Compliance Training Doesn't Have to Suck: The Ethena Story with Roxanne Petraeus, CEO

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Recorded13 Mar 2025

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Kelli and Nolan are joined by Roxanne Petraeus, CEO of Ethena, to talk about her journey from the US army to founding an HR tech company. She shares her views on leadership, the distinction between training and learning, and building a culture of intellectual meritocracy in a remote-first environment. The conversation explores how compliance training evolved from her military experiences, covers the role of Chief People Officers, and reveals how military discipline shaped her approach to building high-performance tech cultures without superficial perks.*Email us your questions or topics for Kelli & Nolan: [email protected] coaching and advising inquire at https://kellidragovich.com/HR Heretics is a podcast from Turpentine.—📰 Be notified early when Turpentine's drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccessSupport HR Heretics Sponsor:Metaview is the AI assistant for interviewing. Metaview completely removes the need for recruiters and hiring managers to take notes during interviews—because their AI is designed to take world-class interview notes for you. Team builders at companies like Brex, Hellofresh, and Quora say Metaview has changed the game—see the magic for yourself: https://www.metaview.ai/hereticsKEEP UP WITH ROXANNE, NOLAN + KELLI ON LINKEDINRoxanne: https://www.linkedin.com/in/roxanne-bras-petraeus-2292b8109/Nolan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolan-church/Kelli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellidragovich/—RECOMMENDATIONS:Ethena: https://www.goethena.com/‘We’re not recording’ podcast with Roxanne Petraeus:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTcvuUiuTe9nFXLMIPy4gjHv67-bFl8Do—TIMESTAMPS:(00:00) Intro(01:36) How Roxanne ended up in the Army (03:29) Career path from Army to McKinsey to founder (04:29) The insight behind Ethena's founding (07:11) Problems with traditional LMS approaches (10:04) Debate on employee vs company-driven learning (14:00) Making training relevant to day-to-day work (15:43) Sponsor: Metaview(17:38) The best L&D: great managers and top performers (20:47) Learning from people vs structured courses (22:40) Hiring a CPO at an HR tech company (24:45) Building a culture of intellectual meritocracy (27:27) Founders set company culture, not HR (28:44) The expanding role of modern CPOs (33:08) Functional leaders' accountability vs HR (35:19) CPO as strategic partner and executive coach (37:55) Maintaining high talent density and expectations (41:33) Leading a female-led company with high standards (43:16) Thanksgiving with David Petraeus(43:54) Wrap This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hrheretics.substack.com

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