Rob sits down with Patricia Frost, EVP and Chief People and Places Officer at Seagate Technology, whose path to the C-suite ran through 32 years in the US Army, culminating as Director of Cyber Electronic Warfare and Information Operations. Patricia brings a framework for AI adoption that is military in its discipline and deeply human in its values: leave no one behind, train before you field, and let the people tell you where the friction is. The conversation covers how Seagate built a 400-person AI Forward Collective of certified champions, why HR, not IT, should own the AI transformation, how to measure impact beyond time saved, and what it looks like when a CPO uses AI to run her own week. This is one of the most operationally detailed AI adoption conversations the show has had.

Key takeaways

• The AI transformation is not a technology problem. It is a people problem. HR needs to own it alongside IT, not wait for IT to lead it.
• Seagate built an AI Forward Collective of 400 certified champions who went through rigorous training, built and deployed agents, and now mentor peers across the org. Peer trust moves faster than top-down mandates.
• Don't just measure time saved. Measure energy, enthusiasm, and whether people feel more or less burdened. Some of the most important AI outcomes can't be quantified.
• The military never fielded new equipment by just handing it out and saying figure it out. Neither should your company. Train first, build confidence, then change the workflows.
• AI adoption has to come from the bottom up. HR leaders don't know where the friction lives in daily workflows. The champions and the employees do.
  
  

  Patricia on LinkedIn

  A Soundbeam Studios Production

Settle in for one of the most operationally wild episodes in recent memory. Kim was employee number 11 at a resort that didn't have an offer letter template, an HR system, or a building that candidates could walk into. Eighteen months later, 6,500 people were through the doors on opening day. The conversation covers how Kim built the EVP from scratch to win back hospitality workers who left the industry after COVID, why they ripped and replaced their ATS six months into the build when it couldn't handle 300,000 expected applications, and how benefits like childcare stipends, pay transparency, and weekly pay became genuine competitive differentiators on the Strip. This is a masterclass in building talent infrastructure at speed and under pressure.

Key takeaways

• They planned for 80,000 applications and received 300,000. Scenario planning your recruitment capacity at multiple demand levels is not optional at scale.
• They ripped and replaced their ATS six months in when the vendor flagged the system might break under volume. The new one, Paradox, reduced application time from 20-30 minutes to 3-5 minutes via AI conversational chat.
• Benefits are a real differentiator when you deploy them intentionally. Childcare stipends, weekly pay, parental leave, and pay transparency were all firsts on the Strip and drove both attraction and retention.
• COVID wiped out a generation of hospitality workers who left permanently and felt like a number. Culture-first recruiting was the strategy to win them back, and belonging has been the competitive advantage ever since.
• AI handles screening, scheduling, and application triage. Humans make every hiring decision. Protecting that distinction freed the team to focus on the moments that actually require judgment.
• Don't fake it until you make it. Face it. Kim's advice for anyone building toward a senior people role: show up as yourself, surround yourself with the right people, and commit to staying curious about what's next.

Links:

Kim on LinkedIn

LHH Recruitment Solutions

A Beautiful Working World

A Soundbeam Studios Production

Rob welcomes back Colin Yasukochi, Executive Director of CBRE's Tech Insight Center, to walk through CBRE's annual Scoring Tech Talent report. Covering 50 markets and millions of data points, the report is the definitive map of where tech talent lives, moves, and works. This year's findings are striking: remote job postings in San Francisco have collapsed from 24% to 7%, New York has overtaken the Bay Area as the largest tech talent market in the US for the first time, and AI is simultaneously responsible for the biggest boom and the biggest cut in tech talent in recent history. Colin explains what is behind each of those headlines, which emerging markets are worth watching and why, and what it actually means to find tech talent when 60% of them don't work for tech companies at all.

Key takeaways

• Remote work is effectively over for AI companies.
• Tech talent is defined by what you do, not where you work. 60% of tech talent works outside the tech industry entirely.
• New York overtook the Bay Area as the largest US tech talent market in 2026, driven by finance sector investment in AI while Bay Area headcounts contracted.
• AI talent grew 45% year over year to 751,000, while AI-attributed job cuts hit 102,000, or 22.9% of all cuts.
• Emerging markets like Huntsville, Halifax, Colorado Springs, and Dayton are rising for specific reasons tied to local industry, not just cost or population.
• The 15 most VC-funded AI companies grew their combined workforce from 7,500 in 2020 to 56,000 today. The AI hiring boom is real, even if it runs alongside the cuts.
  
  
  

Links:

Colin on LinkedIn

LHH Recruitment Solutions

A Beautiful Working World

A Soundbeam Studios Production