Leading Professionals
Episodes
S4 EP6 - Leading Complex Change: Breaking Through Practical Barriers and Political Resistance
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Guest: Dame Emily Lawson, formerly COO, NHS England, and Head of Number 10's Delivery UnitEmily has considerable experience of leading change in compl...
S4 EP5 - Becoming "Professional": How to Look, Sound, Act and Feel like a Professional
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Guest: Paul Lewis, Firmwide Managing Partner of LinklatersIf you do not fit the conventional image of an elite professional, how do you persuade other...
S4 EP4 - Considering the Future: How AI and Private Equity Will Change Professionals' Work
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Guest: Michael Izza CBE, CEO (former) of ICAEWFor almost 20 years, Michael led the ICAEW, with more than 200,000 members in almost 150 countries. ...
S4 EP3 - Electing Leaders: How to Choose Your Leaders and How To Get Elected
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Guest: Michael Ensser, Chair of Egon ZehnderLaura asks Michael: Why does a world leading firm of leadership consultants choose to elect their senior l...
S4 EP2 - Doing the Right Thing: How to Make Ethically Tough Decisions
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Guest: Georgia Dawson, Senior Partner of FreshfieldsIf you are a lawyer you may be able to guess why Laura asks Georgia to explore the challenging the...
S4 EP1 - Leading in Uncertain Times: How to Respond to Geopolitical Change and AI Disruption
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Guest: Fabien Curto Millet, Chief Economist of Google. Fabien joins Laura to discuss how he and his team of economists anticipate, analyse,...
S4 EP0 Welcome to Leading Professionals
15 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Laura Empson introduces key topics and guests from the upcoming series. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
David Bickford: Spies as professionals
11 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What are the parallels between the worlds of espionage and professional services? Laura and Tony talk to David Bickford, previously General Counsel to...
Katherine White: Leading discretely
27 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Laura and Tony speak to Katherine White, the first Chief Talent Officer of global executive search firm, Spencer Stuart. They explore the challenges o...
Gianpiero Petriglieri: Coming out of the psychological closet
13 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gianpiero Petriglieri, Associate Professor at INSEAD, is ranked as one of the top 50 management thinkers in the world. Laura and Tony talk to him abou...
June Sarpong: Leading as an outsider
30 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Laura and Tony are joined by June Sarpong OBE, the BBC’s first Global Director of Creative Diversity. They explore how to bring about disruptiv...
Chris Saul: Subtle power
16 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Saul is the former Senior Partner of the UK’s most prestigious law firm, Slaughter and May. Laura and Tony explore how leaders use subtle powe...
Steve Varley: Profiting from sustainability
02 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Laura and Tony speak to Steve Varley, EY’s first Global Vice Chair for Sustainability. They find out how he was inspired by Greta Thunberg to t...
Welcome Back
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome back to Leading Professional People, the podcast that explores the most crucial leadership questions currently facing professional organisatio...
Leadership in the spotlight
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Empson & Morley speak to Tony Hall, Lord Hall, about his time as Director General of the BBC, and his many other high-profile roles...
Leadership value chain
12 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do you build better leaders in a professional service firm? Empson & Morley speak to Russ Hagey, Worldwide Chief Talent Officer of Bain. ...
Ethics and leadership
28 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why do professionals do bad things? Empson & Morley speak to Professor Brooke Harrington of Dartmouth College, in the USA. They explore the f...
Extreme collegiality
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is collegiality and how does it work in practice? Empson & Morley speak to Jill Ader, Chair of executive search and leadership...
Leadership duets
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can dual leadership be effective and how does it work in practice? Empson & Morley analyse these questions with the help of Barry Devereaux&n...
Post-pandemic Professionalism
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How can leaders help their professionals prepare for the challenges and opportunities of post-pandemic professional work? Empson & Morley exp...
Collaboration in a Cold Climate
22 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How do you create and sustain collaboration when you no longer meet each other face to face? Empson & Morley discuss this with Kirsten Edwards-War...
Global versus Local
08 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a global professional organisation, how do you achieve alignment across national offices? Empson outlines one powerful method – social control –...
Partnership versus Corporate
22 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Empson explains how the culture of partnership is created and sustained while Morley highlights the challenges of growth and scale in this context. To...
Ambition versus Reluctance
08 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Professional people can be notoriously reluctant to see themselves as leaders. Empson & Morley explore what can be done to support professionals m...
Leadership in crisis
25 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Empson outlines how a crisis changes the balance of power in professional organisations, but only temporarily. Morley explains the importance of adapt...
Paradoxes of Leadership
11 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Empson gets a call at midnight from a client asking for advice as a potential leadership coup gathers momentum. Morley & Empson discuss the parado...
Welcome to Leading Professional People
17 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Laura Empson and David Morley introduce their new podcast series ‘Leading Professional People’. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...