About The Bending Steel Podcast: Conversations with Leaders Shaping the Future with Dr. Antonio Oftelie
This podcast looks at breakthrough ideas and innovations, and gets in the trenches with real life leaders to show how they think about and move forward innovation and change. These leaders and organizations are breaking from hardened ways of working and, as like bending steel, transforming their approaches to deliver breakthrough outcomes and value.
Leading Minneapolis Through Crisis and Reform: A Conversation with Chief Brian O'Hara
Few American cities have carried the weight of the past five years quite like Minneapolis. In the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, the city became a symbol of grief, reckoning, and the immense difficulty of rebuilding trust between police and community when both sides are carrying trauma. Leading an institution through that kind of transformation, in real time and under the world's watch, demands a rare combination of humility, resolve, and clarity of purpose. In this episode, Dr. Antonio...
18 Dec 2025
A Year in Review: Antonio Oftelie and Lauren Hirshon Look Back on the Summits of 2025
In this season-closing episode of The Bending Steel Podcast, Dr. Antonio Oftelie is joined by colleague Lauren Hirshon to reflect on the leadership lessons that defined 2025 and to celebrate a year of learning alongside leaders from across sectors. Drawing on insights from The Public Safety Summit, The Human Services Summit, The Supply Chain & Operations Reinvention Summit, and The Kresge NextGen Frontline Innovators cohort, the conversation highlights a shared reality leaders faced throu...
25 Nov 2025
When Courage Finds Its Voice: Reflections on Leadership with Harvard Business School's Dr. Nancy Koehn
In a time marked by relentless volatility, rising uncertainty, and a sense of “perma-crisis,” leaders are searching for ways to stay steady, clear-headed, and connected to what truly matters. Today’s challenges demand not just sharper strategic thinking, but also deeper emotional grounding. It’s not just the mind, but the heart that has to lead. In this episode, Harvard Business School professor and historian Dr. Nancy Koehn joins host Dr. Antonio Oftelie to bring these concepts to life. Draw...
8 Sept 2025
From Promise to Practice: AI and the Future of Supply Chains with Accenture's Patty Riedl
Artificial intelligence is moving rapidly from promise to practice — no longer just a potential tool, but a true partner in how organizations operate. Supply chains, once considered back-office cost centers, are now at the forefront of strategy, resilience, and growth. Together, AI and supply chain reinvention are reshaping how companies adapt to disruption, make smarter investments, and prepare talent for the future. On this episode, Patty Riedl, Managing Director – North America Supply Chai...
17 Jun 2025
Lauren Hirshon and Antonio Oftelie on How We're Bending Steel (with a new Podcast!)
The Chief Growth Officer Podcast has moved! You can now find the work continuing at The Bending Steel Podcast: Conversations with Leaders Shaping the Future with Dr. Antonio Oftelie, available now on your favorite podcast source. In this special kickoff episode of Bending Steel, host Dr. Antonio Oftelie flips the script and becomes the guest. Interviewed by longtime collaborator Lauren Hirshon — Director of Learning and Development at Leadership for a Networked World at Harvard — the two expl...
17 Jun 2025
Embracing Reinvention with Stanley Black & Decker Chief Supply Chain Officer Tamer Abuaita
Tamer Abuaita, Stanley Black & Decker's Chief Supply Chain Officer, discusses leading a massive supply chain transformation while maintaining operational excellence in this interview with Dr. Antonio Oftelie.
27 May 2025
Lauren Hirshon and Antonio Oftelie on How We're Bending Steel
Lauren Hirshon interviews Dr. Antonio Oftelie about the podcast's vision, exploring the urgent need for new leadership frameworks in the public and social sectors.
27 May 2025
Rethinking Albuquerque Public Safety with Mayor Tim Keller
Mayor Tim Keller discusses Albuquerque's innovative public safety transformation, including the creation of a non-police responder unit for behavioral health crises, in an interview with Dr. Antonio Oftelie.
12 Aug 2022
Forging a Brighter Future with Dr. Cynthia Croom and Metro Action Commission
Leading a ground-up transformation is hard. Coming into an organization and doing it as an outsider is even harder. The challenge of forging relationships, understanding the community, and fostering a change in culture and mission is difficult enough when the stakeholders know you. That challenge when you’re a newcomer? Monumental. Yet that’s exactly where this episode’s guest found herself. In this episode, we’re talking with Dr. Cynthia Croom, Executive Director of the Metro Action Commiss...
24 Mar 2022
Live Well San Diego and Leaning in on a Pandemic
Breakthrough outcomes often need a catalyst – a way to see not only challenges on the horizon, but also solutions that will make the world better. A case in point is the “Live Well San Diego” initiative in San Diego County California, which helped officials respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in novel ways and created a platform to improve equity and health in the future. In this episode, we’ll learn from Nick Macchione, Director of Health and Human Services for San Diego County, about hi...
17 Jan 2022
The Future-Ready Organization: A Discussion with Anaplan CEO Frank Calderoni and Adobe CFO John Murphy
Evolving an organization is easier said than done. The noise and distraction of a highly changeable and uncertain environment can make it a challenge to get much done at all, let alone stay focused on what matters or create new ways of doing things. As a leader, how can you harness this moment to drive positive change? How do you bring everyone—employees, customers, partners—along on that growth journey? In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast Anaplan CEO Frank Calderoni, and Ado...
12 May 2021
Adobe CFO John Murphy & Adobe's Winning Play
Growth is one thing. Purposeful growth another. Can the two be linked? And what does it take to move not only an established firm but also its people to embrace the required change? One thing is certain – it’s not easy. Can we learn how to approach purposeful growth by applying lessons learned from a top innovator? In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Adobe CFO John Murphy discusses how he and his colleagues stay innovative by systematically working with customers to lea...
14 Sept 2020
Don Allan and the Pursuit of Innovation at Stanley Black & Decker
The world is constantly changing and at a rapidly accelerating rate. And a breakthrough technological transformation can quickly propel an organization into the future expanding its growth and financial capital exponentially. How does a company continuously balance the need to drive innovation while at the same time managing the risk? How does a leader of an organization create the culture necessary to embrace rapid change? In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast...
23 Jul 2020
Kirsten Lodal and the Story of LIFT
A major pivot in any organization takes time and unwavering commitment. And it takes adaptive leadership to create an environment that can start and sustain transformation. In this podcast episode, Kirsten Lodal, founder and former CEO of LIFT shares leadership insights on the organization’s transformational journey. Kirsten started LIFT, a national nonprofit organization that works to break the cycle of poverty for young families, in 1996. As the organization evolved and grew ove...
23 Jul 2020
Joe Jones and the Center for Urban Families
Leaders often need to shape their mission while balancing the demands of stakeholders, building a team that embodies this mission and ensuring the outcomes they seek remain in focus. For over 20 years, the mission of Joe Jones, Founder and CEO of the Center for Urban Families (CFUF), has been to invest in the whole family. His overarching goal has been to lift up and empower fathers and to ensure that they are receiving the guidance and resources they need to become and remain an integ...
23 Jul 2020
Gretchen Beesing and the Tipping Point at Catalyst Miami
To effectively build capacity for future challenges and opportunities, leaders must often seek out new ways to co-create solutions through partnerships with other organizations, coalitions, and network-building. This form of collaboration is a keystone of Catalyst Miami, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to build social and economic mobility for individuals and families in Miami-Dade County. In this podcast, Catalyst Miami CEO, Gretchen Beesing, opens up about the strides she’s made l...
7 Jul 2020
Chief Scott Thomson and the Transformation of the Camden Police Department
Organizational transformation is a tall order in today’s turbulent world. In policing, it’s even more challenging. Yet, there are powerful examples of progress that show how leaders can create an environment for innovation and guide people and stakeholders through to successful transformation. In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Scott Thomson, former police chief of Camden, New Jersey shares his unique perspective on what it takes to move a policing organization through phase...
Who has been a guest on The Bending Steel Podcast: Conversations with Leaders Shaping the Future with Dr. Antonio Oftelie
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Tamer Abuaita
Lauren Hirshon
Mayor Tim Keller
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Spotify
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 8 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
16
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
0
Host of The Bending Steel Podcast: Conversations with Leaders Shaping the Future with Dr. Antonio Oftelie?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
