Torod Neptune

The institutions that act now and embed AI literacy across disciplines will produce graduates who are adaptable, relevant, and ready to lead in an AI-enabled economy. Those who wait risk becoming disconnected from the very industries they are meant to serve.

Yet in many classrooms, artificial intelligence is still treated as an elective topic or confined to computer science departments. That disconnect creates real risk for graduates and for institutions.

There is a growing gap between what universities are teaching and what today’s jobs actually require.

In boardrooms and operating teams across industries, AI is already embedded in workflows, decision-making, analytics, marketing, finance, product development, and customer experience.

The Death of the Brand Ego: Why Relationships, Not Logos, Win the C-Suite (via Passle) A recent Gartner report delivered a sobering wake-up call for the modern marketing department: By 2027, over 40% of CMOs who push for larger brand budge...

The Death of the Brand Ego: Why Relationships, Not Logos, Win the C-Suite by @Timothy_Hughes buff.ly/2Vyyo4d @DLAIgnite #SocialSelling #DigitalSelling #Sales #SalesTips #SalesLeader #SalesEnablement #RevOps #Marketing #Leadership #MarketingStrategy #MarketingSuccess

This is a big misstep. From a brand and communications POV, it should’ve been clear that it wasn’t landing as intended after the recording and before the posting.

It going live speaks to deeper issues and is a reminder that even strong brands can falter without rigorous internal feedback loops.

Study: CCOs Are Expected To Be Business Leaders, But Few Are Trained To Get There A Medill survey of 125 senior communications executives highlights a growing gap between the business expectations of the role and how communicators are developed.

Exactly, @dkmars.bsky.social 🎯

This is not just a CCO problem, it’s a function problem, especially as it relates to stature, influence, and impact in the c-suite and boardroom👇🏾

www.provokemedia.com/latest/artic...

The question isn’t whether mentoring still matters. It’s whether we’re redesigning it to reflect how the future of work actually happens.

Looking ahead, I think leaders need to start paying attention to how knowledge actually flows, such as who people go to for advice, how often expertise is shared, and whether insight is accessible at the point of need.

Additionally, when mentoring becomes moment-based, leaders can support more people without burning out. A series of focused, thoughtful conversations can scale impact in ways formal programs sometimes can’t.

But not everyone has the capacity for formal, year-long mentoring commitments, and not every development need requires that level of structure. Sometimes what people actually need is targeted insight, right when a decision is being made.

The rise of micro-mentoring isn’t a trend. It’s an adaptation.

Traditional mentoring still has value, and I believe that some of the most meaningful career growth comes from long-term relationships with people who truly know you.

Organizations that cultivate leaders who can act with moral clarity, even when it is uncomfortable, will build trust that outlasts any quarterly result. And in the long run, trust is the foundation on which sustainable performance is built.

However, it is critical that leaders are willing to draw a clear line around what the organization stands for and what it will not compromise.

Fear has a quiet way of creeping into executive decision-making, and when fear becomes the dominant force in the room, decisions tend to drift toward what feels safest in the short term rather than what is right in the long term.

Courage may be the most under-discussed and undervalued resource in leadership today.

"When I think about what it means to be an American, I truly believe it's more than a pride we inherit. It's the past we step into and how we repair it,” says American poet Amanda Gorman.

Novartis settles with Henrietta Lacks' estate over use of her 'stolen' cells to advance medicine Novartis has settled a lawsuit by the estate of Henrietta Lacks that alleged the pharmaceutical giant unjustly profited off her cells, which were taken from her tumor without her knowledge in 1951 and...

Justice sure took a long while…

apnews.com/article/henr...

banner advertising Semafor's annual "trust in media" conference featuring a long list of people who are actually eroding trust in media, like Brendan Carr and Matt Murray and Mathias Dopfner

once a year the brunchlords at Semafor host a "restoring trust in news" conference where they unironically platform most of the people responsible for destroying trust in news, then lob softball questions at them

this year's lineup is a real doozy

(notice the complete absence of indie media)

Instead of evaluating careers based on how neatly someone climbed, we need to look at what they’ve built along the way. The organizations that adapt to this shift will be able to build leadership benches filled with individuals who know how to navigate change in real time.

This shift highlights how much the workplace has changed. Roles evolve quickly. Skills become outdated faster. Employee expectations have shifted. Mobility across industries is normal. In this environment, upward-only growth can actually create more harm than good.

Career quilts, not career ladders: a new era for professional growth Many careers no longer resemble ladders but rather look like quilts—squares of diverse experiences, capabilities and transitions over time.

Careers no longer follow straight lines. Diverse experiences, lateral moves, cross-functional projects, industry pivots, and nonlinear growth all have today's career ladders looking more like career quilts.

The People vs. AI Across red states and blue, a grassroots movement is pushing back on the unchecked growth of the artificial intelligence industry.

Surveying the growing backlash to AI, TIME spoke to nine Americans from disparate regions, ideologies, and professions — including a nurse, a pastor, and a filmmaker — who are taking the fight over this technology into their own hands. time.com/7377579/ai-d...

It’s about acknowledging that leadership in 2026 requires multidirectional learning, curiosity, and the ability to absorb perspectives from every level of the organization.

I have seen firsthand how technology initiatives fail when leadership doesn’t understand day-to-day realities. Reverse mentoring changes that dynamic, creating a real-time feedback loop between junior team members and leadership.

Reverse mentoring is not about diminishing senior expertise.

Reverse mentoring: what can Gen Z teach senior leadership? It’s easy to assume that junior employees lack the expertise and experience for leaders to learn from – but employers that do so are missing a trick

Traditionally, mentorship has followed a predictable model: experience flows down, wisdom trickles from senior leadership to junior talent. However, today's workplace is proving that insight is not always hierarchical.

Beware the business school case study: The cautionary tale of Southwest Airlines The big teaching point from the Southwest cases is that competitive advantage isn't about any single policy.

Southwest's new leadership knows what investors want. Whether they know what Southwest is anymore—that's less clear. f-st.co/A5wGt9i

National Leadership Day is a reminder that leadership is something we all practice every day, in big decisions and small interactions alike.

Who inspired you in your leadership journey?

They create clarity in uncertainty, set the emotional tone in challenging moments, and model the behaviors they hope to see in others.

The leaders who leave a lasting mark are often the ones who took the time to mentor, to encourage, or to believe in someone before they believed in themselves.

Leadership isn’t just about titles or authority; it’s about influence, responsibility, and the moments when someone chooses to step up for others. The most impactful leaders don’t just make decisions; they shape environments.

Leadership isn’t just about titles or authority; it’s about influence, responsibility, and the moments when someone chooses to step up for others.

The most impactful leaders don’t just make decisions; they shape environments.

Drop a link to a story you think was framed brilliantly (or terribly). I’ll pick one and break down the narrative in a future post.