The TechWolf Podcast

Most skills programs never make it out of the spreadsheet. Cotality's CHRO spent nine months trying to hand-build a skills taxonomy before she killed it and started over.
In this episode, Kendra Angier explains how she rebuilt the workforce-intelligence stack around dynamic data, pulled her COO, CTO, and CFO into the buying decision, and earned an 80% employee NPS on skills along the way. It's a candid look at what actually moves a skills strategy from theory to Monday-morning reality.
Timestamps
00:50 - Why she rejects the idea that AI is killing early talent

02:43 - The Cotality rebrand, and what it demands from the workforce

06:09 - The case for a 12-24 month horizon, not a ten-year plan

08:36 - How she got the CFO, COO and CTO to fund skills

13:42 - The nine-month taxonomy that nearly broke the team

21:22 - “What took us months now takes minutes”

25:47 - Why the change-management risk beats the data risk

38:17 - From chief HR officer to chief work officer

Everyone wants a “skills-based organization.” Almost no one has built one. 
At AstraZeneca, Global Director of Talent Intelligence Lara Martinez Gonzalez has spent four years connecting a tangle of recruitment systems, development platforms, and job architecture into one language for the workforce, and she’s blunt about how hard it has been. 
In this episode, she argues skills is a data problem, not an HR project, explains why she refuses to say the word “skills” in front of business leaders, and shows where the value has actually landed so far. Plus the trap that cost her almost a year, and the company she’s seen get closest to skills-native.
Timestamps:
00:57 — The one skills claim leaders should push back on

02:05 — Four years of skills work, told as an Odyssey

05:46 — How to pick which problem to solve first

10:48 — Why she drops the word “skills” in business meetings

16:30 — Reading the market: from skills to tasks

20:19 — Who should own tasks:  HR or the business?

21:54 — The honest ROI: “still squeezing the lemon”

31:32 — Her 90-day advice to peers two years in

Most strategic workforce plans never make it past the CHRO's desk. The horizon is five years, the work is detailed, and the business leader you need in the room would rather talk about anything else.
Felipe Hessel runs Workforce Intelligence at Sandoz, and he's worked out how to flip that dynamic, getting executives to pull SWP towards them rather than dodge it.
In this conversation, he walks through his six-step framework, the contracting move that earns him the right to ask about critical roles, and the agents he built that cut his own SWP cycle time by 60%.

Timestamps
01:11 - Why HR's role in AI transformation isn't what most people think

04:30 - The three-legged stool of transformation is missing a leg

07:33 - The four legs of Workforce Intelligence: analytics, SWP, skills, AI

11:02 - The 90-day playbook for a new Workforce Intelligence role

12:57 - How to flip a sceptical CEO from push to pull on a 5-year workforce plan

18:11 - The six-step SWP framework, from contracting to course correction

23:51 - Why investing in workforce tech without integration is a trap

28:45 - The AI claim every business leader should push back on

32:46 - 2030 prediction: HR as a product organization

When your sales team closes deals 14% faster, the "skills gap" stops being an HR problem and starts being a revenue solution.
In this Special Episode, TechWolf CEO Andreas joins Josh from Workday to discuss the messy, high-stakes reality of transforming a 20,000-person organization. They move past the buzzwords to discuss why 75% of skills profiles usually fail and how Workday used AI to achieve a 91% skill acceptance rate from their employees.

Timestamps:
00:00 - Highlights: why 75% of skills data is usually "dead" on arrival.
01:29 - Fast & Thoughtful: Defining the Workday x TechWolf partnership.
02:20 - The "Less than 20%" Problem: Why most job profiles are missing the point.
04:38 - 3 Years of Mistakes: What I’d tell my past self about data strategy.
06:08 - The AI Pivot: Moving from "Internal Mobility" to "Workforce Planning."
08:18 - Precision Hiring: Identifying the "Critical 12" skills for every role.
08:50 - The 14% ROI: How skills-based hiring directly impacts sales velocity.
09:44 - Scaling to 20,000: The rollout of the Skills Suggestion App.
10:42 - 91% Acceptance: How to actually get employees to own their skills data.

The world is bracing for mass unemployment, but McKinsey Global Institute researchers Sven Smit and Anu Madgavkar suggest we might actually face a labor shortage.
As agents and robots move from theory to the office floor, the real friction isn't just the tech; it's our inability to learn as fast as the machines. This episode challenges the "soft skills" myth and explains why your AI strategy will fail if it lives in the IT budget.
Timestamps
07:05 – Why 80% automation might still lead to a labor shortage.

11:50 – The "Happy AI" trap: Why adding tools isn't the same as productivity.

19:20 – The blurring lines between knowledge workers and physical labor.

22:57 – Why "Soft Skills" are a dangerous trap for the next generation.

36:53 – Tasks vs. Workflows: The secret to 80% productivity gains.

49:08 – The Budget Error: Why AI belongs in the business P&L, not IT.