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Leadership, Brand Strategy & Transformation - Minter Dialogue

Leadership, Brand Strategy & Transformation - Minter Dialogue

By: Evergreen Podcasts | Minter Dialogue
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About this listen

 With the Minter Dialogue podcast, your host Minter Dial is on a mission to help elevate the debate and insert more meaningfulness into our lives. He gives weekly interviews around leadership, brand strategy and transformation, featuring top business leaders, personalities, entrepreneurs and authors from around the world who are making things happen! This show has had multiple awards and citations over the years, including the #2 Brand Strategy podcast worldwide by Feedspot in 2025 (#1 in the UK), as well as #22 among all Leadership podcasts. It was also listed as a Top 50 leadership podcast by LeadersHum for 2022 and Top 50 Marketing Blog/Podcasts by Linkedin. Minter Dial is a filmmaker and author of multiple award-winning books, including The Last Ring Home, Futureproof (FT Press), You Lead (Kogan Page) and Heartificial Empathy, 2nd edition (2023). He also hosts The Joy of Padel podcast. Podcast show notes are on minterdial.com. To rate & review: RateThisPodcast.© 2010-2026 Leadership & Brand Strategy - Minter Dialogue Economics Management Management & Leadership Marketing Marketing & Sales
Episodes
  • Behind the Curtain: Julia Burbach on Creativity, Risk, and Teamwork in Opera Direction (MDE653)

    Behind the Curtain: Julia Burbach on Creativity, Risk, and Teamwork in Opera Direction (MDE653)
    May 2 2026
    In this episode, Minter Dial welcomes renowned opera director and scenic visionary Julia Burbach for an illuminating exploration into the artistry, psychology, and leadership behind the world’s grandest stages. With an international upbringing and an academic background straddling history, law, and diplomacy, Julia has forged a distinct path in opera—blending creative storytelling with the demands of team-building, risk-taking, and finely-tuned human management. Julia Burbach sheds light on the curious duality her role demands: balancing her personal, often private, creative instincts with the high-wire act of corralling diverse, multinational teams towards a coherent vision. The conversation gets under the skin of the creative process, revealing how self-confidence, intuition, and strategic risk all play vital roles in bringing complex productions to life. She opens up about her family’s artistic heritage, the incremental nature of building confidence as a woman in a traditionally male world, and the invisible strategies behind navigating egos on and off the stage. The dialogue also delves into broader questions facing the operatic world: from the practicalities of working with singers (who are cast before directors even join projects), to the challenges of accessibility and relevance in an era of mounting political and financial pressures. Julia shares her belief in the healing power of beauty and the timeless draw of communal artistic experience, all while offering candid insights on diplomacy, team selection, and what it takes to sustain emotional realism in the heart of fiction. Whether you are a business leader searching for lessons on human management, a creative wrestling with risk and intuition, or simply curious about how opera adapts for survival in turbulent times, this episode offers rare perspectives from behind the curtain. Join Minter Dial as he ventures into the messy, exhilarating, and deeply personal world of opera with Julia, whose career stands testament to the enduring value of collective endeavour and artistic courage.
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • The Transformative Power of Storytelling: Leilani Garrett’s Path to Radical Empathy (MDE652)

    The Transformative Power of Storytelling: Leilani Garrett’s Path to Radical Empathy (MDE652)
    Apr 25 2026
    In this conversation, Minter Dial sits down with Leilani Garrett, founder of Be More Human, former technology sales executive, and accomplished novelist. Drawing from over thirty years of experience navigating the corporate world and her journey as a writer, Leilani Garrett explores the transformative power of storytelling in fostering radical empathy, not just as a tool for innovation and growth, but as a blueprint for uplifting one another in life and work. The exchange delves deeply into what it means to be human—and indeed, “more human”—both in the workplace and society at large. Leilani Garrett unpacks the tension between authenticity and the performative masks many adopt to succeed at work, reflecting on her own experiences balancing ambition, identity, and creativity within traditionally male-dominated corporate structures. Together, they question how we define “us” and “them”, address the importance of curiosity over judgement in divided times, and probe how leaders and teams can unlock greater cohesion, trust, and innovation by truly listening to the stories of others. From the challenges of integrating side hustles and creative pursuits with high-powered careers, to the cultural impact of major tech mergers, and the courage it takes to reveal oneself through creative work, this episode is rich with nuanced insight and practical wisdom. For those seeking to lead with empathy, to navigate the complexities of identity in modern organisations, or to find their authentic voice amidst conformity, this episode offers inspiration and a fresh perspective on what it means to thrive as a human being—at work and beyond.
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    59 mins
  • The AI Instinct and Hybrid Cognition Redefining Human Agency and Experience with Rana Gujral (MDE651)

    The AI Instinct and Hybrid Cognition Redefining Human Agency and Experience with Rana Gujral (MDE651)
    Apr 18 2026
    In this episode, Minter Dial welcomes back Rana Gujral, entrepreneur and longtime AI innovator, for a probing discussion around his new book, The AI Instinct: The Future of AI and Human Decision Making. With over two decades of hands-on experience building advanced cognitive systems, Rana unpacks how artificial intelligence is subtly entering—and even reshaping—the loop of human perception, attention, and judgement. The conversation delves into the heart of hybrid cognition, as Rana argues that the next frontier isn’t man or machine alone, but the emergence of coupled human–AI systems. Drawing on both practical business experience and philosophical inquiry, he explores the dangers and promise of this integration: how AI tools extend and sometimes diminish our cognitive abilities, the emergence of artificial general experience (AGE) as a more meaningful benchmark than AGI, and what it means for team accountability when no single agent is fully in charge. The pair discuss the new challenges of agency and autonomy in a world where algorithms can sculpt our attention before we even realise it, and consider the critical importance of transparency, audit trails, and ethical guardrails in high-stakes environments. Whether you are wrestling with the practicalities of AI-enabled decision making, concerned about the future of human agency, or simply curious about how emotional signals and synthetic voices are shaping our everyday lives, this episode is an invitation to reflect on what makes us human in the age of the algorithm. Tune in as Speaker A and Rana debate the boundaries, responsibilities, and real-world implications of artificial intelligence—and offer a timely framework for leading and living alongside machines.
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    1 hr and 10 mins
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