My story

I did not set out to build a talk show. I set out to answer a question that had followed me for most of my career: why do so many technology projects fail? That question shaped everything, from the tools I built early on to the nearly 1,000 executive interviews I have recorded since.

Before CXOTalk

I spent my early career building the machinery of enterprise software. I helped develop rapid implementation tools for SAP and worked with IBM and Lotus on the methods large organizations use to run complex programs. Then I founded Asuret, a Boston area consultancy that used specialized tools to detect risk inside big projects before they went off the rails.

Along the way I became known for writing candidly about failure. My column for ZDNet ran to more than 1,000 articles on the management and leadership reasons that technology initiatives break down. The lesson repeated itself again and again: the technology is rarely the real problem. The names change, from ERP to cloud to AI, but the underlying causes barely move.

Starting CXOTalk

CXOTalk began in 2013 as a labor of love. At the time I was advising enterprise software companies such as SAP and Microsoft on positioning and messaging. I wanted to try something no one else in the enterprise was doing: a live, unscripted conversation with a C-level leader that took questions from the audience in real time. The first guest was Guy Kawasaki. I eventually left consulting to run CXOTalk full time.

The body of work

Today CXOTalk is a library of nearly 900 episodes and 569 guests, and it remains the only discussion show with C-level executives that is live and takes audience questions. The guests are CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, and CISOs from the largest organizations in the world, across technology, healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. The value has always been the same: authentic, in depth discussion, with no selling and no pitching.