Daria Rudnik (00:16.199)
Welcome to Built by People Leaders podcast. I'm your host, Daria Rudnik, and this show is for HR and L &D leaders in scale-ups and fast-growing companies, those building real impact from within and building AI-ready organizations. If you go to dariarudnik.com, you can download the State of HR in AI Transformation Report, 2026. And today we have a very special guest. I'm very excited about to have this conversation with Marina Morgan.

Marina is a fractional strategy leader and executive facilitator who works with founders, executives and boards to turn strategy into execution. She focuses on aligning leadership team, structuring decision-making and ensuring organizations are operationally ready for scaling, AI adoption and major transformations. She's also the creator of the AIQ framework used to assess how ready companies are to implement change and make it work in practice. Welcome Marina.

Marina Morgan (01:17.71)
Thank you, Daria. Thank you all for having me today.

Daria Rudnik (01:22.889)
Well, please introduce yourself. Tell us about your journey in HR.

Marina Morgan (01:28.254)
Absolutely. So for now, I'm living in Silicon Valley and of course I have my own startup and I am developing my own technology, AIQ, you mentioned it. We are measuring the readiness of organization with AI integration through the non-technological parameters because for now the main priority on the market is the data and infrastructure and of course budget. But

As a professional in people management, I know that the real factors that influence for the resultativeness of any integration or any transformation is not to buy the technology, not to provide correct data for technology, but how actually our employees and our team are using this technology, what they really do with this innovation. And is there the positive correlation between what we're expecting from them and what they're really doing?

with this technology. So this is my priority and this is my focus. And this is kind of logical stage of my career. I have a degree in organizational psychology and my science work was about management of organizational culture. So since then it was kind of 20 years ago, something like this before it became the mainstream.

My perspective for the business was that organization is a system. organization actually, this is interaction between several systems, economical system, legal system, and of course, human system. And organizational culture is everything that people are doing in the business. So I lived in Russia and pretty fast, I developed my corporate career in

in technological media and telecom sector. I worked in the biggest companies in Russia. And then I felt that, don't know what ambitious goal can I put to my table to motivate myself. And at the same time, I had a business trip to Silicon Valley. It was in 2021, I believe. And when I came here, I pretty fast understood that something like I can name

Marina Morgan (03:51.022)
I belong to this place or something. It was very obvious that I want to be here. I want to try to do something here. So I moved and I started to develop my own business, my own technologies. It was a ton of failures. It was a ton of pivots as always, because everybody who left the corporate career and developing something by the bond they're facing with this.

Daria Rudnik (04:07.252)
you

Marina Morgan (04:16.546)
You are thinking you're a great manager, you know how to build a process, you know the market, you have your power, your influence. But when you are alone on the market without a big brand behind your back, it's absolutely another journey. And entrepreneurship is absolutely not the same like executive management or something like this. I can't say worse or better, it's just different skill set, different mindset.

And I'm really happy that for now I'm kind of hybrid personality with a corporate background so I can understand my clients from the corporate world here in the United States. But at the same time, I am identifying myself like a founder, like an entrepreneur, and I can really understand the reality of this segment of market. So I'm trying to balance.

Daria Rudnik (05:08.87)
Yeah, well, that is a very courageous move to move from one country to another, quit your corporate career, a startup, a business. Yeah, I could have that. I mean, that's incredible. But given your experience in, again, HR and big transformations, helping organizations grow, what do see as the biggest challenge?

that companies face when they again, under those transformations. You mentioned people, but what exactly?

Marina Morgan (05:43.278)
Okay, it's really great and big question. I'll try to be short. I try to just provide kind of highlights. Of course, this depends on the industry and it depends on the scale of the company. And I believe for now we're living in AI reality and it's absolutely changed all roles. And we're right now living in non-liner scenarios because when I started my career, we actually could...

Daria Rudnik (05:47.302)
Okay.

Marina Morgan (06:11.832)
create something kind of five-year strategy for our business. Then it turned to a three-year strategy, then it turned to a one-year strategy. And for now in Silicon Valley, we're even unable to, and I believe for all the world to the same situation, we can't even plan something for the next five days.

And management rely on actual data on the dashboards and those data that AI agents are helping to collect from the market, from the business. So coming back to your question, what is the main, I can say obstacle for growth. Let's put it in this way. Okay, what is the main obstacle to grow? If we're speaking about the smaller companies, 100%, this is the mindset of the owner.

of the company because owner or founders or team of owners, this is the source of organizational culture. Do you want it or you don't want it, believe you're in it or you don't believe, it will work in this way. And I have a lot of different clients cases that really prove this hypothesis and it was a part of my science research. So there is a strong correlation between what's going on in the brain of the business owner and what will...

reflects in the culture. Even if we're speaking about the great corporations like Google Meta or something like this, of course, they are kind of the monsters with the board members, with the investment board members, with, you know, there is no like one founder there. But still the relationship between the most powerful people in the company and those who created this company still will influence what's going on in the company. And if we are speaking about the real change,

about the real change for the growth, I'll recommend to start with the mindset of the business owner or the key leaders. And it is easier to say about it than to do something with this. But the reality is that, you like a professional coach, I think you will agree with me here, if we try to bring change from down to top, it will work, but in a very small...

Daria Rudnik (08:06.9)
the

Marina Morgan (08:28.128)
area of organization, very small area of change. And if our leadership, if our leaders are not very flexible for change and they're really open for this, it will be really difficult to do something. And typically what we can see in the markets, only a real decrease of income or something, or losing their market position. This is the real influence and make them to do something with this or probably even

to change the board members or something like this. And as a professional in human resources who went through the several really global transformation and working with the corporate leaders for now, I believe that we are able to prevent it. And I think that as a professionals in human resources, this is one of our responsibilities to prevent losing the positions on the market for our business where we're working.

Daria Rudnik (09:24.472)
I do agree that it starts from the top. It starts with the founders. And one of the episodes of this podcast, we had an interview with the founder and who says that building a culture is his most important responsibility, that is his most important job. But I'm curious, like, let's say like you are an HR in a growing company and you kind of have this understanding that it starts from the top. It starts with the CEO or the founder. How do you help them?

realize that building a culture is important, it's part of their job. How can they find this language to talk to their CEO and actually help them change the mindset, build the culture, like do something meaningful about it?

Marina Morgan (10:12.142)
Okay, so first and foremost, there is a difference between me and human resource professional who work inside the company. Oh, hello, sweetie. She or he? That guy. You have to help. Okay, so there is a difference between me, like an independent professional from the market and the position of people manager inside the company.

Daria Rudnik (10:19.54)
Excuse me.

Daria Rudnik (10:25.232)
it's here and they like people will not see it on the audio

Marina Morgan (10:41.442)
because clients are coming to me with a request. And this is one scenario how we can prove something for them or make them be more involved in solving the problems with that they're facing. When you're inside the company and nobody coming to you with a request and you see the problem, this is absolutely not the scenario. I will try to provide several unique tips that will work in both the way. So first.

you need to be very familiar with the real KPIs of your business, of your management, of your CEO, board members, whatever. What is really important for them right now? What are they focusing on? What are their personal KPI? And your position should be like a partner who helped them to achieve their KPI. I know that people, professionals don't really like it, but this is reality.

Human resource budget never was a priority and probably it will not become the priority in the future because the priority always will be those departments, those parts of the business who are influenced for their level of income. And because typically HR budget is something that a company is spending like salaries, different services, et cetera, et cetera, it's kind of the service segment of business.

our budget will never be kind of priority. And we need to accept that our role here is to help those who bring the money to the organization to do their job better and to became a partner for them and to become a partner for them. It is impossible to do if you don't understand the reality of your business, not only inside of your business. Of course, you like a chair, you have an access for all the CNB data, all the salaries, all the bonus structures, but

I'm speaking about something beyond of that. You need to understand what is the position of your company on the market? What is going on in the market? What is the trends on the market? Who is your closest competitors? What are they doing? What services are they provide? And it will be great if you will be proactive and come to your management and say, you know, I see that this, this, and this is our priorities. I see that our competitors do this and this.

Marina Morgan (13:02.444)
And this is my suggestion, what we can do with our employees, what we can do with the people, how we can do our transformation better, depends on what is on the table right now. And that's how we can do it. And this is the price for this, because this is very important, another part of it. If you are unable to prove the numbers of the budget that you are requesting for any of your solution, for any of your program, whatever, nobody will

take you serious. And for example, what did I do? It's very difficult to speak about the budget with a CEO because again, I will always come to ask some money. I will not suggest to bring more money. And several things that can be good here. The first one, for example, you can split all the budget for any of your employees and say something like,

we will spend like $100 for one employee, but at the future, it will help us to optimize the costs for 300 bucks per employee. And in this case, the final amount will not sound so painful and ridiculous. Another thing, I've already mentioned it, if to speaking about how we can optimize our budget because of this. And the last thing, it is always great to see numbers on the market.

You can find it there. That will prove what is the potential growth if you will do this. For example, when I worked in a telecom companies, I was responsible for the development of all the commercial segments. That means that my responsibility was to develop those skill of these employees that bring company more money. And I have this data.

Daria Rudnik (14:55.156)
you

Marina Morgan (14:58.254)
So I had this data and those employees who followed my programs, who achieved some results in the programs and transformation initiatives that I suggested, their income per employee increased for 20 % and it was the millions per employee and it was really impressive. So I relied on these numbers and when I suggested to scale my project, to scale the initiatives, I had these success directions that I can rely on.

If you don't have something like this, it's not a problem. Please find something on the market. There is a ton of cases on different markets in different countries, not limiting yourself. AI will help you to find those numbers that you can rely on.

Daria Rudnik (15:40.211)
Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. First, speak business language, understand KPIs, understand the market, find out how you can either optimize costs or increase companies' revenue by doing those initiatives. I I did see cases that impacted cost saving, like 10 millions of dollars was saved because there was a great culture in this organization. That's what's kind of...

Marina Morgan (16:09.07)
Absolutely. And another thing that I mentioned is please accept your role, accept that human resource department will never be on the top priority. If something will happen, it will be one of the first departments that will be optimized because the main priority for any business is those departments who are earning the money, not spending the money. And this is okay, just accept it, understand your role and thinking about yourself like about a best partner.

Daria Rudnik (16:09.586)
direct correlation.

Marina Morgan (16:37.262)
for your business, for your commercial department, for strategy and so on.

Daria Rudnik (16:42.964)
We actually had a conversation with a leader of L &D function who brought money to the organization. So there are ways to kind of bring money to the company if you're really looking for them, if there is an opportunity, you can always help, like Marin, you were saying, you can always help your company grow faster, better, painfully. I'm really curious about your AIQ framework and what it does.

Marina Morgan (16:49.742)
Absolutely.

Daria Rudnik (17:12.626)
And most importantly, mean, like you said, AI is like any other transformation it requires. need to have people on board. How AI transformation is different from any other transformation that company go into.

Marina Morgan (17:31.673)
Actually, we can find some similarity with the digital transformation, but at the same time, the main difference is not inside the company, it is globally on the market. Because when we went through the digital transformation, we could rely on experience of technological companies or other competitors because it was more linear and wasn't so fast.

I think it took probably 10 or even 20 years, mean, all this digital transformation, because of course, it includes it. mean, companies could normally function even without global digital transformation. And big companies, manufacturing companies, they really needed time and big budgets to digitalize their services. And it was...

Daria Rudnik (18:02.804)
Covid actually drove it. Most.

Marina Morgan (18:23.276)
normal for them to move slowly with their own pace because this normal pace were like typical for all the market. With AI, we have absolutely another picture because everything is changing every day. In all the industries, it's happening really fast.

They AI vendors services, they growing up like a a mushrooms under the rain after the rain as we're saying in Russian and You were unable to be slow. If you will be slow you will you will definitely lose your position on the market At the same time we don't have enough regulation I mean legal ethical and actually as I can see government is really not very successful. I mean there is no like

or something like this from them and they just trying to understand what's going on. And I believe that probably the average age of any government of any countries should become a little bit more younger. I think this is important, important aspect of this change. No any problems, I just think that should be balanced. It is very difficult when you were born eight years ago to understand how like digital native or AI native people

thinking and how they work and it's really difficult. They're just trying but it should be balanced. And the last thing, this is the first time in our life when any professional can become like whatever whenever they want. And we are speaking a lot about solo preneurship here in the valley, about the agent orchestration. You can become

I don't know, designer, data analytic, developer, whenever you want. And this mindset shift is really difficult to accept even for the person. And the same thing is for the organization. I think that any organization trying to find identity several times per day. And who are you now? Because of the global AI companies like Entropic, OpenAI,

Daria Rudnik (20:16.148)
you

Marina Morgan (20:41.294)
Any new version is a game changer. For example, probably you saw a couple of months ago, it was the drama on the SaaS market because of Anthropic, because Anthropic just suggested very useful and very easy to manage agents that you can easily integrate in your infrastructure, and you really don't need this budget for the SaaS companies right now.

change the market and the numbers on the market. And we will face it with this every day. actually, I'm saying sometimes that we were before kind of homo sapiens and we need to become like home adaptants, like somebody who can be very adaptive and change their identity every day. So this is the main difference, speed, flexibility and zero predictability.

Daria Rudnik (21:28.084)
Hmm

Marina Morgan (21:40.686)
that demands from us very high resilience and adaptive skills.

Daria Rudnik (21:46.677)
Cool, amazing. And I know you have a story to tell us about how to become more adaptive and flexible, how to build your own resilience, and we'll keep this story till the end of this conversation. And for now, Marina, it's incredible. Well, thanks for sharing your experience. I have a few rapid fire questions for you. Are you ready for those? All right. Are you a tea person or a coffee person?

Marina Morgan (22:05.217)
Absolutely.

Marina Morgan (22:10.368)
Nah, coffee. Decaf coffee, the way, but coffee. Still coffee.

Daria Rudnik (22:15.656)
Dogs or

Marina Morgan (22:17.378)
cats. It's not because you have this amazing cat, it's because I really get lower, get more independent.

Daria Rudnik (22:24.212)
Yeah. Would you rather take a message or a phone call?

Marina Morgan (22:28.558)
Definitely messages.

Daria Rudnik (22:30.292)
It's a trend now, yeah, everybody loves messages. What did you want to be when you were a kid?

Marina Morgan (22:37.486)
I wanted to be a teacher, actually.

Daria Rudnik (22:42.74)
teach you what.

Marina Morgan (22:44.596)
I didn't think about it. I just thought that it will be great. actually, I had this conversation with my coach for several times. The main attractive energy that I have in this profession is that you are influenced for the audience. So, and I'm influenced for another sources for now.

Daria Rudnik (22:46.147)
Okay.

Daria Rudnik (22:59.102)
Mm-hmm.

Daria Rudnik (23:02.962)
Yeah. What's one rule you've broken but don't regret?

Marina Morgan (23:08.654)
It's really good question. Actually, I was a very strong perfectionist in my professional area and moving to the United States made me change this. Because you're unable to be perfect when you're in a country and when you're an immigrant. You don't really understand the rules and you're trying to analyze all the parameters that influence your effectiveness and you're trying to be perfect. And this is the way for nowhere.

So I'm not trying to be perfect anymore.

Daria Rudnik (23:39.22)
Mm-hmm.

Daria Rudnik (23:43.126)
Well, thank you so much, Marina. We still have this story to tell us about how to build your resilience. What's the unexpected principle that helps you be more flexible in this ever-changing environment? But before we go into that, how people can reach out to you, how people can find you.

Marina Morgan (23:58.954)
so as please watch the degree readings podcast. This is a great source of amazing people you can meet here, like promote share everything that you can. And you can easily connect with me in my LinkedIn, Marina Morgan, San Francisco. You will find me with my, with my photo or via my website, AIQ dot impact. Just write me something or give me the request.

Daria Rudnik (24:24.612)
Absolutely and we'll have all the links in the notes to this episode so make sure you click, make sure you connect with Marina.

Marina Morgan (24:31.607)
Absolutely.

Daria Rudnik (24:33.372)
All right, so tell us about this, principle that help you be more effective in this ever-changing world.

Marina Morgan (24:43.054)
It's really great story. It was a period in my life that I was very deep in neurophysiology and I even became a collaborator with the Berkeley University and Econa. And we provide global research for all over the world about the correlation between the entrepreneur's mindset and mental health condition with the business effectiveness and the level of income. And we really found this correlation. It's really very new world.

in these aspects of the exploration of neurophysiology of entrepreneurship. So, and in this period, I found very impressive thing. Enjoyment should be your priority. Enjoyment should be your priority. This is not obvious thing for HR, for CEO, for board members, for investors, for founder, because enjoyment, this is the thing that we are typically deprioritizing. But neurophysiological aspects of this,

influence for the resultativeness of how we are adapted, how we change. And as I mentioned, being a human adaptive is a very important skill in our modern reality. And if you will not experience enjoyment every day, our brain will accept the reality that you're living like a danger. And when we're feeling our reality like a danger, it's a very, very bad

environment for development, for strategy, for strategic thinking, for creativity. Creativity and new skills and changing the mindset, this is kind of privilege for our brain, for near physiological perspective. And from another hand, if every day in your life you will dedicate some time to enjoyment, our brain will think that we're on the right way, everything is fine, everything is okay.

and will produce those neurotransmitter cocktail for your condition, which will help you to be very open, flexible and to develop. It's very easy to understand if we'll compare with the animal world. If like tiger running for the, I don't know, deer, he will not play, create something you love, looking for some kind of new berries or something like this. Deer will just run.

Daria Rudnik (26:42.313)
Yeah

Marina Morgan (27:07.214)
It will be heart beating, the blood will go to the legs instead of the brain and so on. In another hand, when you're relaxed, when you have this enjoyment, everything will be fine. So make it your priority. Create a list with 100 simple things and big things which make you happy. just book it in your calendar when you're planning your week schedule. In every day just book 15 or 20 minutes for this enjoyment process. Switch off the telephone, take your favorite

mug with your favorite tea, go for a walk, open the window, do something from your list and you will see the change pretty soon.

Daria Rudnik (27:46.66)
I love it. Do what you love and love what you do. That's the motto of today's conversation. Well, thank you so much, Marie. It was an incredible conversation. To those listening to us, thanks for being with us till the end. Please give us five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, subscribe to our YouTube channel and stay tuned for the next episodes. Bye.

Marina Morgan (28:08.824)
Bye, thank you.