Human-centered leadership in the age of AI: A conversation with Felice Gorordo, CEO of Embark

Welcome to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of diversified solutions across senior-level executive search, leadership assessment and development, team and organizational effectiveness and culture shaping. Every day, we speak with leaders around the world about how they're meeting rising expectations and managing through volatile times, thinking about individual leaders, teams, organizations, and society. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Scott Harris: Hi, I'm Scott Harris, a senior client principal in Heidrick & Struggles' Boston office, specializing in selection and succession planning for CEOs and C-suite executives. In today's podcast, I'm excited to introduce Felice Gorordo, a seasoned chief executive, investment professional, and board member with more than two decades of leadership experience across business, government, and global finance.

Felice is CEO of Embark, a management and finance consulting firm with nearly 600 employees across 24 US offices. The firm is known for its culture of fanatical hospitality and innovation, which has led to 10-times growth in the past four years. Prior to his current role, Felice served as the US executive director at the World Bank, representing the US government on the board and audit committee.

Earlier in his career, he held CEO roles at several venture-backed technology companies and served in the White House under Presidents Obama and Bush. Felice, welcome, and thank you for joining us today.

Felice Gorordo: Thank you, Scott. It's a pleasure to be here.

Scott Harris: Felice, you've had an amazing career with a wide variety of experience. I'd love to start by asking what core leadership principles have guided you through this incredible journey?

Felice Gorordo: I'm a very purpose-driven, mission-driven individual, and I try to always lead with empathy, deeply trying to understand and listen to the other and try and put myself in their shoes. And that has helped me and guided me in some of the more challenging of circumstances, as well as really trying to maximize every opportunity that comes my way, both personally and professionally.

I'd say the other thing that is really at the core of who I am is also leading with compassion, and that's a little bit different from empathy in that empathy is really trying to put yourself in the shoes of the other. Compassion is about trying to understand, and then using that information and that feedback to then make it actionable.

I also am someone who values velocity. I have a great sense of urgency, and I think that is a competitive advantage. What I think I've learned along the way is also the importance of bringing people along with you and slowing down when you need to. You know, lastly, I would say what I feel I really am called to do is to be in service of others, and I believe that a true leader is a servant leader.

There's also an adage that goes, you know, "Leaders eat last," and I think that's very true.

Scott Harris: Yeah. Well, thank you, Felice. So many great points, so many different things we could ask questions about. But as you mentioned, there are some challenging days that you go through, and I guess I'm curious how do you keep showing up as your best self, be able to remain consistent and appear to be the leader you wanna be, even though you may be struggling inside during those tough times?

Felice Gorordo: It's a great question, Scott. You know, I also believe you start every day with an intention, and I actually start with an expression of gratitude, and that's something that was taught to me by my late mother. Sometimes I'm more successful at that than other times. I take a pause at the end of the day, and I reevaluate the day, where I fell short, where I was able to come through, and then learn and grow from that the following day.

And that's been something that has worked for me. But one last thing I'll say about it is, you know, talking about the toughest job, one of the things I've picked up also recently is about preparing for the most important meeting of the day and reframing your life both personally and professionally in that way.

And it's the moment you walk through your home's front door. I mean, so many of us are just exhausted at that point. We've given it all to our teams and, you know, the various demands of our work schedules. But as you walk through that door, your first impression, your interactions with the people that are really the most important in your life, is what it's all about.

And so as I'm literally— Right before I open that door, I try and just take a moment to compose myself and remember that, and then walk through.

Scott Harris: Shifting the conversation toward the present day, after you left the World Bank, you probably had many different options with your eclectic background. What motivated you to join Embark?

Felice Gorordo: I'll tell you, I didn't have it in my bingo card. It wasn't really on my horizon. But now, as I take some time to reflect about a year later, it was almost meant to be, in that in my heart of hearts, what I wanted to do was build again—be an operator, a CEO of a company that I strongly aligned from a values perspective, from a vision perspective, and a growth perspective. I wanted to really operate and be a CEO again.

And so I was, you know, thinking through what I was gonna do next. And I hadn't heard of the company, but I did a little bit of digging.

I did a little bit of research and was really intrigued by the incredible growth trajectory and story. They were growing like gangbusters, 10x in the course of four years. Its origin story, why Paul Allen, the founder, started the company in the first place, and with this idea of happy works, that taking care of your people first and foremost is the best way to go about your business.

And so I said, "Yeah, let's have a conversation." And then we just hit it off.

Scott Harris: You mentioned Paul Allen's vision for the company, “Happy Works.” Paul set really deep roots for the culture. How has it been for you transitioning from a founder-led to a founder-inspired culture?

Felice Gorordo: You know, I had actually been, I guess, what you would call almost the second CEO. There's a great book by, uh, also a former board member of Embark named Matt Sharrers, titled literally The Second CEO, which I was given a copy of as I was coming on board and used it almost as a Bible workbook for this transition.

And it's all about the CEO that follows in the footsteps of the founder. And one of the things that I noticed, that I guess was part of my own personal trajectory, is that I had actually done this a couple times over. I had followed in the footsteps of a founder two times over in my earlier career as the CEO of a venture-backed technology company in that regard.

And so I learned from that experience about what works and what doesn't work. And what I think was a common theme is that you have to be mindful of the history and the culture that precedes you, and not seek to necessarily preserve or replace it, but rather be a steward of it, to harness it, and capture it—to be able to logically connect the dots between what came before you, where you are now, and where you're headed.

And in practicality, what that meant was spending a lot of time together. And so as I was coming on board, or even before I came on board, I spent a lot of time with Paul, really trying to understand the origin story, why he started the business. What was it that motivated him along the way? What were the values that he tried to enshrine in the culture and then live out? The business had been around for about 15 years prior to me, 10 really in its current iteration.

My next step was to meet with as many of the individuals who had been there for as long as they had, some upwards of 10 years, to better understand from their perspective what it meant, and then try as much as possible to incorporate that into the vision of where I wanted to take the company, and then be very mindful of that history, respect for that history, and being a good steward of what the company was founded on.

Scott Harris: Yeah. So what did you learn on that listening tour with employees that you hadn't heard from Paul?

Felice Gorordo: So Paul is just a force of nature as well. He's just an incredible human being. I think we very strongly clicked and hit it off early on from a values perspective. We went really deep, really quickly, about what made us tick, about what this life was all about for us individually, and that was pretty special.

And then I heard how he said he wanted to go about building the business and how he did try and go about building the business and the type of people he tried to attract.

And then I had an opportunity to meet them, and it just blew me away. Amazing people. I would argue some of the best of the best.

We call it fanatical hospitality, and we start with caring for our people, and that means celebrating and marking all the highs and the lows in that person's life and being shoulder to shoulder with them and making them feel and let them know that you always have their back. And it was when I was on the road, visiting all our markets, meeting with all our leaders, and with folks at all levels, that I was able to hear firsthand testimonials and stories about that, and then also how people then put that into practice.

Scott Harris: Now, Paul was only one man. You're only one man. Granted, you're very purpose-driven, very energetic, very charismatic, but you're still one person.

As the company grows, how do you keep scaling this culture as you go from 600 employees to 1,000 and beyond?

Felice Gorordo: I think it starts with being very intentional in the hiring process and about making sure that we're attracting and bringing into the fold individuals who are bought into those shared values and live them out, and verify as much as you can in that process to make sure that that's real.

You know, we say our vision is to attract, develop, retain the best people to do the best work at the best place to work, and that starts with attracting the best people. And so I also live by the adage of hire slow, fire fast. So really taking our time to make sure that we're bringing in the right folks and that they're bought into not just the shared values, but the vision of where we're headed and what we want this company to become.

Scott Harris: Yeah. So while you're going through this process of deliberately hiring slow to make sure you get the right people, what are you listening for during the interview to know that you've landed on the right type of person who's gonna be successful at Embark?

Felice Gorordo: I actually ask a common question to every individual. For those that I interview, I typically will do several interviews. So for my direct reports, I'll do the first screen. I'll go through profiles. I'll do the first screen, and then after, if there's a good gut check in that, then I'll move on to kind of a secondary, a third, and even the fourth interview.

And then I'll have them come back. Typically, it's a meal. We'll break bread together, and I'll probe a little bit deeper, and I'll ask similar questions that I've asked in the past, but I'll ask it from a different perspective. I try and probe for what really makes a person tick. What are the values that they really hold near and dear to their hearts and they try and live out?

I ask them for concrete examples on how they've done so. And then I ask for specific examples when they felt those values trampled on and how they reacted. And then I go back, and I verify it through references and such. I don't always use the references they give. We also use our own networks to be able to get independent references, and that's unfortunately led us sometimes to pass on individuals that otherwise, from a competency perspective or in a skills perspective, would be an excellent fit but culturally just wouldn't be the right fit.

Scott Harris: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that you've emphasized the culture aspect way more than any of the technical skill pieces, which kind of makes us think about your own hiring process. I mean, you came into this with no experience in the financial services consulting industry. How did you get yourself up to speed on the job, on the industry, and begin to earn the trust of customers and stakeholders?

Felice Gorordo: Yeah. The skills actually is the bread and butter, the table stakes you need to at least check the box on. So I would say those... You know, for what I'm hiring, I still need to make sure they meet that criteria. I think as, you know, Paul Allen will speak to this, but as he was thinking about the archetype of an individual that he wanted to take over the reins as CEO, he wasn't looking for an expert consultant or an expert financial services consultant.

He was looking for a CEO who had, in his words, "the perfect balance of excellence and care and a track record leading large organizations to be able to successfully execute on a vision." All that to say, I was, and I am, I try to be humble enough to know what I know and what I don't know. And I knew that there was a lot I did not know about consulting and professional services in general.

I took the time that I had in lead-up and then my first quarter to really do, and then really almost my first year, to really do as much as I could to immerse myself in the business, to learn as much as I could from those who were more experienced than me in the space about what good and great looked like, and also to learn as much as I could directly from our top performers and people and our top clients.

And so I did a couple things. Barry Salzberg, the former global CEO of Deloitte, who is just an icon in the industry. He was one of my interviews in my interview process to become CEO. And then when I was selected, he was assigned to me as my board liaison, my board buddy.

And then once a month, we'd spend about a day and a half together. We'd lock ourselves up in a conference room there in our office in New York, and he would just pour into me and try and dump 40 years of experience in, you know, as much time as he could. Luckily for me, he was also an incredible mentor, coach, and also had been a professor at Columbia Business School, and so it was almost like being back at school.

He taught me everything about, from his experience and his anecdotes and his perspective, of course, the consulting industry, client services, engagement economics, and how he grew and scaled the firm to be a powerhouse, really, globally. And so that was how it started.

The other thing, he gave me some great advice, and he had that been there, done that experience where I could pressure test some of the assumptions that I had and some of the learnings that I was absorbing along the way.

One of the pieces of advice he shared with me early on was: one of the best things that I could do was wear out the leather of the sole of my shoes in covering as much ground as I could and spending as much time with our people and with our clients.

I went on this roadshow visiting all our markets. In the first quarter, I did 100 one-on-ones with our leaders at all levels, and then with also selective groups in smaller sessions. And then I met with our top 50 clients and tried to spend as much time as I could again with our clients. And then with regards to trust and winning the trust of, you know, the stakeholders in the industry, yeah, I'd say trust is earned the same really in any industry, in any aspect of your life, and it's through consistency.

It's through doing what you said you were going to do when you said you were going to do it the way you said you were going to do it. And some of that takes time. But I was very mindful of that, and as I took in that feedback at all levels, I would take a step back and think through what was actionable in the short or near term and what were more kind of longer-term things that I needed to plan out.

If there was something I could action immediately, I did, and then I would circle back with the individual that gave me that feedback to let them know I saw them, I heard them, I internalized that, and then I actioned it.

Scott Harris: Excellent. So artificial intelligence is obviously a hot topic. How is Embark going about reshaping its work based on AI, and how are you integrating it into the workforce?

Felice Gorordo: You know, I think one of the things that drew me to Embark was, again, as I told you before, amazing people. Incredibly smart, hardworking, good-hearted people. Also very tech-forward, very quick to pilot, experiment, and adopt technology really kind of on their own, and very agile and very nimble. And I thought that was a real competitive advantage for us.

At the same time, one of the things that was a natural pause point for me to get into professional services was the incredible disruption that AI presented for our industry. I had a moment there where I thought, "Is this a Netflix-Blockbuster type moment for professional services with AI? And if so, what could I do to ensure that we end up being Netflix and not Blockbuster in that scenario?"

And so when I came on board, one of the first things that I did was set up an AI task force, where it's co-chaired by myself and my partner, our president, Joey LoSurdo, who's a CPA with a tech background. He's really more tech than he is a CPA, but he's, he's absolutely phenomenal. And, you know, I thought if we are going to infuse technology into every aspect of our work, we needed someone like that, a leader who saw its value and knew what good or great looked like in professional services, having been a consultant himself, and then who was a leader of people who could bring our people along with us to where we needed to go.

And so in that, we also pulled on our best and brightest that we have at Embark in terms of our business transformation practice, which at large is focused on people, process, and technology, and a lot of really our technology. And then in addition to that, we had a couple data scientists and an amazing data solutions architect, and pulled together also a few other folks who are representative of all different aspects of our business.

We meet on a biweekly basis. We go through the latest and greatest trends in technology, AI, but not just AI. We talk through not just the cutting-edge type, but the bleeding-edge technology that's out there and how we can leverage it, how we can begin to experiment or pilot with it, and then deploy and scale it.

We focus a lot on user adoption, so we do regular lunch and learns with our entire firm, and the participation is absolutely incredible. One of the advantages of having a lot of CPAs is that they have to get CPE credit, so we can also offer that to them, and so they're incentivized to participate on it.

And we talk about real use cases for that technology: the good, the bad, and the ugly. We focus a lot of time also on governance and security because of how critical it is in everything that we do, but especially as it relates to AI and technology. And then we talk about ways that we can use this technology to empower our people. Because the way I see it, it's about enhancing our existing capabilities, not necessarily replacing it.

And there are certain things that I don't think will ever be replaced.

That's, I think, the value add of our people. And if you empower them with the cutting-edge, bleeding-edge technology to just be more efficient with everything else that they have to do, especially the mundane or monotonous or very manually intensive work through automation, I think you're unstoppable.

Scott Harris: To close out the conversation, we have a lot of senior executives, CEOs, future CEOs listening to this podcast. What's one piece of advice that you'd give another CEO stepping into a founder-inspired environment?

Felice Gorordo: Yeah, that is a great question. I think it's threefold. I'd say it's: honor what came before you. Be a good steward of it. Listen first and deeply, and then internalize it. And then once you understand where you want to take the firm and what is sacred, what makes it special, go out there and build, and bring people along with you.

Scott Harris: Well, Felice, thank you so much for sharing your insights and experience with us today. It's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Felice Gorordo: Thank you, Scott. Thank you so much for having me, and thank you to Heidrick & Struggles.

Thanks for listening to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. To make sure you don't miss the next conversation, please subscribe to our channel on your preferred podcast app, and if you're listening via LinkedIn or YouTube, why not share this with your connections? Until next time.

About the interviewer

Scott Harris (sharris@heidrick.com) is a senior client principal in Heidrick Consulting; he is based in the Boston office.