The New Normal goes inside the organizations rebuilding their operations around AI. The companies winning the next decade will be the ones who show up for customers at every moment that matters. They shifted from reactive support to proactive relationship-building across the entire customer lifecycle. For our guests, this is already how things work. For everyone else, it's a glimpse into the future, early. We sit down with leaders in higher ed, insurance, travel, and beyond. They didn't catch up to AI. They used it to set a new standard for the people they serve. Welcome to the New Normal.
OutRival Presents The New Normal Ep 14: Alexandra Schaffrath with Vocate Education Solutions
Alexandra Schaffrath started on Wall Street at Bear Stearns and KPMG before joining Ultimate Medical Academy in 2012 as Chief Financial and Chief Strategy Officer. Today she is President and CEO of Vocate Education Solutions, the national nonprofit behind UMA, Nasium Training, and other brands, training more than 25,000 working adults a year for healthcare careers in every state. In this episode of The New Normal, Alexandra joins Ruben Harris and Timur Meyster at OutRival headquarters in Miam...
21 Oct 2026
OutRival Presents The New Normal Ep 14 with Alexandra Schaffrath
Watch more episodes: https://thenewnormal.fm/ Learn more about OutRival: https://outrival.com
15 Oct 2026
OutRival Presents The New Normal Ep 13 with Bob Becker
Bob Becker spent his career filling cruise ships by phone. As the former EVP of Consumer Research, Sales and Customer Care at Carnival Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line and Celebrity Cruises, he pioneered outbound direct sales in the industry, was responsible for more than $50 billion in sales, and created the Dirt to Diamonds methodology that every cruise line in the world now runs. When he left his last cruise line, 1,551 people reported to him. The people he trained off the phones now inc...
8 Oct 2026
OutRival Presents The New Normal Ep 12: Dondra Ritzenthaler with Azamara Cruises
Azamara Cruises runs four ships with a maximum of 700 guests each, nearly two crew members for every guest, and a shoreside team that stays lean on purpose. CEO Dondra Ritzenthaler explains how a small cruise line delivers intimate, personalized travel, and how AI extends the human touch the brand is built on instead of replacing it. Ruben Harris and co-host Jeff Herzfeld, OutRival's Head of Travel, sit down with Dondra in Miami. She started as a flight attendant, held 11 jobs in 20 years at ...
30 Sept 2026
OutRival Presents The New Normal Ep 11: Mike Flaskey with Marriott Vacations Worldwide
Marriott Vacations Worldwide serves 700,000 owner families across 120 resorts, and 70% of its annual sales come from people who already own. President and COO Mike Flaskey explains why, and where AI fits in a business built on face-to-face hospitality. Ruben Harris and co-host Jeff Herzfeld, OutRival's Head of Travel, sit down with Mike to walk through the full owner journey. That covers the $199 preview package, the Explorer trial, the points product that works like a currency, and Inner Cir...
23 Sept 2026
OutRival Presents The New Normal Ep 10: Dallas College with Chancellor Justin Lonon
OutRival CEO Ruben Harris sits down with Justin Lonon, Chancellor of Dallas College, inside the college’s virtual studio in Dallas to talk about what it takes to build a 22nd century college with AI at its core. Dallas College serves more than 130,000 students across seven campuses in Dallas County, including 30,000 high school students earning college credit at zero cost. Lonon has spent more than 20 years at the institution and led its transformation from seven separately accredited college...
16 Sept 2026
The New Normal, Episode 9: University of Phoenix with COO Raghu Krishnaiah
"Every job is going to be impacted by AI. It's going to happen faster, and we just have to keep up with it." Raghu Krishnaiah is the Chief Operating Officer of University of Phoenix, where he oversees the student experience for more than 80,000 working adults, most of them in their mid to late 30s, working full time and raising families while they earn their degrees. The university turns 50 this year, counts more than a million alumni, and was recently ranked the university with the most alum...
9 Sept 2026
The New Normal, Episode 8: U.S. Department of Labor with Chief Innovation Officer Taylor Stockton
OutRival CEO Ruben Harris sits down with Taylor Stockton, Chief Innovation Officer for the U.S. Department of Labor, to break down America's plan to win the AI race by putting workers at the center of it. Stockton came to Washington from the startup world. He was Chief Operating Officer of workforce technology company FutureFit AI and co-founder of the venture firm Pathway Ventures, and he took the role because the concept of labor itself is changing faster than at any time in American histor...
3 Sept 2026
The New Normal, Episode 7: UMGC with President Dr. Gregory Fowler
OutRival CEO Ruben Harris and Co-Founder/President Timur Meyster sit down with Dr. Gregory Fowler, President of University of Maryland Global Campus, to break down how one of America's largest public online universities serves more than 100,000 students across all seven continents with AI agents working alongside human advisors. UMGC was born in 1947 teaching American service members in postwar Europe, and the sun has never set on it since: 20+ countries, 185 locations, roughly 9,000 employee...
26 Aug 2026
How SNHU Serves 300,000 Students With AI Agents and Human Advisors
OutRival CEO Ruben Harris sits down with Lisa Marsh Ryerson, President of Southern New Hampshire University, to break down how one of America's largest universities serves 300,000 students with AI agents working alongside human advisors. SNHU invented Speed to Lead, the practice of reaching students the moment they raise their hand. Now the university is building on that foundation with an AI native strategy: agents that handle the hand work so advisors can do the heart work, warm handoffs f...
20 Aug 2026
OutRival Presents The New Normal Ep 5: National University President Dr. Mark Milliorn
Rubén Harris sat down with Dr. Mark Milliron, President of National University, on campus in San Diego, to talk about running a university where the competition isn't other institutions. It's poverty. Mark grew up in a family of nine kids with 25 foster kids rotating through the house, bused tables to pay his way through Mesa Community College, earned two degrees at Arizona State and a doctorate at UT Austin, then built a career that spans the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an early boa...
6 Aug 2026
OutRival Presents The New Normal Ep 4: UMass Global, Chancellor Dr. David Andrews
Rubén Harris and Timur Meyster sat down with Dr. David Andrews, Chancellor of UMass Global, at the university's Southern California headquarters, to talk about running a fully online university for working adults in the AI era. David wrote the first dissertation at Florida State University on a word processor, and his committee accused him of cheating because it wasn't a typewriter. He went on to serve as Dean of the School of Education at Johns Hopkins, where the school ranked number one in ...
23 Jul 2026
OutRival Presents The New Normal Ep 3: Western Governors University President Scott Pulsipher
Rubén Harris and Timur Meyster sat down with President Scott Pulsipher of Western Governors University, at WGU's headquarters in Salt Lake City, to talk about running the largest nonprofit online university in America in the AI era. Scott didn't climb the academic ladder. He spent more than 20 years building technology companies, including a run at Amazon, before taking the presidency in 2016. Today WGU serves nearly 380,000 individuals a year across all 50 states, carries roughly 190,000 con...
9 Jul 2026
OutRival Presents The New Normal Ep 2: Miami Dade College President Madeline Pumariega
Rubén Harris and Timur Meyster sat down with President Madeline Pumariega of Miami Dade College, inside the college's own AI Center on the Wolfson Campus, to talk about running the largest community college in America in the AI era. Madeline arrived at Miami Dade as a student athlete, rose to chancellor of the Florida College System, and returned in 2021 as president. Today the college serves 125,000 students a year across eight campuses, counts 2.5 million alumni, and has trained 10,000 peop...
25 Jun 2026
OutRival Presents: The New Normal Ep. 1 - Penn Foster CEO Kermit Cook
Rubén Harris and Timur Meyster chatted with our friend Kermit Cook, CEO of Penn Foster, about reinventing a 135-year-old distance learning company for the AI era. Penn Foster was founded in 1890 to teach coal miners in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Today it graduates 93,000+ learners a year and is on a path to graduate 150,000 by 2029. We get into deploying Digital Workers (AI Agents) to support working adults at $1,500 high school tuition, why Penn Foster is the third-largest "school district" in ...
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