The Aaxelera Podcast
Claim This Podcastby Montgomery (Monty) Pruss
Podcast Overview
<p>Welcome to The Aaxelera Podcast, the show where industry leaders and top executives step away from the polished narratives to share the real, unfiltered stories of how they built and scaled their companies.</p><p></p><p>We dive deep into the growth journeys of successful founders—exploring the major milestones, the unexpected challenges they faced (and the ones they see coming), their ambitious growth goals, and their personal viewpoints on the impact of AI and technology.</p><p></p><p>Join us for candid, conversations designed to give you practical insights and inspiration from the people who are defining the future of their industries. This is about success stories, leadership approaches, and the strategies that truly drive growth.</p>
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
4/21/2026
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Recent Episodes
August 8, 2026
Episode 9: Jennifer Speciale
<p>What do you do when you're surrounded by 1.4 million colleagues and still feel underutilized?</p><p></p><p>Jennifer Speciale's path runs from neuroscience research (four published papers) through executive recruiting at Amazon, Google, McKinsey, and Indeed, where she was employee number 86. Then came the realization that her favorite part of the job, coaching brilliant candidates to actually land the role, could BE the job. Today she runs Special Executive Leadership from Florence, Italy, coaching design and tech leaders around the world.</p><p></p><p>In this episode we get into:</p><ul><li>Why she walked away from Big Tech instead of cashing in on the CV</li><li>"Hire the rhombus, not the square peg": why the candidate missing a skill is often your best hire</li><li>Her Articulating Impact framework, and why leaders need to "decompress the story" instead of compressing their wins into one modest line</li><li>What recruiters see in your LinkedIn profile that hiring managers never will</li><li>Building a business on midnight calls between Florence and Silicon Valley</li><li>How she uses AI to never miss a detail across her client base, and why design still deserves its seat at the table<p></p></li></ul><p>Her parting wisdom: as far as we know, we live once, so do it well.</p><p></p><p>Find Jennifer on LinkedIn or at <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://jenniferspeciale.com" target="_blank">jenniferspeciale.com</a></p>
July 29, 2026
Episode 8: Lori Palm
<p>What if the real reason your team can't communicate has nothing to do with skill, and everything to do with what's driving each person underneath?</p><p></p><p>Monty sits down with Lori Palm, founder and CEO of Core Passion and creator of the Core Passion Assessment, a valid and reliable tool that measures the twelve core drivers (she calls them codes) behind your decisions, behaviors, and communication. Lori helps leaders, teams, and entrepreneurs answer the two hardest questions there are: Who am I? And what do I want?</p><p></p><p>In this conversation:</p><ul><li>The twelve Core Passion codes, and why your top five explain why you do what you do</li><li>Why your greatest gift is also your greatest challenge, and how a strength like research becomes a trust problem with people</li><li>The Passion, Vision, Action triangle: why busyness isn't accomplishment</li><li>How to spot when you or someone on your team is "out of balance," and what it costs in productivity when nobody names it</li><li>Code Talking: how to get through to someone whose drivers are completely different from yours</li><li>Why culture change fails unless leadership is willing to change too</li><li>The four areas of life (health, relationships, career and money, spirit) and why imbalance in any one of them shows up in your business</li></ul><p>Lori's philosophy fits in one line: when you know who you are, you know what to do.</p><p></p><p>Learn more and take the Core Passion Assessment at <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://corepassion.com" target="_blank">corepassion.com</a>. As Lori puts it: we solve the people puzzles.</p>
July 25, 2026
Episode 7: Warren Fiihr
<p>Warren Fiihr has spent a career watching markets reinvent themselves and helping teams survive the shift. He ran radio and television ad sales, took over a toxic NBC affiliate as GM at 39, steered a newsroom through the Virginia Tech tragedy and the analog-to-digital transition, and later led Comcast's advertising sales across the Houston Gulf Coast. Today he's the owner and certified business coach at ActionCOACH Sugar Land.</p><p>In this episode, Warren and host Montgomery Pruss trade stories from the front lines of disrupted industries. Classified ads collapsing overnight. Blockbuster missing the moment Netflix seized. The 2008 layoffs Warren had to carry out himself. And they connect all of it to the disruption everyone's living through now: AI reshaping who and what a business actually needs.</p><p>But the heart of the conversation is what Warren does every day: helping owners escape the 60-hour grind and build something that runs without them. You'll hear his take on why small and medium businesses (not corporations) are what really move the world forward, why your business is a vehicle and not your identity, and the practical habits that separate owners who scale from owners who spin in circles.</p><p>In this episode:</p><ul><li>Why "the market moved and you didn't" kills more businesses than bad products</li><li>The four-quadrant time trap every owner falls into, and how to break it</li><li>BFOs (blinding flashes of the obvious) and why accountability beats advice</li><li>Don't start a business, buy one. The counterintuitive case for acquisition</li><li>Hiring: why the best day is the interview, and why you wait for the right person</li><li>How Warren is folding AI into his own practice, and where he thinks it's headed</li></ul><p>A candid, funny, occasionally irreverent conversation about doing the work that actually compounds.</p><p></p><ul><li>Website: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://warrenfiihr.com" target="_blank">warrenfiihr.com</a></li><li>LinkedIn: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://linkedin.com/in/warren-fiihr" target="_blank">linkedin.com/in/warren-fiihr</a></li></ul>
10 total episodes available
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Frequently asked questions
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- What is The Aaxelera Podcast?
<p>Welcome to The Aaxelera Podcast, the show where industry leaders and top executives step away from the polished narratives to share the real, unfiltered stories of how they built and scaled their companies.</p><p></p><p>We dive deep into the growth journeys of successful founders—exploring the major milestones, the unexpected challenges they faced (and the ones they see coming), their ambitious growth goals, and their personal viewpoints on the impact of AI and technology.</p><p></p><p>Join us for candid, conversations designed to give you practical insights and inspiration from the people who are defining the future of their industries. This is about success stories, leadership approaches, and the strategies that truly drive growth.</p> - How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates daily.
- Where can I listen to this podcast?
This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
- Does this podcast accept guests?
Information about guest appearances is not available.
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