Best of 2025: What Actually Worked When Leading Organizational Change

Five years ago, we started Leader Generation with a simple premise: clients learning from clients. This year proved why that matters.

In 2025, CEOs and their leadership teams stopped debating whether to adopt AI and began wrestling with harder questions: How do we bring our people along? How do we measure what matters instead of what's easy to measure? How do we maintain the relationships that built our business while transforming how we operate?

Excerpts from these ten conversations capture what worked. Not theory—actual results from CDOs, COOs, and VPs leading change at companies like Southern Glazer's Wine & Spirits, DoubleVerify, and Digital Remedy. The full episodes are linked in this post.

Stuart Goldstein explains why technology is the easy part, and people are where transformations actually stall. Alan Wizemann describes how his team measures success by the time freed up for employees to do valuable work, not headcount reduction. Anna Jankowska walks through preparing teams for scenarios they don't expect, because that's where you see who's ready to lead.

These aren't polished case studies. They're candid conversations about the messy reality of leading change when your board wants results, your team is exhausted, and the playbook keeps changing.

If you're heading into 2026 with aggressive goals and limited patience for more consultants telling you what you already know, these episodes cut through the noise. They're built for leaders who need to make decisions Monday morning, not attend another conference about the future of work.

Links to the full episodes from this top 10 list:

• #10: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep129-building-your-army-of-ai-agents-what-marketers-need-to-know/ - Fabio Fiss, Aaron Grando, and Javier Lopez
• #9: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep109-ai-data-marketing-how-to-manage-risks/ - Kevin Purvis
• #8: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep116-future-of-performance-marketing-data-ai-personalization/ - Jeremy Haft
• #7: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep126-how-scibids-ai-is-redefining-media-buying-at-doubleverify/  - Wadrille Leroy
• #6: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep112-leading-through-change-the-human-side-of-marketing-leadership/  - Anna Jankowska
• #5: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep108-ai-playground-microsoft-copilot-google-notebooklm/ - Alyssa Curci and Jonathan Murray
• #4: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep140-leading-change-that-sticks-people-processes-platforms-with-stuart-goldstein/ - Stuart Goldstein
• #3: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep143-time-to-value-innovation-that-puts-customers-first-with-alan-wizemann/ * Alan Wizemann
• #2: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep119-leading-change-transforming-companies-with-alan-wizemann/ - Alan Wizemann
• #1: https://tenloradio.com/e/ep121-say-hello-to-brand-agent-ai-that-speaks-your-brand-s-language/ - Aaron Grando

 

About Tessa Burg:

Tessa is the Chief Technology Officer at Mod Op and Host of the Leader Generation podcast. She has led both technology and marketing teams for 15+ years. Tessa initiated and now leads Mod Op's AI/ML Pilot Team, AI Council and Innovation Pipeline. She started her career in IT and development before following her love for data and strategy into digital marketing. Tessa has held roles on both the consulting and client sides of the business for domestic and international brands, including American Greetings, Amazon, Nestlé, Anlene, Moen and many more. Tessa can be reached on LinkedIn