Shift & Thrive Podcast:
CEO Insights on Driving Change

How do CEOs lead a company through radical business transformation without losing employee trust? In this episode of Shift & Thrive, host Natalie Nathanson talks with Jon Billow, Chief Revenue Officer of BNS and CEO of BNS Networks, about change management and leadership transformation in fast-moving markets. Jon shares the story of pivoting an entire data center company into a consulting organization after a major customer breach and why he chose extreme transparency with employees during that transition. Drawing on his background in Army Special Forces and stints across nearly every C-suite role, Jon breaks down how leadership style needs to flex depending on the seat you are sitting in, why building a perfect go-to-market strategy can become a fool's errand, and how he approaches strategy in the AI infrastructure space where the landscape is still shifting.

How do leaders stay ahead when the rules keep changing before they even finish adapting to the last shift? In this episode of Shift & Thrive, host Natalie Nathanson talks with Ann Reilly, founder of AdaptSuccess, a growth and transformation leader who spent her career navigating disruption at companies including STAR TV, Intuit, and Yahoo. Ann shares the moment she realized the digital media world she knew was about to be reshaped by AI, why unlearning is just as important as learning, and the framework she now uses to help leaders and teams measure and build real adaptability.

What's the hardest leadership skill for a founder to learn, and why does almost everyone get it wrong at first? In this episode of Shift & Thrive, host Natalie Nathanson talks with Ahmad Jadallah, Founder and CEO of PanBio, an AI-native platform that helps governments and hospitals localize clinical genetic testing and makes genomic data more accessible for researchers worldwide. Ahmad opens up about his unconventional path from medicine to startup leadership, the early years of doing every job himself, and the moment he realized he had to delegate or stall out. He also reflects on staying close to clients no matter how much the company grows, and the childhood influences that shaped his drive toward science and discovery in the first place.

What happens when a founder applies the lessons of two successful exits to one of AI's biggest challenges: trust in a world of deepfakes and digital fraud? In this episode of Shift & Thrive, host Natalie Nathanson talks with Shawn-Marc Melo, founder and CEO of deepidv, an AI-native identity verification and compliance platform. Shawn walks through how he approached this third venture differently, from an impromptu trade show launch to building a team around curiosity and humility rather than résumé alone. The conversation moves into the challenge of finding the right go-to-market leader for a technical, compliance-driven sale, then shifts into the rapidly evolving identity landscape, covering agentic commerce, the rising fraud risks facing businesses as deepfakes grow more sophisticated, and what business leaders should be doing today to prepare their organizations.

What does it take to build a business so well structured that it could run without you? In this Investor Spotlight episode of Shift & Thrive, host Natalie Nathanson talks with Paul Oggelsby, a former IT managed services CEO and Founder, who exited his business in 2022, and now is an investor, chairman, and advisor. Paul shares how a single Reddit post connected him with thousands of struggling founders, the impact the book Traction had on how he ran his company, and why building toward an eventual exit, whether or not you ever plan to sell, leads to stronger decision making. In a special Shift & Thrive exclusive, Paul also announces his newest venture, Maturable.io, born from the same blind spot he faced running his own company and later saw in nearly every founder he advised: the lack of real benchmarking data to know where a business truly stands. He built the platform to close exactly that gap for SaaS leaders.