Daria Rudnik (00:01.765)
Welcome to Built by People Leaders podcast brought to you by Aidra.ai, your AI-powered coach for leaders in tech. I'm your host, Daria Rudnik, and this show is for HR and scale-ups and fast-growing companies, those building real impact from within. If you go to DariaRudnik.com, you can download the State of HR in AI Transformation Report and industry analysis and research on how HR leaders can be strategic partners in AI adoption.

And today we have a very special guest. I'm so excited about our conversation today. It's Katherine Dudtschak, who is a former banking CEO turned Conscious Leadership Advisor and creator of the Sincerely Framework. After more than 30 years in senior executive leadership, including serving as president and CEO of Home Equity Bank, and executive vice president for personal and commercial banking in RBC,

She now helps leaders move from survival based on identity to authentic, essence led leadership. Katherine is widely respected for bridging elite corporate performance with deep human integration. She publicly came out as a woman in front of 80,000 people while still in executive leadership, marking the beginning of a new chapter focused on psychological safety, identity integration, and sustainable leadership from within.

Her work supports executives, founders, and high-performing leaders who have mastered the external game of success, but seek wholeness, clarity, and purpose beyond the title. Welcome, Katherine.

Katherine Dudtschak (01:39.15)
Thank you, Daria. It's lovely to be here. Thank you.

Daria Rudnik (01:45.277)
Thanks for joining the show. Please tell our audience about your journey in leadership and your experience as HR and CEO and now leadership advisor.

Katherine Dudtschak (01:54.7)
Yeah, so I can't tell you my business journey without telling you my personal journey. So most of us are programmed to perform, to complete tasks and perform within the system, within the societal system, the business systems of our country, of our company, et cetera.

And I'm a child of German immigrants that moved to Canada after the Second World War. My mother was a child refugee and my father was a Russian prisoner of war. They brought hopes for a better life and they also brought intergenerational trauma with them to our very humble farm outside of Toronto, Canada. I also grew up

with a mind that works differently. I'm likely dyslexic. I've never been formally tested, yet anyone that knows me says, yes, you are. And so I had learning challenges in school. There was a lot of anxiety and pressure at home. Our home was quite humble financially. And I also had a gender secret. If you look at my essence,

or my way of feeling as a human being. I love mechanical things. I love systems which fits with my dyslexic brain. Yet I'm very loving and deeply empathic and I love pretty things and beautiful things. So those are the things that shaped me early in life. And like many people in the corporate world,

I chose by the time I was 18 or 19 that I was going to build a better life than my parents. And I became assertive at carving out a career for myself, never saying no to opportunity, taking jobs that I didn't think other people thought I could do, know, marrying an amazing spouse, having four children. And over the course of

Katherine Dudtschak (04:17.102)
37 years, I arrived in one of the most senior financial services leadership jobs in Canada. The truth of the matter is I was surviving. The truth of the matter is, and I didn't even know it for a large part of my life, is that I was so type A performing and getting work done.

that I was depriving myself of more creative, more feminine, you know, more sensitive aspects of myself. And so I myself am a perfect example of someone who has achieved materialistic success within an extractive, an extractive and performative world.

We've been building this world for several thousand years and it comes out of our agrarian roots as a species. The reality in my case is I hit a limit. I hit a breakdown. I collapsed because I was not fully honoring two things, space and time, time to rest, time to trust my intuition.

and embracing my whole self. And so at about age 50, finally learned, sorry about my voice. I do have water.

Daria Rudnik (05:58.953)
Do you want a cup of water? can kind of cut it out. you want a cup of water? Yeah.

Katherine Dudtschak (06:05.902)
By the time I was about 45 or 50, my children were not needing me as much. For the first time in my career, I was in a job that was more intuitive. It didn't require a large learning curve. It was quite intuitive. And I had time on my hands. And by age 50, I mustered up the courage to ask someone, what the heck is transgender? I don't like the word transgender.

because didn't transition my gender, I affirmed my soul, I affirmed my essence, I affirmed the parts of myself that I had been starving from oxygen. And there's a Greek term called Anteleki. And what it means is this longing within you to express yourself fully in this lifetime.

And you don't need to be spiritual, you don't need to be religious, yet if you slow yourself down from this corporate life, type A life, busy family, you will find there are parts of you that are calling to be expressed. Just close your eyes and go back to two years old, three years old, four years old, and remember yourself at the most playful...

loving point in your life that you can remember. And then meditate on that, close your eyes on that and think about what things did you like to do then that are an express that are no longer part of your life today? And how much do you miss those things? Well, that's one way of tuning into your essence. Those things that you showed as a child.

were there when you were born. They're part of what I call your essential self. And life, this materialistic world we've built and this corporate world that we've built, takes you from your family and your community and your work and it starts squeezing you into a box. Well, that happened to me. And it got to the point that I could no longer operate. I became suicidal.

Katherine Dudtschak (08:31.182)
I wanted life to be over and I ultimately chose to live for my children, my four children. And on June 17th, 2019, I came out to the world as Katherine in front of 80,000 colleagues. had already, Daria, to your point, I had already become a more expressive and authentic leader up to that point.

that those parts I was already integrating into my leadership, I had already moved away from command and control and power-based leadership to one that is more inclusive and collaborative and, you know, from this place, from this place that you don't actually need power to lead. What we need in leadership is the space to hold others

so that ideas and intelligence can come forward in pursuit of the problem we're solving and in pursuit of the mission of the company. And so, but when I came out, I expected to be homeless. I expected to be rejected by the world. And you don't have to go too far to see anti-LGBT rhetoric in the world.

And a large part of that comes from a lack of knowledge or ignorance. And a large part of that comes from fear that if we actually allow people to express themselves fully, will we lose control? My answer is no, you won't lose control. Not if your company and you as a leader are aligned to purpose. If you're aligned to the purpose of a world that is kind and inclusive.

a world that makes it an organization that makes decisions in a way that it supports building societies that are socially inclusive, economically inclusive, where we live in harmony with planet and where we build systems and machines, including AI, to support this more harmonious, inclusive, kind way of being.

Katherine Dudtschak (10:53.731)
When I came out, Daria, I had thousands and thousands of people write me, many of which wrote me letters about their own hurt and hardship that they're carrying under the surface that they never told anybody. And you know what that feels like. And most of you know what that feels like. And in addition,

many would tell me about parts of their identity that they had suppressed or put in a corner and they were too ashamed to show the world because they were worried about losing their job or not being loved by their family. And so as soon as I saw, again, I was leading 25,000 people, as soon as I saw the level of hurt that people carry and the level of identity or essence that is suppressed,

I said, there has to be a better way to lead. And so I evolved from growing up in a power-based, control-based, hierarchical system to one that a way of being that was more compassionate, kinder, inclusive of other people's perspectives. I knew that it didn't matter whether you were

Daria Rudnik (11:55.975)
Mm-hmm.

Katherine Dudtschak (12:20.641)
a frontline employee in the company or the CEO, that that was not a definition of intelligence or a definition of contribution. And so I saw everyone as contributing to the mission of the organization. And I started leading in a much kinder, more curious, more inclusive

empathic way. And everything I communicated as a leader was communicated through the lens that we're in business as a bank to improve the financial quality of life of our customers, of society, which allows them to feel greater dignity, which is social inclusivity.

and which allows them to feel more economically empowered and economically inclusive. And so everything we did after I came out was aligned to economic inclusivity, social inclusivity. And as I departed, we were beginning to move to this place that everything we do can help empower people to heal the planet and humans relationships with the planet.

So that's my story and the evolution to becoming a human centered, heart centered, inclusive leader and higher purpose oriented leader.

Daria Rudnik (14:02.972)
That's an amazing story. Well, first of all, thanks for sharing it with us here. And I really admire the courage that you have, like sharing it with the world, sharing your story and sharing what you think of that.

Daria Rudnik (14:18.94)
You know what I'm curious about is, well, we do have, well, I personally, I do believe that we deserve a better workplaces. We deserve people where they can feel well, perform well at work. that, of course, if I feel well, I will perform well. I will work better. I will be happy to support my clients. I will be happy to support my customers. But do you have any examples, like the real companies that actually

have that on the whole organization level? Because it is still rare. Most of companies, do have demand and control. They do have hierarchies. They do promote people who are maybe the loudest, not the best. But do you have any example where this authentic leadership and inclusiveness is actually helping organizations grow?

Katherine Dudtschak (15:14.583)
Yeah, there are examples out there. The last two CEOs of Best Buy, which is an electronics company in North America, are good examples of more heart-centered leaders, more sustainability-oriented leaders, inclusive leaders. Paul Polman, who is also an author, who wrote a book called Net Zero, he was the CEO of Unilever globally.

the founder and CEO of Patagonia. The thing to look for is the leaders that show up, the most sustainably minded or what I call higher purpose oriented social economic and planet tend to have been through a wake up call of their own in their life.

Mine was pronounced. I affirmed my gender. And then my children were old enough to leave home. And then my marriage ended. And my children and I have never been closer. My spouse and I are dear friends. But for the first time in my life, I didn't just affirm my gender. I found myself solo or alone in the world, dealing with fears of loneliness and abandonment. And then I left after three years of my coming out and record performance.

Inclusive leadership, heart-centered leadership, purpose-driven leadership pays huge dividends because people come to work for a lot more than their boss or the paycheck. They come to work because they feel that they're part of a movement. The thing that I learned in my journey, and it's basically the focus of my podcast that I'm launching this year.

is stories of leaders that have been through their own journey of upset, awakening to more of their essence and their core, healing some of the hurts that they carried, and emerging out the other side kinder, more inclusive, and more service to humanity oriented.

Katherine Dudtschak (17:35.713)
And so people like the companies that just mentioned Patagonia, Leona Lever, Best Buy, the company I was at, Home Equity Bank, we built a very heart-centered, human-centered culture, and we were improving the financial and social empowerment of Canadian, aging Canadians, Canadians over 55 years of age. And so it's out there. The thing

Any CEO and board has the potential to move to a more authentic, kind, curious, inclusive, and higher purpose oriented way of leading. You know, there's a few companies in this world that may not be good for humanity and they might be cigarette companies or something like that.

But most industries, whether your technology, whether your financial services, whether your healthcare, most industries can line themselves up to these higher purposes if it becomes part of the values system, the personal value system of the CEO and its board and the head of HR. Because the head of HR

Daria Rudnik (19:02.172)
That was...

Katherine Dudtschak (19:03.073)
It's a culture carrier alongside the CEO.

Daria Rudnik (19:07.868)
Yeah, that was kind of my next question. Who is driving this change? Who is the driver of this? Is it the CEO? Is it the board? Is it the CHRO?

Katherine Dudtschak (19:19.567)
Yeah, it.

Katherine Dudtschak (19:26.445)
It has to be, it has to be leader led. And for those of us, I was a head of HR for an organization of 35,000 people. You can do a lot in bringing your own humanity and your own values to HR work. And we can talk about what that looks like, Daria. Yet what's really compelling, what really makes it work is when it comes from the CEO.

And so you need to be there and you need to be supporting and advising the CEO on, and you need to be a mirror to the CEO to help them see into themselves along with the board. And ultimately the CEO is the chief culture carrier for the company. And of course, if the CEO is going to embody a more planet centered, human centered,

kind, curious, inclusive way of leading.

that puts humanity and planet at the core, you need to be there to support them. And the board needs to be there to support them. It's hard. It is hard to build a heart centered or sustainability oriented, next-generation, what I call, the term that I talk about at Sincerely, my company, is

moving from a world that is extractive and performative, which is the world we've built over several thousand years, to a world, a way of being as human beings that is regenerative and coherent. Coherent meaning human beings that are whole and complete and come from kindness, not fear. Come from nurturing, not fear and ego.

Katherine Dudtschak (21:28.171)
And so the potential to move to a regenerative way of working as organizations, as communities through a more coherent way of being is, I believe, the world that we are on our way to building. And it is hard to do that at the middle of a company. It happens better when you're at the CEO level.

I did it in the middle of the company. was in the one of the most senior jobs at Canada's largest bank, leading 25,000 people. And we became a highly inclusive heart centered division and our business results were record. And it impacted the rest of the organization and the CEO saw it. Yet it, it, it, risk was it wasn't as sustainable.

as coming from the CEO who was hopefully going to be in their job for five or 10 years.

Daria Rudnik (22:31.015)
I mean, I agree with what you're saying. It's always good when the change comes from the top, but if you're not on the top and you do want to make some change, you can do it within your own unit, team, department, division, whatever you're leading. And then you can either be a good example for the whole organization or at least you've built that for your people.

Katherine Dudtschak (22:44.663)
And yeah.

Katherine Dudtschak (22:52.429)
Well, the thing about that, Daria, is if you don't embody your own essence, you will burn out. If you don't embody as an HR leader or business leader more of your essence or your unique characteristics as a human being and find ways to calm your nervous system and shift from anxiety and fear

to kindness and curiosity and calm and inclusivity, you will one burnout like I did, and especially in the speed that this world is now moving and the threats of war and upheaval in the world, you will burnout.

and you will not make holistic balanced decisions. You will be transactional, not as thoughtful as you have the ability to be when you slow down and calm down your nervous system and operate from a greater level of inner peace and inner coherence.

Daria Rudnik (24:09.187)
Yeah, well, I totally agree with what you're saying, but like, while working with it, I'm sure you've experienced that when you know that you are out of time, you need to go, you need to run, you need to rush. That's the most important time to stop. And it's the hardest time to stop because you kind of feel this urge to keep going, keep moving because otherwise you'll be out of out of this game.

Katherine Dudtschak (24:32.059)
I lived it, I lived it where my day from 7.30 in the morning till 7.30 at night, my day was packed with meetings, including my colleague would bring me lunch like I was go, go, go, go. In the last, in the last of my corporate career, sincerely it's a company, but it's small. In my corporate career, the last decade, I didn't start meetings until 9 a.m.

I didn't take meetings over lunchtime. My meetings were done by five or 5.30. And of course, if a crisis occurs, it's all hands on deck. Yet for the most part, I slowed my agenda down and I did a lot more empowering of others in order to create more calm and peace. And for about four years now, I meditate twice a day in order to calm my nervous system.

and I use a form of transcendental meditation in order to release anxiety that is within me and to calm my nervous system.

Daria Rudnik (25:41.095)
So Katherine, I know you've published a book. Tell us about it.

Katherine Dudtschak (25:46.511)
Here we go.

Daria Rudnik (25:47.662)
beautiful.

Katherine Dudtschak (25:49.687)
So the title of the book is Sincerely, Katherine, period. Sincerely, Katherine. And you can find it at SincerelyKatherine.com or you can find it at my company Sincerely Inc. Inc. SincerelyInc.com. The book is two parts. If I'm not Viktor Frankl, yet I wrote my book,

Kind of like Viktor Frankl. I think Viktor Frankl is one of the most prolific psychologists of our time, an Auschwitz survivor and someone who became a psychologist and found that people that survived these prison camps had found inner peace and inner purpose as a way to stay alive and not succumb to the fear and the anxiety and the abuse.

But he wrote his book like I wrote Sincerely Katherine, half his memoir and half are what I call perspectives on mental health, humanity and human potential.

Katherine Dudtschak (27:07.127)
sustainability and leadership for the future. So you can read it and get my whole life story and you will also get my perspective on the mental health pandemic that exists in the world, my view as an HR professional on human potential, that the greatest predictors of human potential are not what university you went to.

are not your job experiences on your resume. They are the deeper life experiences that shaped you and your innate compass as a human being that you carry. And then I talk about the fact that we're all connected. We're all connected to this beautiful planet. And unless we start working together to care for this beautiful planet, there won't be a humanity. And then I talk about leadership for a sustainable world.

I seed these perspectives for the future. I don't finish them. My book is not the answer. It is my perspective. And I invite you to order Sincerely Katherine. And it's really a cornerstone of my company Sincerely Incorporated, where I'm interviewing other

human beings that have been through collapse, through hardship of some form, through to some choice to awaken or to live. And what is uncanny, and if you follow Joseph Campbell and the hero's journey, it is a psychological thing, is that when our ego gets crushed, our identity gets crushed,

and we find ourselves in the depth of despair, whether it's for a short period of time or a longer period of time, that what tends to happen is we emerge out the other side more integrated with our essence and the things that make us the beautiful human being we each are. And without question, the people that go through that journey,

Katherine Dudtschak (29:35.215)
tend to dedicate their life to service, service to humanity, service to planet. And so I felt compelled to launch Sincerely, as well as a bunch of leadership and research frameworks into the human condition. I felt compelled to launch Sincerely and my own podcast to shine a light on this journey that human beings have the potential to go on.

And so less human beings take their life when they're at the bottom. That more human beings realize they're not alone, that there's actually a community called Sincerely that will hold you in a blanket and let you know that you're not alone while you find yourself, your inner identity and heal and emerge back as

you know, purpose-driven, kind, sustainability-oriented human being for the future.

Daria Rudnik (30:43.663)
Yeah, that's really beautiful. your book is definitely on my reading list, Katherine. I'm looking forward to getting it soon. All right. Well, that is an incredible conversation. Well, thanks for sharing your deep thoughts and insights and personal story. And let's have some fun. I have some rapid fire questions for you to get to know the other side of you. And then I know you have something to share with us about

description of your description of human condition. So stay with us till the end. We'll hear that from Katherine. And for now some questions. Are ready? Okay. Are you a tea person or a coffee person? Dogs or cats?

Katherine Dudtschak (31:23.311)
coffee, but sometimes tea.

Katherine Dudtschak (31:28.559)
I think cats connect with the divine.

Daria Rudnik (31:30.343)
Would you rather... I love cats, I have a cat. Would you rather take a message or a phone call?

Katherine Dudtschak (31:40.921)
Pends who from.

Daria Rudnik (31:42.151)
That's fair.

Katherine Dudtschak (31:43.983)
I'm a Pisces, and a Libra Moon, and a Gemini, so I'm actually an introvert. My expressiveness comes from feeling and my intuition, not from being an extrovert. The irony for me is people think I'm an extrovert because I'm so expressive, yet I'll take the call if I know it's a person.

that sees me fully and that I can have a deep, authentic conversation with. If I don't know the person as well, I will protect my energy and my space and wait for the message.

Daria Rudnik (32:27.589)
What did you want to be when you were a kid?

Katherine Dudtschak (32:31.721)
my goodness, I wanted to be a forest ranger.

Daria Rudnik (32:35.025)
really?

Katherine Dudtschak (32:36.163)
I wanted to be a forest ranger or a map maker. And I wanted to own my own little cute farm where I could drive my tractor around. And I now live on a farm where I get to drive my tractor around. Women can drive tractors, just so you all know that.

Daria Rudnik (32:42.651)
You're adventurous.

Daria Rudnik (32:52.071)
you

Absolutely, yeah, sure. What's one rule you've broken and don't regret?

Katherine Dudtschak (33:03.449)
Probably speeding in my car.

Katherine Dudtschak (33:09.455)
Now if somebody got hurt from me, I would obviously regret it. But if there's an empty road and I can go a bit faster and enjoy the open road, I don't regret that.

Daria Rudnik (33:09.584)
Okay, well.

Daria Rudnik (33:13.605)
Nah, yeah.

Daria Rudnik (33:24.519)
Okay, well, Katherine, thank you so much for sharing this information. How people can reach out and find you.

Katherine Dudtschak (33:31.961)
Hey, SincerelyKathryn.com is one way or Sincerely Inc. Inc. Sincerely Inc.com is the other way.

Daria Rudnik (33:43.973)
And we have all the links in the notes to this episode. Well, and now please tell us what's the description of human condition? What is that that you wanna share with the audience?

Katherine Dudtschak (33:54.509)
I've touched on it through our talk today. There are two lenses that I put on the human condition that I see humanity through. Number one is human beings are collaborative, meaning making, problem solving beings. It's within our nature. Collaborative.

meaning-making problem-solving beings that only solve problems from two places. From fear or from nurturing. When we solve problems from fear or anxiety or power or control or ego, they're all the same characteristics. We tend to fracture and we tend to divide.

We compete, we divide, we fracture. And so we tend to make decisions from that fear-based anxious place that might be good for one, but not good for all. And we've been living in this way of this anxious way of being for several hundred years. And the last 80 years since the second world war, it's been intensified. That's part of the reason we have the mental health crisis that we have.

human beings are also loving and nurturing and we have the potential within us to calm that anxiety, that fear, that ego as we heal, as we grieve, as we learn to meditate, to calm it and shift to a more nurturing, kind and curious and inclusive way of being. If you study

societies, not Western world society, because it all comes from a similar place. If you study societies in the world, whether indigenous, and there are others that are regenerative in nature, those societies honor the calmness required to solve problems from a place of nurturing and inclusivity.

Katherine Dudtschak (36:22.177)
and kindness and curiosity. When human beings solve problems that way, the whole ecosystem remains healthy. And so that is the first important part of the human condition. The second part of the human condition is number one, in this performative and extractive world that we've built,

We tend, and this is important for HR, we tend to value the performance, the lived experience of somebody. What school did you go to? What job experiences do you have? What skills did that give you? We might value a little bit, well, actually, this performative world does value, whether you're man or woman, unfortunately. And,

So it values the lived experience person in a regenerative and a coherent way of being.

We bring into the equation the whole human being, wholeness and truth of the human being. So the real human being is built from three selves. I call it the three self model. And it's the three selves together that make a whole complete human being. Number one is your essence. Remember that child.

The things, the attributes that made you unique when you were born. It was an energy, it was a vibe that you gave off. That is your essence. If you're religious or spiritual, you would call it your soul, expressing itself in the world. But you don't need to make it religious or spiritual. Anybody that's had a baby knows that that baby has a unique energy about them.

Katherine Dudtschak (38:23.575)
And then anybody that's been a parent that has not been the best parent, and I'm one of those, you try to mold out of that child some of those things that bother you. So the three selves are your essence and your essential self as your source of vitality and energy. The next self is your physical and inherited self. It is your body and it is your genetics and your epigenetics.

across generations. And it's your instrument. And then the third self is your lived experience self, which is the way you express the essential self, your energy, your vitality through your body, through your inherited self, out into the world as your lived experience self. We live in a world, we've built a world as human beings, and I've been part of it, that didn't

fully value the three selves and the emotional and mental well-being of humanity and our ability to move to kindness, to curiosity, to inclusivity, to nurturing, to higher purpose of a world that is socially, economically and planet sustainable is directly tied to our ability to calm our nervous system.

to heal and to live fully from our essential self through our physical and inherited self out into the world as our lived experience self. So that is my perspective on humanity.

Daria Rudnik (40:04.998)
That is a beautiful model. It totally makes sense. Well, thank you so much, Katherine, for joining here today. Thanks for sharing your story. Thanks for sharing those insights with the audience. If you enjoyed the conversation, those who listened, please get Katherine's book. It's super valuable for your personal development, for you being an authentic leader and lead with authenticity. I'll change that later.

Thanks for being with us today. Please, if you like this episode, please give us five stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and subscribe to our YouTube channel and stay tuned for next episodes. Bye.