Podcasts | Leadership for a Networked World

Welcome to the
Bending Steel Podcast

The Bending Steel Podcast, hosted by Dr. Antonio Oftelie looks at breakthrough ideas and innovations, and gets in the trenches with real life leaders to show how they think about and move forward innovation and change. These leaders and organizations are breaking from hardened ways of working and, as like bending steel, transforming their approaches to deliver breakthrough outcomes and value.

The podcast features iconic executives and change agents as they share stories and ideas on growing the organizational and personal capacity to achieve breakthrough innovation and change and most importantly – generate outcomes that make a sustainably prosperous, equitable, and just world.

The Bending Steel podcast will help you lead organizations, institutions, communities – and yourself – into transformational levels of growth in outcomes and value.

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Episodes

Episode 12

Embracing Reinvention with Stanley Black & Decker Chief Supply Chain Officer Tamer Abuaita

In this episode, we explore what it takes to launch and sustain a high-stakes transformation inside a global company with our guest: Tamer Abuaita, Global Chief Supply Chain Officer and President of Industrial at Stanley Black & Decker. Tamer shares his experience leading a team of more than 33,000 employees on spearheading one of the most ambitious supply chain overhauls in the company’s history, while balancing the demands of operational excellence today with the vision required to build the supply chain of the future.

This transformation began at a moment of crisis. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stanley Black & Decker was struggling to meet demand, prompting new CEO Don Allan to call for sweeping change. He made clear that without a bold reinvention of the supply chain, the company’s broader goals—simplification, innovation, and stronger customer relationships—would be out of reach. Tamer reflects on how he and his team responded, the progress they’ve made, and the pressures they now face as they navigate an increasingly uncertain global landscape.

Listen | 60 min

Episode 11

Rethinking Albuquerque Public Safety with Mayor Tim Keller

In this episode, we sit down with Mayor Tim Keller to explore how Albuquerque became a national leader in public safety transformation. Confronted with a federal consent decree over police misconduct and the urgent calls for change following the 2020 social justice movement, Keller and his team launched the Albuquerque Community Safety (ACS) department — a first-of-its-kind initiative that sends trained, non-police responders to behavioral health, homelessness, and substance use crises.

Mayor Keller shares how his team reimagined what was possible, took bold risks, and built an entirely new model of emergency response — all while maintaining day-to-day city operations. This candid conversation reveals the challenges, breakthroughs, and lessons from one city’s ambitious effort to redefine public safety.

Listen | 60 min

Episode 10

Lauren Hirshon and Antonio Oftelie on How We're Bending Steel

In this special kickoff episode of Bending Steel, host Dr. Antonio Oftelie flips the script and becomes the guest. Interviewed by longtime collaborator Lauren Hirshon — Director of Learning and Development at Leadership for a Networked World at Harvard — the two explore the vision behind the podcast and why now is the time for bold ideas in the public and social sectors.

Together, they reflect on the urgent need for new frameworks, principles, and leadership tools in a world teetering between potential progress and persistent challenges. This introductory episode sets the tone for the season ahead — one designed to help leaders navigate complexity and drive meaningful change.

Listen | 35 min

Episode 9

Forging a Brighter Future with Dr. Cynthia Croom and Metro Action Commission

Leading a ground-up transformation is hard. Coming into an organization and doing it as an outsider is even harder. The challenge of forging relationships, understanding the community, and fostering a change in culture and mission is difficult enough when the stakeholders know you. That challenge when you’re a newcomer? Monumental. Yet that’s exactly where this episode’s guest found herself.

In this episode, we’re talking with Dr. Cynthia Croom, Executive Director of the Metro Action Commission (MAC) in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Croom was charged with turning MAC around, and transforming the organization to “break the cycle of poverty in our community.” Cynthia and all the people in the organization had to reinvent their services and programs, collaborate in new ways, and most importantly – grow their capacity to sustain long-term innovation and change.

Listen | 1 hr

Episode 8

Live Well San Diego and Leaning in on a Pandemic

Breakthrough outcomes often need a catalyst – a way to see not only challenges on the horizon, but also solutions that will make the world better. A case in point is the “Live Well San Diego” initiative in San Diego County California, which helped officials respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in novel ways and created a platform to improve equity and health in the future.

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, we’ll learn from Nick Macchione, Director of Health and Human Services for San Diego County, about his leadership experience during the pandemic, and how he and other leaders built the systems, structures, and overall collaboration of the Live Well San Diego Initiative.

Listen | 40 min

Episode 7

The Future-Ready Organization: A Discussion with Anaplan CEO Frank Calderoni and Adobe CFO John Murphy

Evolving an organization is easier said than done. The noise and distraction of a highly changeable and uncertain environment can make it a challenge to get much done at all, let alone stay focused on what matters or create new ways of doing things. As a leader, how can you harness this moment to drive positive change? How do you bring everyone—employees, customers, partners—along on that growth journey?

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast Anaplan CEO Frank Calderoni and Adobe CFO John Murphy discuss how to keep a company moving forward in a period where the safe play appears to be waiting out the storm. These two transformational leaders share their tools and strategies to ensure their organizations continue on a successful trajectory.

Listen | 43 min

Episode 6

John Murphy & Adobe's Winning Play

Growth is one thing. Purposeful growth another. Can the two be linked? And what does it take to move not only an established firm but also its people to embrace the required change? One thing is certain – it’s not easy. Can we learn how to approach purposeful growth by applying lessons learned from a top innovator?

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Adobe CFO John Murphy discusses how he and his colleagues stay innovative by systematically working with customers to learn and sense what’s on the horizon, moving ideas through a framework that shakes out the winners from the losers, and harmonizing the organization’s capabilities and culture in order to best deliver results.

Listen | 48 min

Episode 5

Don Allan and the Pursuit of Innovation at Stanley Black & Decker

The world is constantly changing and at a rapidly accelerating rate. And a breakthrough technological transformation can quickly propel an organization into the future expanding its growth and financial capital exponentially. How does a company continuously balance the need to drive innovation while at the same time managing the risk? How does a leader of an organization create the culture necessary to embrace rapid change?

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Don Allan, Executive Vice President and CFO of Stanley Black & Decker discusses the importance of the CFO as a Chief Transformation Officer. He shares his thoughts on moving innovation along not only internally but also through partnerships and ecosystems. He discusses how his special forces teams are working to accelerate innovation while balancing both current and future demand.

Listen | 44 min

Episode 1

Chief Scott Thomson and the Transformation of the Camden Police Department

Organizational transformation is a tall order in today’s turbulent world. In policing, it’s even more challenging. Yet, there are powerful examples of progress that show how leaders can create an environment for innovation and guide people and stakeholders through to successful transformation.

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Scott Thomson, former police chief of Camden, New Jersey shares his unique perspective on what it takes to move a policing organization through phases of innovation and change, and how lessons learned can be applied to organizations of all types.

Listen | 57 min

Episode 4

Joe Jones and the Center for Urban Families

Leaders often need to shape their mission while balancing the demands of stakeholders, building a team that embodies this mission and ensuring the outcomes they seek remain in focus.

For over 20 years, the mission of Joe Jones, Founder and CEO of the Center for Urban Families (CFUF), has been to invest in the whole family. His overarching goal has been to lift up and empower fathers and to ensure that they are receiving the guidance and resources they need to become and remain an integral part of their family.

In this insightful podcast, Joe candidly shares his vision to “dismantle poverty” and opens up about some of the challenges he’s faced, barriers he’s had to break through and the valuable lessons he’s learned along the way

Listen | 55 min