Amanda Russo Podcast Transcript
Amanda Russo joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
[00:00:12] Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Amanda Russo. Amanda Russo is an accomplished Chief Operating Officer, speaker, and thought leader known for driving organizational excellence and sustainable growth. Her expertise in operational efficiency and strategic vision has benefited organizations across various industries.
With a focus on team empowerment and collaboration, Amanda fosters a results driven work culture. She has a track record of implementing transformative initiatives that boost revenue, cut costs and enhance customer experiences. Amanda stays ahead of industry trends and leverages technology for innovation and competitiveness.
Her strong communication and strategic skills align cross functional teams to achieve common goals and support the organizational vision.
Well, good afternoon, Amanda. Welcome to the show!
[00:00:59] Amanda Russo: Thanks so much, Brian, for having me. I appreciate it.
[00:01:01] Brian Thomas: Absolutely. And I appreciate you making the time staying up late to do a podcast with me from New York is awesome. I appreciate it. So many thanks to you on that. And Amanda, let’s just jump right into the questions here.
Can you describe basically the journey of founding Cornerstone Paradigm Consulting and the core mission that drives you and your team?
[00:01:20] Amanda Russo: Yeah. I actually found this business roughly seven years ago, almost seven years ago. And really the journey was interesting. I never really planned.
Actually, I did plan eventually to start my own business. But not at the time, but I actually did, I was just kind of thrown into it. I had an international client and she asked me sort of last minute. Could I. Start an entity because she could only pay an entity and that’s sort of where Cornerstone Paradigm Consulting, or also known as CPC was born.
And that’s where we’ve been, since then I think what drives us and, now I have a team, but really what drives folks like me and myself and my team is, we love the work that we do and we love the impact that we have on our clients, their lives, their business.
And so, I think because we’re such an impact driven business, it, speaks volumes to why we do what we do and why we work so hard and why we care so much.
[00:02:20] Brian Thomas: That’s so important. And thank you for sharing that. Obviously, your story but having a team that really truly cares about the customer and again, kind of a segue into the next question here about that human-to-human connection, right?
How do you balance the need for technological advancement while maintaining a human centric approach in business?
[00:02:41] Amanda Russo: Yeah, when we think about technology, technology plays an important role in, or I should say it should play an important role in helping our human capital work smarter and spend less time doing some of the tasks that are frankly, now we could just automate but when we think about the human side of things, I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact that We still are very much our all of our businesses are very much contingent on human capital and the people behind those computers and those software programs.
And I think if you don’t as a leader, spend time understanding how to engage employees. In this sort of hybrid environment or completely remote and or even if you’re not remote, if you’re in the office, I think you still need to pay careful attention on how you engage employees still engaging them, asking them questions, asking them for feedback, having 1-on-1 sessions with them, getting to know them as people.
I think all of those things still matter, whether you’re in an office in a remote environment, or some kind of hybrid version of both. I think we often get very caught up in sitting behind the computer screen and just plugging away at the day and forgetting that. As people, we need human connection.
And certainly, as a leader, you need to pay very, very close attention to how you’re doing that, how often you’re doing that and making sure that you’re meeting the kind of human connection needs of your team, if that makes sense. So, I do. I think it’s a balance. And I think as leaders, to never ever lose sight of the humans behind those machines and they need to be taken care of as well.
There’s a mental health element to it. Certainly, there’s so many levels of, the care that we need to take for the people that work with us that I think can often get, swept under the rug as we get caught up behind machines and the technology and kind of working and plugging away your to do list.
[00:04:33] Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Appreciate your perspective on that. And if you look back at the pandemic and all the college graduates coming out of that, their first job has been a lot of them. And I know a lot that their 1st job was remote. And I just hope we can instill that foundational human-to-human interaction that we grew up with right, Amanda and not to happen to try to play catch up down the road, a generation down the road, because our communications have been so off that our businesses are failing or whatever the case may end up being. But I appreciate your perspective and I’m going to switch gears here to your next question. As a leader, Amanda, how do you cultivate and maintain a strong online reputation and why do you believe it’s crucial for the success of a CEO and their business?
[00:05:17] Amanda Russo: Yeah, I think because we’re still very much a small, intimate business, I think when you see thought leadership or, information online about the topic, certainly that I talked quite a bit about online.
I think you’re seeing it from. Some of the larger consulting companies where it seems like they’ve run a survey that no one remembers taking, or, they have all this information that seems so disconnected to, businesses that are, I don’t want to say, the smaller businesses.
We’re still, we’re still in the space of 100 million dollars and up, but I feel like there’s less of a human connection with it. There’s less connection to the information when I, posts thought leadership and we post a lot of blogs and eBooks, and we try to provide as much.
Resources and information as we possibly can. We try to make sure that we’re speaking to the issues that we know a lot of the businesses are facing, whether it be, 100Million dollars or, a 2Billion dollar business. We know that the real issues that they’re facing, and we try to speak to those.
And I think it’s important to share our perspective because if what I’m sharing doesn’t connect or resonate with you. I might not be the right partner for you. But if it is, I might be a better alternative to some of the other choices. And at least we leave the option for them to explore that. I think it’s important to share.
Certainly my knowledge, my experience, my team’s knowledge and experience start a conversation because I think positive change starts with a conversation. And you can’t have a conversation if I’m just spewing facts at you or I’m talking at you. I think it’s important to maintain a conversational setting.
If that makes sense.
[00:06:58] Brian Thomas: Absolutely. And Amanda, I can vouch. I think we’ve been connected for a while now and I do see a lot of things about your company, but what really resonates with me is you, someone that’s trusted. You’re the face of the organization and it’s somebody I can trust.
And when I can do that just as I asked you previously, the success of the CEO and their business is really their online reputation, but it’s. It goes back to the leader and their personal brand. So, I appreciate your insights there. Amanda, last question of the evening here, looking forward, what emerging trends or technologies do you see as pivotal for the future of business consulting and optimization?
[00:07:35] Amanda Russo: Yeah, so there’s one thing about me and it’s, I hate jumping on a bandwagon. I hate using buzzwords because I think they’re just that. And I think. It’s easy to do that, right? But I am actually going to do that. And then I’m going to backtrack for a second. Of course, I’m going to say AI and of course, I’m going to say machine learning, because they are going to play a very pivotal role in, I think, the way that we do business and how smart our technology is getting and the direction that technology is going.
I do. I think that that’s going to play a pivotal role in the sort of the direction that business is going, we’re getting smart glasses and, AI’s helping doctors diagnose. And, you and I think we’re getting smarter with the way that we work with the advances in technology but I also want to backtrack and say, there is nothing quite as good as looking back and making sure that we are maintaining and addressing operational issues in the business, that you currently have, and not always constantly looking to the future, looking to looking for the next like shiny thing So, obviously, of course, I’m going to I will play a role machine learning will play a role. There are many other forms of fantastic technology that’s coming out, but I always say, and I will continue to preach this from the mountaintops is there’s nothing quite like going back to the fundamentals, right? Technology can help us.
But, if you don’t address the current state, and all of its I’ll call them operational gaps. It’s like blind spots or opportunities. If you don’t address them, you’re just going to implement AI or machine learning and get more junk faster, right?
Yeah, I definitely think that there’s a lot of opportunity that’s coming our way and it’s fantastic. But, never forget about the fundamentals, the basics,
[00:09:16] Brian Thomas: Yeah, absolutely. I can tell you, Amanda gosh, close to 200 podcasts in 2023 and seemed like every podcast was a new app that was integrated or powered by AI.
And a lot has come out and it certainly can overwhelm somebody if we’re not careful. So, thank you for your insights.
And Amanda, it was such a pleasure having you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
[00:09:40] Amanda Russo: Thanks, Brian. I appreciate it.
[00:09:41] Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Amanda Russo Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
