building trust through intentional listening, Bettina shares why great HR leadership is not about holding all the pressure yourself, but creating the conditions for others to rise with you. She and Melanie dig into communication across distributed teams, why Carnival employees stay for generations, how AI can give HR teams more room for strategic work, and why the most meaningful people work sits at the intersection of business impact and human impact.

The Hard Part of Training Is Making Sure It Actually Sticks W/ Margaret-Ann Cole

Margaret-Ann Cole joins Melanie to talk about what it really takes to build trust inside an organization: transparency, follow-through, and communication that actually reaches every employee. From engagement surveys and frontline communication to snail-mail newsletters, wellbeing, AI in HR, and the challenge of making training truly stick, this conversation digs into the hard part of people work: not just offering support, but making sure employees can access it, absorb it, and use it when it matters.

Growth requires bets, just be honest about the risks w/ Q Hamirani

Q Hamirani, CPO at HighLevel, joins Melanie to talk about what it really takes to grow fast without losing discipline. They dig into the messy balance between hypergrowth and efficiency, why AI is changing the old headcount math, and how leaders should communicate hard resource decisions without pretending every bet is a sure thing. From hiring smart instead of hiring hard, to reskilling teams, reallocating resources, and admitting when a plan may need to pivot, this episode is about the humility required to lead through change. Growth still requires bets, but the best leaders are honest about the risks, clear about the indicators, and willing to adjust when the bet plays out differently than expected.

Building a Culture Where Accountability & Safety Actually Mean Something W/ Nabeel Ahmed

In this episode of We’re Not Recording, Melanie Naranjo talks with Nabeel Ahmed, Chief HR and Safety Officer at Wellbore Integrity Solutions, about what it really takes to build a culture of performance, accountability, and safety. Nabeel shares why compensation is one of the clearest ways a company communicates what it actually values, and why performance bonuses only mean something when they truly differentiate the people who go above and beyond. He also opens up about the human side of safety leadership, including the difficult responsibility of supporting employees and families when someone is injured on the job. Together, they explore why safety can’t just be a buzzword, why every employee has to see themselves as a safety leader, and why accountability has to show up in real actions, not just company values. The conversation also touches on how HR leaders can think more boldly about AI, moving beyond simple automation and toward technology that can meaningfully transform how work gets done.

Keeping Work Human While AI Changes Everything W Brandon Sammut

In this episode of We’re Not Recording, Melanie Naranjo talks with Brandon Sammut, Chief People and AI Transformation Officer at Zapier, about what it really takes to keep work human while AI changes everything. They dig into how AI is reshaping HR, compensation, career paths, and team leadership, not as an abstract future-state, but as something employees are already feeling in their day-to-day work. Brandon shares how Zapier’s AI transformation started showing up in unexpected places across the business, from HR to legal to recruiting, and why giving people concrete examples, peer-to-peer learning, and room to experiment matters so much. The conversation also explores the tension leaders are navigating right now: how to reward outsized AI-driven impact without creating compensation problems later, how to set ambitious goals without turning the wrong measure into the wrong target, and why clarity alone is not enough unless it also gives people a reason to care. At its core, this episode is about building AI-forward companies without losing the human center of work. Melanie and Brandon unpack why every department needs more than a mandate to “get on the AI train.” Teams need a clear, specific, and inspiring picture of what their future looks like, and leaders need the humility to say, “Great question. I’m not sure yet. Here’s how we’re going to figure it out together.”