RONderings is where meaningful conversations meet practical leadership. Ron Rapatalo talks with leaders, changemakers, and everyday people about purpose, career growth, wellness, relationships, identity, and the moments that shape who we become. Ron is a business development leader, executive and career coach, author of Leverage the People Who Love and Care About You, and host of RONderings. Drawing on nearly three decades of experience across corporate, nonprofit, higher education, government, and mission-driven organizations, he believes the best leadership starts with self-awareness, authentic relationships, and the courage to keep growing - for ourselves and for those we serve.
Ronderings
Claim This Podcastby Ron Rapatalo
5.0(15 reviews)
100 episodes
Updated Weekly
Accepts GuestsHas SponsorsLocation 🇺🇸
57
Podcast Authority
BetaFairBased on show quality, social media presence, reviews, charts, and more
Quality85
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YouTube0
Engagement71
Podcast Overview
RONderings is where meaningful conversations meet practical leadership. Ron Rapatalo talks with leaders, changemakers, and everyday people about purpose, career growth, wellness, relationships, identity, and the moments that shape who we become. Ron is a business development leader, executive and career coach, author of Leverage the People Who Love and Care About You, and host of RONderings. Drawing on nearly three decades of experience across corporate, nonprofit, higher education, government, and mission-driven organizations, he believes the best leadership starts with self-awareness, authentic relationships, and the courage to keep growing - for ourselves and for those we serve.
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
2/15/2023
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Recent Episodes
July 1, 2026
Ask Why, Then Act: From a High School Newsroom to New Leaders and the Good Jobs Economy with Jon Schnur
<p><strong>A high school sports editor watched a fellow editor dismiss a brilliant Black student's writing. The question that moment raised never left him.<br></strong><br></p><p>In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Jon Schnur, cofounder of New Leaders and CEO of America Achieves, for a conversation about leadership, education, and economic mobility in the age of AI.</p><p>Jon grew up just outside Milwaukee, the son of a mother who co-founded one of the country's first children's museums and the city's first racially integrated preschool. He went to that preschool. So when he later sat in segregated Milwaukee classrooms as a teenage reporter, he already knew another way was possible. That gap between what is and what could be became his life's engine: ask why, then ask what we can do about it.</p><p>That question carried him from a Chicago campaign volunteer job (he started as Bill Clinton's airport driver) through seven years in the Clinton administration, advising Al Gore, and co-founding New Leaders, which has since developed 8,000 school leaders reaching more than a million students. Ron has his own New Leaders story, and the two of them trace what made that community what it was.</p><p>Then Jon turns to what is next: the good jobs economy, and how states can prepare people for meaningful work as AI reshapes entire careers.</p><p>Tune in to hear why Jon believes the future is not something to predict, but something we decide through what we choose to do.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Chapters:</strong></p><ul><li>🎙️ 00:40 Welcome to Ronderings, and a full-circle reunion two decades in the making</li><li>🏛️ 04:24 Growing up in Milwaukee, and a mother who built museums and integrated preschools</li><li>📰 09:39 The high school newsroom moment that turned a sports editor toward education</li><li>🚗 20:26 From Clinton's airport driver to seven years in the administration</li><li>🏫 24:19 Why every great school had a great principal, and the idea behind New Leaders</li><li>🤝 31:15 Twenty-five years of New Leaders, and the people who built the community</li><li>🌎 38:12 How a search for an executive director led to Barack Obama</li><li>💼 53:30 The good jobs economy, and preparing people for work in the age of AI</li><li>❤️ 58:30 The Ronderings question: equal dignity, asking why, and taking action</li><li>📬 1:00:18 How to reach Jon, and a final word on responsibility over grievance</li><li>🎧 1:04:36 Closing reflections, and Podcasts That Matter at <a href="http://www.podcaststhatmatter.org">www.podcaststhatmatter.org</a></li></ul><p><br><strong>Links</strong>:</p><p>LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-schnur/">linkedin.com/in/jon-schnur</a></p><p>America Achieves: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/america-achieves">linkedin.com/company/america-achieves</a></p><p>Email Jon directly: <a href="mailto:jon.schnur@americaachieves.org">jon.schnur@americaachieves.org</a></p><p>Reach out to Jon to talk leadership, the good jobs economy, and how states can prepare people for meaningful work in the age of AI. If you are part of the New Leaders community, he is genuinely inviting your ideas on what the next twenty-five years should look like.</p><p>Connect with Ron: <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo">www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo</a><br>Check Out Ron's Book: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/LEVERAGE-People-About-Personally-Professionally/dp/1613431473/">www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473</a> </p><p>Leverage Publishing Group: <a href="https://leveragepublishinggroup.com/">www.leveragepublishinggroup.com</a><br>Publish a Book That Matters: <a href="http://booksthatmatter.org/">http://booksthatmatter.org</a><br>Start a Podcast That Matters: <a href="http://podcastsmatter.com/">http://podcastsmatter.com</a><br>Go from Expert to Thought Leader: <a href="http://geniusdiscovery.org/">http://geniusdiscovery.org</a> </p>
June 24, 2026
Stop Gatekeeping, Start Gate-Opening: Why Nonprofits Deserve Endowments Too and How to Change Philanthropy from the Inside with George Suttles
<p><strong>George Suttles followed the money. Not for status, for impact, and from inside some of the most powerful funding institutions in the country, he is trying to redesign how philanthropy works.<br></strong><br></p><p>In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with George Suttles, Executive Director of Commonfund Institute, Harlem-born and New York City-rooted, for a conversation about power, repair, and rebuilding the system from the inside out.</p><p>George traces his path from a father who coached every neighborhood team and a mother grounded in faith and service at Convent Avenue Baptist Church, to direct youth work across the city, to tech policy at the National Urban League, to philanthropic advising at U.S. Trust, and now to leading Commonfund Institute and chairing the board of the New York Foundation. The through line he names is older than any of it: generosity, abundance, and taking care of your neighbors, learned long before he had words like "nonprofit" or "philanthropy."</p><p>The conversation gets honest about the professionalization of philanthropy and the way metrics quietly became a gate. George unpacks the myth of merit-based funding, why the 5% payout was never built to be transformational, and the question he keeps asking in mainstream rooms: if foundations believe endowments are good, why not endow their grantees too?</p><p>He and Ron also talk about how to actually move an institution, why change starts at the board level, and why nobody is coming to save our communities, so we build our own things.</p><p>Tune in to hear why George believes radical love and radical imagination are the tools the moment demands.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Chapters</strong>:</p><ul><li>🎙️ 01:40 Meet George Suttles: Harlem-born, NYC-rooted, and how he and Ron first met</li><li>🏙️ 02:27 A New York City kid: family, kinship, and a love story across the boroughs</li><li>⛪ 06:40 A father who coached the neighborhood and a mother grounded in the church</li><li>🤲 08:10 Generosity and abundance before he had the words for philanthropy</li><li>🚪 09:46 From frontline youth work to tech policy: seeing the cracks in the system</li><li>🔍 15:40 Peeking behind the curtain: gatekeeping versus gate-opening</li><li>📊 18:00 The professionalization of philanthropy and the myth of merit-based funding</li><li>🏛️ 26:33 Moving the institution: why real change starts at the board level</li><li>💰 43:29 Why nonprofits deserve endowments too</li><li>🔧 50:09 Repair, chronic under-resourcing, and building our own things</li><li>❤️ 55:31 George's Rondering: radical love and radical imagination</li></ul><p><br><strong>Links</strong>:</p><p>LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgesuttles">https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgesuttles</a><br> Email: <a href="mailto:george.suttles@commonfund.org">george.suttles@commonfund.org</a><br> Donate: <a href="https://d1075f04.na1.hs-sales-engage.com/Ctc/W2+23284/d1075f04/Jl22-6qcW7lCdLW6lZ3mzMlln9Yhj-36W4KkZj87yTVjdW1RSRyq3yZZbNW7z6zQW8NjB5VW843RjZ2j8xY-W8kS6Ct4dRHkqW38y5HY4BrtsfW5NDdZR3QQQb7W7XN2T050tH0kW9bG6nj8_BkylW2M0PSm1s_cV7W3whsCF6x9VmQVPjBRc6PYMDVW3nSsk93DSV1RW1XRXq-7_dVkgVfjV0h4R47YqW6N-_zH6Nl56BW8D1g3r7mB2wjW7m7JCV2mdq7NW98f9zR1cQjMHW3_hcHW79RfsRW3GLyFV1Pjb28W6GzmWT7x4vwvW6pbfkd3SPyRGf1qldwT04">NYC Racial Equity Endowment Fund</a></p><p>Connect with George Suttles to talk philanthropy, fiduciary duty, and values-aligned investing, or give directly to the NYC Racial Equity Endowment Fund and put the endowment idea he champions into practice for the communities that need it.</p><p> </p><p>Connect with Ron: <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo">www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo</a><br>Check Out Ron's Book: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/LEVERAGE-People-About-Personally-Professionally/dp/1613431473/">www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473</a> </p><p>Leverage Publishing Group: <a href="https://leveragepublishinggroup.com/">www.leveragepublishinggroup.com</a><br>Publish a Book That Matters: <a href="http://booksthatmatter.org/">http://booksthatmatter.org</a><br>Start a Podcast That Matters: <a href="http://podcastsmatter.com/">http://podcastsmatter.com</a><br>Go from Expert to Thought Leader: <a href="http://geniusdiscovery.org/">http://geniusdiscovery.org</a> </p>
June 17, 2026
From Automotive High School to Wall Street: Mentorship, Resilience, and Impact Investing with Chris Thompson
<p><strong>Chris Thompson, CFA, went from training to be a mechanic at a Brooklyn vocational high school to managing over a billion dollars on Wall Street. The thing that changed his trajectory wasn't talent. It was a math teacher who told him he was good at something he couldn't yet see in himself.<br></strong><br></p><p>In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Chris Thompson, impact investor, executive coach, and JP Morgan investment banking alum, to trace one of the most improbable career arcs the show has covered. Raised in Crown Heights by his Jamaican immigrant mother after his father died when Chris was two, Chris enrolled at Automotive High School for one reason: to learn a trade fast and help put food on the table. Junior year, a Jamaican math teacher and a business teacher saw something in him and redirected everything, pointing him toward college credits, a JP Morgan scholarship, and a path nobody in his world had a map for.</p><p>Chris graduated valedictorian of Long Island University, earned an MBA from Duke and the CFA designation, and worked corporate credit through the 2008 financial crisis. He also carries a loss that reshaped everything: his mother died suddenly in front of him at 43, just as he was planning for business school.</p><p>Today Chris ties his finance skills to something bigger, deploying capital into affordable housing and community projects, and coaching the people coming up behind him. He and Ron, both children of immigrants who lost a parent young, get into mentorship, legacy, survivor's guilt, and the discipline of putting one foot in front of the other when you want to stop.</p><p>Tune in to hear why Chris calls that JP Morgan scholarship an impact investment in his own life, and what he'd ask his parents if he could.</p><p><strong>Chapters:</strong></p><p>🌱 01:47 Two island kids, children of immigrants, meet through a mutual friend</p><p>🍽️ 02:53 No vision, no path, just trying to see the next meal</p><p>💔 04:27 Losing his father at two and growing up with a superwoman mom</p><p>🔧 08:21 Choosing Automotive High School to learn a trade and help fast</p><p>📐 09:51 The math teacher who said, you're good at this, why not pursue it</p><p>🎫 13:18 The JP Morgan scholarship that changed everything</p><p>🏆 17:09 Graduating valedictorian and earning a seat at the investment bank</p><p>📉 20:08 Reading the warning signs before the 2008 crash</p><p>🕯️ 25:25 The hardest part of the story: losing his mother at 43</p><p>🤝 28:59 The village that carried him, and a sister he leaned on</p><p>🌍 31:42 Tying finance to purpose through impact investing and coaching</p><p>🌺 36:00 The question he'd ask the parents he lost</p><p>🚶 43:49 The Ronderings value: find a way to keep going, one step at a time</p><p>🔗 46:41 Where to find Chris and the work he's doing now</p><p><strong>Links:</strong></p><p>Email: chris.d.thompson12@gmail.com <br>Reach out to Chris Thompson directly by email to learn more about his work in executive coaching and impact investing.</p><p><br>Connect with Ron: <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo">www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo</a></p><p>Check Out Ron's Book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473">www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473</a></p><p>Leverage Publishing Group: <a href="http://www.leveragepublishinggroup.com/">www.leveragepublishinggroup.com</a></p><p>Publish a Book That Matters: <a href="http://booksthatmatter.org/">http://booksthatmatter.org</a></p><p>Start a Podcast That Matters: <a href="http://podcastsmatter.com/">http://podcastsmatter.com</a></p><p>Go from Expert to Thought Leader: <a href="http://geniusdiscovery.org/">http://geniusdiscovery.org</a></p><p>For more great podcasts like this one, visit: <a href="https://podcaststhatmatter.org/">https://podcaststhatmatter.org</a></p><p><br></p>
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