Episode 308: Steven Kwast, Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force (ret.) replay

In this week's episode, we revisit our interview with Lorraine Parker-Clegg. Lorraine is the Chief People Officer at Allison Transmission. Lorraine shares lessons learned in her career and her perspective on hiring great talent. Lorraine is an international business leader with in-country expertise across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.  Lorraine has held Human Resources leadership positions with companies such as BE Aerospace, Bristol Myers Squibb, Medtronic, most recently, she was the Chief Human Resources Officer at Doncasters Group. Lorraine is highly regarded for her ability to take on the tough challenges, helping organizations bring necessary change to further their human capital and talent agenda. 

This week we interview Christopher J. Millerick. Christopher is a revenue architect, go-to-market strategist, and expert in partner eco-systems leadership who has spent more than fifteen years engineering the systems that translate Private Equity and Venture Capital investment theses into predictable, capital-efficient revenue growth for enterprise SaaS and cybersecurity companies. As Global Vice President of Worldwide Partner Sales, Alliances & Hyperscalers at Infoblox—a Vista Equity Partners and Warburg Pincus portfolio company—Chris led the structural transformation of a stagnant $450M transactional channel into a strategic growth ecosystem that now executes 97% of total company revenue. Under his leadership, partner-sourced revenue grew from 38% to 73% of new customer bookings, new customer acquisition increased 43%, and the organization scaled steadily toward $1B in annual recurring revenue—all while meeting the board's rigorous "Rule of 60" profitability and growth mandates. Chris brought expertise that in collaboration with Infoblox's previous CRO led to the adoption of the "3 WHYs" qualifying framework — a buyer-centric methodology that aligns direct sales, marketing, and partner engagement around the three questions every enterprise buyer must answer before committing: Why now? (Urgency drivers) What happens if I do nothing? (Cost of inaction) Why this solution? (Value clarity) The framework has been deployed across global organizations to compress complex sales cycles and systematically improve capital efficiency. His operating experience spans the full PE value creation lifecycle. He built a greenfield enterprise region at Nutanix from zero to a top-producing region in North America within 24 months, led global revenue responsibility through the successful acquisition of Unitrends by Kaseya and co-led the Plexxi go-to-market turn-around through to acquisition by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Chris led global channel sales for EMC Corporation's flagship storage business and held a variety of sales and GTM roles with progressive financial impact across a twelve-year tenure. A 5-time CRN Channel Chief honoree, Executive Revenue Growth Advisor in the Hubble network, and Limited Partner at Stage 2 Capital, Chris holds a BA from the College of the Holy Cross, an MBA from Babson College and Chief Revenue Officer Leadership Program Certificate from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He speaks on partner ecosystem transformation, PE/VC value creation through GTM architecture, leveraging AI in GTM and building revenue engines that deliver both growth and profitability at scale.

This week, we revisit our interview with John Milad. John has 25 years of experience as a start-up executive, venture investor, and banker specializing in healthcare innovation across the UK, Europe, and the US. He had 10 years of life sciences venture experience at a family office, Atlas Venture, NBGI Venture and Downing. Notable exits include Symetis, ACT/EPIX, BoneSupport and Medcast/WebMD. John is a Co-founder of Quanta Dialysis Technologies, which I led as CEO for 8 years. Notable outcomes include creating an award-winning, disruptive portable dialysis system; raising nearly $400m in funding; commercially launching in UK and US; and establishing trans-Atlantic commercial operations. For another 2 years, he served as an executive at Nitec Pharma, which was ultimately sold to Horizon Therapeutics. John has held multiple board positions across the sector. He has been an advisor to NIIR/I4i programme, mentor at the Enterprise Hub of the Royal Academy of Engineering. He has been recognized in the Sunday Times Maserati List of the UK's Top 100 "Game Changing Innovators and Entrepreneurs"; Winner of the 2022 MacRobert Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering for outstanding engineering innovation.

This week, we revisit our interview with Stacey Porter. Stacey is the Chief People Officer at PROCEPT BioRobotics. Prior to that, she was the Chief People Officer at Outset Medical. Stacey has expertise in organizational design, innovative talent practices, and employee engagement.  Prior to Outset, she was the Head of Global Talent Development for Intuitive Surgical, Inc., responsible for designing performance and succession practices, while developing leaders and high-performing teams. Stacey has held leadership roles at VMware and Roche, and has built a career on creating nimble, progressive organizations. She has a MSW and doctoral studies in industrial/organizational psychology.  

This week, we revisit our conversation with Keith Grossman. Keith has been a leader in the medical technology industry for more than 35 years. He was the Chairman of the Board of Nevro Corporation (NVRO) until April 2025, having previously served as President and CEO from 2019 to April 2023.  Prior to Nevro, he was named President and CEO of Thoratec Corp. (THOR) for the second time in 2014. He led the company's return to growth, a 2.5x increase in company value, and its $3.4 billion acquisition by St. Jude Medical in 2015. He previously served as the CEO, President, and Director of Conceptus, Inc. (CPTS) from 2011 to 2013, where he took the company from negative sales growth to over 20% growth, tripled EBIDTA, and led the company's sale to Bayer Healthcare for over $1.1 billion, a 3x increase in the company's value before his arrival.  Prior to Conceptus, Keith served as managing director of TPG (Texas Pacific Group), a private equity firm, as a member of its healthcare investment team. Prior to TPG, Mr. Grossman served as Thoratec's President, Chief Executive Officer, and director for the first ten years of its growth as a commercial company. Prior to Thoratec, he held a number of commercial and general management roles with companies including SulzerMedica and American Hospital Supply Corp.  He currently also serves as Vice Chairman of Alcon, Inc., and is on the board of Outset Medical, Inc. and previously served as a member of the Board of Directors of Intuitive Surgical, Inc., Kyphon, Inc., ViewRay, Inc., Zeltiq, Inc, and a number of privately held medical device companies. Keith received a B.S. in life sciences from The Ohio State University and an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University.  

In this episode, we revisit our conversation with Dr. Robert Quinn as he shares powerful insights on what it means to become a purpose-driven leader. Dr. Quinn has spent the past 40 years researching, publishing, teaching, consulting, and speaking to more than half of the Fortune 500. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business and the author of 18 books, including Deep Change, a long term bestseller. He was named one of the "World's Top 30 Organizational Culture Professionals" in 2018 and holds one of the highest repeat invitation rates in the speaking industry. More than 15 million people have viewed his recent talk on purpose.

This week, we revisit our conversation with Molly Fletcher. Molly made her mark as one of the first female sports agents, and during her nearly two decades as President of CSE she negotiated more than $500 million in contracts. She represented over 300 of sports' biggest names, including Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz, PGA Tour golfer Matt Kuchar, broadcaster Erin Andrews, and championship coaches Tom Izzo and Doc Rivers. Today, Molly is recognized as one of the world's top keynote speakers, and her TED Talk, "Secrets of a Champion Mindset," has surpassed one million views. She also hosts the popular podcast Game Changers with Molly Fletcher, where she interviews leaders, experts, and high performers across every field. Molly is the founder of Game Changer Performance Group and the author of five books, including her most recent, The Energy Clock.

This week on Motivated to Lead, we revisit a conversation with General Steven Kwast, CEO of SpaceBilt and one of the most forward thinking voices in national security and the future of space. General Kwast's story is remarkable. Raised in a remote African tribe, he went on to graduate from the U.S. Air Force Academy in astronautical engineering and later earned a master's in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School. Over his distinguished career, he has recruited, educated, and developed the Air Force's workforce, served as President of Air University, and led at every level as a combat-seasoned fighter pilot. He is also the author of the influential "Fast Space" study, which outlines a bold vision for America's economic and national security leadership in space.

This week, we interviewed Dave Sparkman. Dave is the founder and managing director of SPARK Your Culture, a corporate culture advisory services firm, specializing in helping organizations transform and flourish through healthy, high-performance cultures. In his corporate career, Dave served as the SVP, Culture at UnitedHealth Group, a Fortune 5 public company based in Minnetonka, MN.  Over 9 years in that role, he led efforts to infuse an over 300,000 person organization with a corporate mission and values that would improve corporate results, including the customer and employee experience.   Prior to UnitedHealth Group, Dave lived in Los Angeles and served as the partner responsible for the West Region Human Resources function at Arthur Andersen, a worldwide audit, tax, and consulting firm.  He also currently serves as the volunteer Executive Director and Board Chair for Crossroads Career, a faith-based, job transition ministry dedicated to helping people who are unfulfilled or unemployed.  Dave and his wife, Carrie, have four adult children and five grandchildren.  

This week, we revisit our interview with Shellye Archambeau. Shellye is an experienced CEO and Board Director with a track record of accomplishments building brands, high-performance teams, and organizations. She shares lessons learned from her life that she has written about in her new book, Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms. A book that will inspire you, and provide the tools to enable you to fight the battles, make the tradeoffs and create the life you want. Shellye Archambeau currently serves on the boards of Verizon [NYSE:VZ], Roper Technologies [NYSE: ROP], and Okta [NASDAQ: OKTA]. She previously served on Nordstrom's [NYSE: JWN] board. She is also a strategic advisor to the Royal Bank of Canada, Capital Markets Group, and Forbes Ignite. Shellye has over 30 years of experience in technology. She is the former CEO of MetricStream, a Silicon Valley-based, governance, risk, and compliance software company. During her tenure, MetricStream grew from a fledgling startup into a global market leader. She is also a Forbes contributor and the protagonist of the Harvard Business School Case Study: Becoming a CEO. To learn more about Shellye, visit shellye.com