In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Michaela Murray, founder of Progress Amplified, for a conversation about the layer of company-building that gets ignored until something breaks: people infrastructure.

Michaela works as an embedded fractional HR partner for growing companies, especially those moving fast enough to feel the strain of scale but not yet ready for a full internal HR leadership team. Her view is refreshingly clear-eyed. Most organizations do not actually have a people problem. They have a leadership problem, a process problem, or a systems problem that eventually shows up in people-shaped ways.

The conversation covers what people infrastructure really means beyond software and policy binders, why misdiagnosing performance issues quietly drains companies of trust, time, and money, and how leaders can tell the difference between a person in the wrong seat and a system that is setting everyone up to fail. Michaela also explains why simple HR is usually better HR, what founders should build first before they overengineer the function, and why benefits education and total compensation transparency matter far more than most companies realize.

Along the way, Curtis and Michaela dig into where AI can genuinely help inside the people function and where human judgment still cannot be outsourced, plus a deeper question many leaders are not asking yet: if AI absorbs more entry-level work, where will the next generation of managers learn the craft of leading people?

If you are scaling a company, wrestling with turnover or performance, or trying to build a healthier operating rhythm before the cracks become culture, this one is worth your time.



About the Guest

Michaela Murray is the founder of Progress Amplified, where she provides embedded fractional HR support to growing companies that need stronger people infrastructure without the overhead of a full in-house team. Her work focuses on helping leaders build the systems, rhythms, and accountability structures that make teams healthier and companies easier to scale. With a practical approach to HR that cuts through jargon, Michaela helps organizations diagnose what is really underneath so-called people problems, whether that is inconsistent leadership, weak process design, unclear expectations, or gaps in total rewards communication. She brings a grounded perspective on what effective HR should actually do: make the human side of the business simpler, stronger, and far more sustainable.

Michaela Murray on Why Most So-Called People Problems Are Really Leadership and Infrastructure Problems

In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Cody Buyer of Vendasta for a conversation about the part of franchise growth that technology can support but never replace: trust.

Cody works at the intersection of local marketing, franchise systems, and multi-location growth, helping brands think through what it actually takes to support operators at scale. But this conversation quickly moves past software and into something far more foundational. In franchising, relationships are not a nice extra layered on top of the business. They are the business. And the companies that show up chasing a fast win without understanding that usually find out the hard way that a connected ecosystem has a long memory.

The conversation covers why some companies enter franchising expecting an easy home run and flame out instead, why in-person events still matter in an economy obsessed with digital efficiency, and what it looks like to treat today's competitor like tomorrow's partner in an industry where reputation travels faster than any sales deck. Cody also gets into the difference between a broken system and a person in the wrong seat, why avoiding hard conversations only delays the damage, and where the line sits between ethical influence and manipulation when trust is your real currency.

Along the way, Curtis and Cody dig into what durable franchise-focused companies understand that opportunistic vendors do not, how patience and generosity compound over time in ways that are hard to measure but impossible to fake, and why the leaders thinking clearly about AI are the ones using it to strengthen the human layer rather than strip it out.

If you are building in franchising, supporting multi-location brands, or trying to create something that lasts longer than a quarter, this one is worth your time.



About the Guest

Cody Buyer works with franchise and multi-location brands at Vendasta, where he helps organizations think about local growth, operator support, and the systems required to scale without losing the human relationships that make growth sustainable. His path into franchising gave him a front-row seat to how trust, reputation, and long-term thinking shape outcomes in a tightly connected industry. Known for his relationship-first approach, Cody brings a practical view of what separates companies that endure from those that arrive with big expectations and disappear just as quickly. His perspective sits at the crossroads of technology, local marketing, and the deeply human work of helping brands grow one location, one operator, and one relationship at a time.

Cody Buyer on Why Franchising Still Runs on Trust, and Why the Companies That Forget That Do Not Last

In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with DeDe Halfhill, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, Georgetown-certified executive coach, and leadership advisor whose story is featured in Brené Brown's Dare to Lead and on 60 Minutes, for a conversation about the part of leadership that most organizations have systematically removed from their playbook and are now paying for in ways they cannot quite name.

DeDe spent 25 years in the Air Force leading thousands of airmen, serving two tours in Iraq, and advising the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What she discovered along the way, through a 1948 Air Force leadership manual and a famous moment involving Cocoa Puffs and a garbage can in an Iraq dining facility, is that emotional fluency is not a soft skill. It is a precision tool. And the organizations that treat it as optional are not avoiding the emotional work. They are just paying for it later, in avoidance, attrition, and the kind of quiet disconnection that looks like exhaustion but is actually loneliness.

The conversation covers why emotional language has dropped 60 percent across all published texts in the last century and what that has cost leaders, why anger gives you one move while precision emotion gives you options, and why the men who wrote the Air Force's very first leadership manual in 1948 understood something about the relationship between empathy and results that most modern organizations have unlearned. DeDe also makes the case that as AI takes over more of the technical work, the leaders who can navigate the human side will not just be more effective. They will be the ones with the real competitive advantage.



About the Guest

DeDe Halfhill is a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, keynote speaker, and leadership advisor who helps leaders Master the Unseen™: the human side of leadership that most people avoid but everyone feels. Over a 25-year military career, she led thousands of airmen, served two tours in Iraq, advised the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and directed press operations for the Department of Defense. She was also Chief of Public Affairs for the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Today she speaks and advises across industries, from construction and finance to Fortune 500 companies, helping leaders surface hidden tensions, build trust, and have the conversations teams tend to avoid. Her leadership story is featured in Brené Brown’s bestseller Dare to Lead and on 60 Minutes. A Georgetown-certified executive coach and former National Security Fellow, DeDe brings a rare view of what it actually takes to lead people well.

DeDe Halfhill on Why Emotional Fluency Is Not a Soft Skill. It Is a Precision Tool. 

In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Kevin Plunkett, Vice President of Partnerships at Salary.com, for a conversation about the infrastructure underneath compensation that most organizations have never thought carefully enough about.

Kevin came to this world from an unlikely direction, spending years as a talent agent in Hollywood before his brother founded Salary.com and pulled him into building out what became one of the most widely used compensation data platforms in the country. That origin story matters, because Kevin sees compensation data the way someone who has negotiated on behalf of talent sees it: as something with real stakes for real people, not just a number in a range.

The conversation covers why COVID permanently moved compensation from the back room to the boardroom, what happens inside an organization when salary compression goes unaddressed, and why the promise of integrated talent management has consistently failed to deliver because nobody bothered to get the job architecture right in the first place. Kevin also makes the case that AI is not a threat to compensation data companies so much as a demand signal for better data, since a prediction engine is only as good as what you feed it.

If you are building an HR platform, running a staffing firm, or trying to make workforce decisions with data you are not sure you can trust, this one is worth your time.



About the Guest

Kevin Plunkett is Vice President of Partnerships at Salary.com, where he has spent the better part of 26 years at the forefront of compensation data. Before finding his way into the world of comp, Kevin had a different kind of career entirely, working as a talent agent in Hollywood. Today, his focus is the wholesale side of the business, bringing Salary.com’s compensation data to the staffing firms, HR vendors, and platforms that build it into their own products. He works at the intersection of data, technology, and the fast-changing economics of pay, helping partners understand not just what the numbers say, but how markets are trending and why it matters. With more than two decades watching compensation move from the back room to the boardroom, Kevin has a front-row seat to how data is reshaping the way companies attract, retain, and pay their people.

Kevin Plunkett: Why Your Compensation Strategy Is Only as Good as the Data Underneath It

In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Jeff Mullins, Chief Marketing Officer at PHENYX, to talk about what actually separates the companies that execute from the ones that chase silver bullets and wonder why nothing sticks.

Jeff has spent more than two decades working across marketing, sales, and product development, and the last eight years running a full-service agency that serves clients from oil and gas to MedSpa to manufacturing. That breadth gives him a view most marketers never get: he sees the same patterns play out across entirely different industries, and he is not shy about naming them.

The conversation covers why AI is the world's greatest combine harvester in the hands of someone who has never farmed, what death by committee is quietly costing large organizations, and why the companies that can move fast rarely have the capital to compete while the ones with the capital can barely move at all. Jeff also gets into the generational shift he is watching in real time inside his own team, where execution skills are eroding and the willingness to push through a hard problem before calling for help is becoming genuinely rare.

Underneath all of it runs the philosophy captured in the phrase Jeff lives by: never trust a leader without a limp. It is a conviction that the most valuable thing a leader brings to the room is not a clean track record but the pattern recognition that only comes from having been in the foxhole, made the wrong call, and figured out how to come back from it.

About the Guest

Jeff Mullins is a marketing leader with more than two decades of experience across marketing, sales, and product development. As Chief Marketing Officer at PHENYX, a full-service agency, he has spent over eight years helping organizations sharpen their marketing strategy and turn it into real growth. His work centers on building initiatives that strengthen brand presence and drive engagement, often for companies navigating complex, multi-level go-to-market challenges. Across a 22-plus-year career spanning a range of industries, Jeff has managed marketing budgets and aligned strategy with business objectives. He is known for guiding companies through difficult problems and pushing past surface-level fixes toward solutions that actually get executed. Outside of work, Jeff is a devoted father, a committed fitness enthusiast, and a believer in comeback stories, captured by a phrase he keeps close: never trust a leader without a limp.

Jeff Mullins on Why the Companies That Can Move Fast Never Have the Capital and the Ones With Capital Can Barely Move

In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Stephen Candelmo, corporate attorney, serial entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of Paralex [https://paralex.ai/], to explore what happens when someone who has spent three decades and more than three billion dollars in transactional work across IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and venture capital decides to rebuild the legal infrastructure from the inside.

Stephen makes the case that 60% of small businesses never use an attorney not because they don't need one, but because the model is broken: too slow, too expensive, and built entirely around the billable hour. His answer is Paralex, an AI-powered legal platform that keeps the attorney in the loop while letting technology handle the intake, drafting, and revision work that currently eats the clock.

The conversation takes a sharp turn into franchising, where Stephen introduces FDDHub, the franchise industry's first disclosure platform built for engagement. The franchise disclosure document, a legally required 300 to 400 page prospectus that every prospective franchisee must receive, has been killing deals for decades because nobody actually reads it. FDDHub reimagines the disclosure experience as something interactive rather than a PDF dropped into a Dropbox folder, giving franchisors visibility into what prospects are actually reading and what questions they are not asking.

Along the way, Stephen and Curtis dig into where AI genuinely helps in legal work and where it cannot replace thirty years of pattern recognition in a negotiation room, what early warning signs in a franchise disclosure document most buyers completely miss, and why signing the franchise agreement is not the end of the process but the beginning of a ten-year marriage where both sides are betting on each other.



About the Guest

Stephen is a corporate attorney and entrepreneur with nearly three decades of experience and more than three billion dollars in transactional work across IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and venture capital. He is a named inventor on several patents and the co-founder of two venture-backed software companies, Fedbid and Synapsify. Today he serves as outside general counsel for private technology companies and for Azafran Capital Partners, a deep-tech venture fund, and he is a frequent industry speaker and published author on the legal and business challenges facing tech companies. A graduate of the University of Maryland, the University of Akron School of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center, Stephen is the Founder and CEO of Paralex, which is reimagining legal services through technology for small businesses and franchises. That includes its newest product, FDDHub, the franchise industry’s first disclosure platform built for engagement.

Stephen Candelmo on Why the Franchise Disclosure Document Has Been Killing Deals for Decades 

In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Dean Carter, four-time Chief Human Resources Officer turned CEO, to explore a question the HR world has been chasing for decades: what if culture could actually be measured?

Dean brings a rare vantage point to this conversation. He has led people functions at Patagonia, Sears, Fossil, and Guild, and after publicly retiring from the CHRO role to force himself to stop saying yes to the next compelling offer, he found the one thing worth saying yes to. Instill, the performance culture intelligence platform he now runs, does what no engagement survey ever could: it reads the behavioral signals already flowing through the conversations where work actually happens, in real time, passively, without asking a single question.

The conversation covers what Dean learned about culture fit from watching someone nearly have a panic attack walking into the wrong company, why the annual performance review is the organizational equivalent of destructive agriculture, and what it actually means to build a regenerative workplace where people leave with more energy than they arrived with.

Dean and Curtis also dig into the five behavioral vitals Instill measures, why your individual score is only ever visible to you, and what happens when the behavioral intelligence layer finally gives HR the same quality of data that finance and marketing have had for a century.

Whether you lead a team of five or a workforce of fifty thousand, this episode will change how you think about culture, and whether you have ever actually been able to see it.



About the Guest

Dean Carter is the CEO of Instill, a Performance Culture Intelligence Platform that takes a human-first, AI-empowered approach to accelerating the impact of teams through observed behaviors. Before stepping into the CEO seat, Dean spent more than two decades as a four-time Chief Human Resources Officer, leading people functions at companies including Patagonia and Sears/Kmart. He is an independent board director and a number-one bestselling author, widely recognized for his regenerative approaches to both humanity and AI in the workplace. Instill is built on a simple but radical idea: that culture can be measured in real time, passively, without a single survey, by reading the behavioral signals already flowing through the conversations where work actually happens. Today, Dean is helping leaders see culture not as a feeling, but as something they can finally observe, understand, and improve.

Dean Carter Culture Is a Signal. Now We Can Finally Read It. 

In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with David Guttman, a 35-year serial entrepreneur who has bought and sold 15 businesses across fintech, edtech, crypto, health tech, and dozens of other industries, to talk about what it actually takes to lead with humanity in a business world that often rewards the opposite.

David makes the case that servant leadership isn't just the right way to lead, it's the smartest one for anyone who isn't a once-in-a-generation visionary. He shares the practical systems he installs in every company he runs or mentors, including making every employee a shareholder, holding company-wide variance reviews after every board meeting, and building core values the entire team votes on rather than ones handed down from the top.

The conversation gets personal too, from the near-death misdiagnosis at 24 that reshaped how David defines success, to the boss who once sent him home before a triathlon and earned his loyalty for decades, to the nonprofit he's now building with his 84-year-old father. Along the way, David and Curtis dig into why almost no Fortune 500 CEOs come up through HR, what changes when talent strategy gets treated as a revenue driver instead of a cost center, and why humility, not intelligence or charisma, is the trait that most reliably separates leaders who break out from those who stall.

Whether you're scaling a startup, mentoring the next generation of founders, or just trying to lead with more heart without losing your edge, this conversation offers a grounded, often funny, and genuinely moving look at what it means to measure a life by who you make better.

About the Guest

David Guttman is a serial entrepreneur, executive leader, and business strategist with more than 35 years of experience building, scaling, and exiting companies. He has bought and sold 15 businesses across Fintech, EdTech, Crypto, HealthTech, and more than 40 other industries, raising over 25 million dollars along the way and mastering the art of applying sound business principles to drive success no matter the industry. He is a three-time Inc. 500 entrepreneur and a two-time TEDx speaker, with one talk ranking in the top one percent of all TEDx Talks. He holds an undergraduate degree in computer science from Brown University and an MBA from the Wharton School. Today, David mentors a group of high-growth CEOs, runs a longevity business, hosts two weekly podcasts where he interviews C-level executives and servant leaders, and is finishing his first leadership book. He is also launching a nonprofit called 30 Acts of Kindness alongside his 84-year-old father.

David Guttman on Why Servant Leadership Beats Genius Every Time

In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Stella Lupushor, founder of reframe.work and co-author of Humanizing Human Capital and Humans at Work, to explore what it actually means to keep work human as AI reshapes every layer of how organizations operate.

Drawing on a career that spans Fidelity, IBM, TIAA, and PwC, Stella brings a rare lens to the conversation: part technologist, part workplace humanist, part historian. She argues that the AI transition is not just another technology upgrade but a foundational shift comparable to the introduction of electricity, one that requires organizations to rethink the most basic questions about what work is, who does it, and what the exchange is actually worth.

The conversation covers the unbundling of the traditional job, why digital labor now belongs in your workforce planning, what managing for endurance looks like when volatility is the permanent condition, and why most leaders are still treating AI adoption as an IT project when it demands something much closer to societal redesign.

Whether you lead an HR team, build workforce technology, or are simply trying to make sense of what comes next, this episode offers grounded, historically-informed perspective on navigating change without losing the humans at the center of it.

Stela Lupushor on AI, Work, and What History Tells Us

In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Steve Glynn, founder of Experience Milwaukee and self-described Chief Milwaukee Officer, to explore the power of community, connection, and local ecosystems in shaping the future of work.

Drawing from his journey growing up in Milwaukee, building and selling Sprinklr, and dedicating years to connecting entrepreneurs, founders, and business leaders, Steve shares why professional networks can change lives and why cities thrive when people are aligned around a common vision.

The conversation explores what makes strong innovation ecosystems, why talent often goes unrecognized when it doesn't fit traditional career paths, and how communities lose opportunities when entrepreneurs and nontraditional leaders are overlooked. Steve also shares lessons from studying tech hubs across the country, discusses the role of leadership in driving economic growth, and explains why rewarding intelligent failure may be one of the most important shifts organizations can make.

Whether you're a founder, HR leader, business executive, or someone passionate about building stronger workplaces and communities, this episode offers practical insights on leadership, talent, innovation, and the human connections that make lasting impact possible.

Listen now to hear why alignment, community, and a willingness to embrace risk may be the keys to building stronger companies, stronger careers, and stronger cities.



About the Guest

Steve Glynn is the founder of Experience Milwaukee, a media platform focused on the people building Milwaukee’s tech future. Through interviews, articles, and field reporting, he profiles the founders, operators, executives, investors, and community builders shaping where the city is headed, and he helps ambitious people grow their careers, companies, and connections. A founder with an exit, Steve has spent close to two decades cultivating Milwaukee’s tech and creative ecosystem, going back to Spreenkler, the community he built and later sold. More recently, he brought forward Milwaukee’s first Innovation District in Walker’s Point. His work blends storytelling, ecosystem building, and local business insight, and through projects like his City Tech Tour, he studies how other cities grow strong companies and stronger talent so he can bring those lessons home. He also goes by the title Chief Milwaukee Officer, which tells you most of what you need to know about how he feels about his city.

Steve Glynn on Building Communities That Drive Innovation  

Explore what truly creates workplace happiness, builds a better culture, and drives greater engagement for the entire workforce — from the suits in the C-suite to team members on the frontlines. Get r

Fireside Chats: Behind The Build · Zencastr

Fireside Chats: Behind The Build

Explore what truly creates workplace happiness, builds a better culture, and drives greater engagement for the entire workforce — from the suits in the C-suite to team members on the frontlines. Get real-world insights and practical strategies to recognize, retain, elevate, and empower teams. From engaging interviews with thought leaders in our Voices web series to step-by-step how-tos, MustardHub helps you operationalize great culture and design the workplace of tomorrow... today. MustardHub Voices: Behind The Build addresses these hot topics and more with business leaders, entrepreneurs, HR professionals, consultants, coaches, researchers, and other brilliant minds committed to building, engaging, and elevating culture-driven, high-performing teams.