Roxanne Petraeus
73 episodes listed below
HR strategy without the corporate fog.
We're not recording brings workplace leaders into brisk, practical conversations about what HR actually looks like now. The show moves from casual banter into sharp questions about AI, org design, manager expectations, engagement, and the human cost of business velocity.
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We're not recording is a workplace leadership show about HR after the old playbook stopped feeling sufficient. The conversations are interview-driven and usually begin with something disarmingly ordinary: pets, a blazer, home projects, quarter-end stress, or the general weirdness of a hectic month. Then the show turns. A casual aside becomes a sharper question about what HR teams are actually doing, what employees experience, and where leaders hide behind language that sounds useful but does not help anyone do the work. Episodes spend a lot of time with AI, but the framing is grounded rather than breathless. AI shows up as a change to org design, recruiting screens, learning functions, cross-functional dependencies, job levels, and the autonomy of sales, marketing, and design teams. The show also keeps making the opposite point: people are still people. Work still involves psychology, trust, confidence, well-being, manager judgment, unclear expectations, and the emotional weight of helping someone grow. That tension gives the show its shape. It is curious about tools, but more interested in the human consequence of adopting them. Guests talk through engagement measurement, rewards and recognition, leadership meetings, stay interviews, executive starts, transformation programs, and how HR earns credibility by knowing the business. The best moments come when a broad topic gets pulled back to a concrete workplace scene: an employee bringing feedback, a manager trying to solve too soon, a team under quarter-end pressure, or a leader deciding whether to control work or activate people. The register is casual and brisk, with plenty of clarification and real-time reframing. It does not sound like a conference keynote. It sounds like experienced workplace people trying to say the practical part plainly. The show suits listeners who care about HR strategy but still want to hear how it lands with actual employees, managers, and teams.
Made for: For HR operators, people leaders, and managers who want practical workplace thinking on AI, leadership, engagement, and employee growth. It works best for listeners who already know the pressure of making people systems useful in companies.
What sets it apart: The show stands out by pushing senior HR topics back toward lived workplace moments. Instead of staying at the level of frameworks, it asks what changed, what employees felt, what managers should do, and where AI actually alters the work.
I’m Roxanne Petraeus—CEO at Ethena, Army vet, and mom—joined by Melanie Naranjo, our CPO and animal mom. Together, we talk about all things HR: the hiring fails, the leadership wins (and disasters), and the stuff you’d never hear in a corporate training. This is candid, messy, and way too fun to be a boring business podcast.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Executive HR becomes concrete through candid interviews about AI adoption, manager judgment, employee development and the business consequences of people decisions.
Roxanne Petraeus and Melanie Naranjo turn executive HR into an operating conversation. Their interviews with senior people leaders focus on decisions inside the job: redesigning teams around AI, giving employees more autonomy, measuring engagement, developing managers and…
Cat-wall DIY is the warm-up before your next rethink of who gets to build what at work.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded conversation about AI, autonomy, and making work feel more worth doing.
The conversation starts with Jerry Doris, CPO at JustWorks, asking where skill and joy overlap, and it keeps circling back there. A cat wall jungle gym opens the door to a broader point: AI is reshaping org design by cutting down cross functional dependencies and giving teams…
A practical HR conversation about expectations, retention, and listening well.
Retention is the real thread here, but the episode stays grounded rather than preachy: it centers on what managers can actually do, what stay interviews are meant to uncover, and how cleaner questions can slow the rush to fix things too quickly.
A plainspoken look at how HR turns purpose, metrics, and recognition into leadership.
Bala Sathya Narayanan, EVP and CHRO of Grite, frames the conversation as a thoughtful bridge from manager to leader, with HR work spanning selection, development, promotion, rewards, recognition, and engagement anchored in purpose.
A practical HR conversation about growth, impact, and confidence.
We're Not Recording focuses on what HR looks like when the work is stripped of gloss. Diana Blancone, Global Chief Talent Officer at Omnicon, speaks to the parts that carry the most weight here: a day in the life of HR, leadership development, helping people rise within an…
A human-centered AI discussion grounded in workplace change.
Christine Park, Branch's Chief People and Transformation Officer, presents AI as the latest turn in a long workplace shift, drawing a line from shared computers to early doubts about buying online.
Work should give something back.
Arthur Yamamoto joins the show.
It opens with pets.
The episode opens on systems and culture.
Christine Park joins the host to talk about transformation at work.
This episode features an interview with Tiffany Stevenson, CPO at The RealReal, discussing strategies for starting a new executive role, implementing company-wide initiatives, and aligning HR with business goals during quarterly planning.
This episode features an interview with Brad Wilkins discussing how HR professionals can gain credibility and how AI is transforming job roles and organizational processes.
This episode features an interview with Karishma Patel-Buford, Chief People Officer at Spring Health, discussing the rapid impact of AI on HR, mental health, and managing burnout in the workplace.
Ben Langner, VP of HR at Wilson, tells the host of We're Not Recording that Claude Cowork can build decks in "10 minutes versus, you know, multiple hours" and that Claude has an HR plugin with guided prompts for tasks like comp analysis.
This episode features an interview with Stephen Child, CHRO at Panasonic, discussing change management, the neuroscience behind behavior change, and challenges in business planning during fiscal year transitions.
This episode features an interview with Angela Kiniry, CPO at Articulate, discussing her journey in HR, overcoming fears of public speaking, and finding fulfillment in her career.
This episode explores how leaders can give constructive feedback and manage change effectively without undermining trust, using a real-life HR scenario as a case study.
The host quizzes CEO Roxanne live on her self-assessment, pushing back and providing feedback on her performance and areas for growth.
This episode discusses the tensions and challenges of integrating AI into workplace performance reviews, featuring insights from Ashley Herd on manager and employee reactions.
This episode features a conversation with Ashley Herd about how a negative Glassdoor review reveals insights into company culture, power dynamics, and employee-company relationships.