In this episode of the Future Proof HR podcast, Thomas Kunjappu sits down with Terilyn Monroe, Chief People Officer at Guardant Health, to talk about what it takes for HR to operate like a business while still keeping people at the center. Terilyn shares how her team thinks about the employee experience end to end, from recruiting and leadership development to support, strategy, and workforce planning.

Together, they unpack how the role of HR has been evolving, not because its purpose is entirely new, but because the way the work gets done is changing fast. Terilyn explains why modern people teams need to think like enterprise leaders, build with design thinking in mind, and use AI to improve workflows rather than simply layering tools onto broken processes.

The conversation also reflects on lessons from the COVID era, especially the link between employee-centered decisions and strong business outcomes. From there, they turn to AI, discussing how leaders can move employees from fear to curiosity, why capability building matters at every level of the organization, and how senior leadership bootcamps, AI champions, and cross-functional learning communities can help companies adopt AI more responsibly and effectively.

This episode offers a practical look at how HR can help lead transformation by translating business strategy into talent strategy, building readiness for change, and making sure technology serves people, not the other way around.

Topics Discussed:

• Why HR should operate like a business while staying centered on employee experience
• How design thinking helps people teams solve real employee pain points
• What the COVID era taught HR leaders about balancing employee care and business continuity
• How to shift the AI conversation from fear to capability building
• Why senior leaders need baseline AI fluency before broader organizational change can happen
• The role of AI champion communities, workshops, and learning programs in adoption
• Why broken processes need to be re-engineered before AI can add real value
• How HR can future-proof the business through workforce planning, prioritization, and internal talent development

Additional Resources:

• Cleary’s AI-powered HR Chatbot
• Future Proof HR Community
• Connect with Terilyn Monroe on LinkedIn

Note: This episode was recorded in 2025.

In this special live episode of the Future Proof HR podcast, recorded on the floor at Transform 2026 in Las Vegas, Thomas Kunjappu caught up with Jenn Congdon, a 30-plus year HR veteran and HR leader at M Financial Group, for a candid conversation about where AI is already delivering value for HR teams and where the function is headed next.

M Financial Group is an insurance, reinsurance, and wealth management organization built around a community of member firms, with a mission centered on helping those firms succeed, thrive, and realize their full potential.

They got into how Jenn is using AI to prepare for board and committee meetings by stress-testing presentations through the lens of each stakeholder, why she sees AI as a thought partner rather than a replacement for people, and what she would wave away if she had a magic wand: the fragmented, multi-source data problem that keeps HR from making truly business-driven decisions.

Topics Discussed:

• Using Microsoft Copilot to pressure-test board presentations and anticipate hard questions
• Why HR's AI progress often lags behind product and technology teams, and how to close the gap
• The vision for AI-powered self-service that handles repetitive HR questions at scale
• Why AI should eliminate non-value-add work, not the human judgment behind it
• The data consolidation challenge: pulling insights from 15 different sources into one place
• What it means for AI to be a responsible thought partner for HR leaders

Additional Resources:

• Cleary's AI-powered HR Chatbot
• Future Proof HR Community
• Connect with Jenn Congdon on LinkedIn

In this special live episode of the Future Proof HR podcast, recorded on the floor at Transform 2026 in Las Vegas, Thomas Kunjappu sat down with Laura Brittingham, SVP of People at Prove, for a candid conversation about what AI actually looks like in practice for a scaling HR team and what it means for the function's strategic future.

Prove is a leading provider of identity verification and authentication solutions, trusted by 19 of the top 20 US banks and 1,500 top brands globally. Laura joined less than a year ago with no background in identity, and she's been using that fresh perspective to rethink how HR can drive clarity, speed, and scale across the business.

They got into how Laura is using AI to compress a months-long org design effort into seconds, why her mission this year is to make every employee an expert on Prove's products and industry, and why HR leaders who lean into building with agentic tools will define what the function looks like next.

Topics Discussed:

• Using AI to build a company-wide remit directory and bring clarity to 200 unique job titles
• Why faster processing opens up space for strategic thinking, not just task completion
• The case for AI-powered L&D content to make every employee a product and industry expert
• Why the answer to "replace headcount with AI" is to 10x impact instead
• HR is a strategic arm of the business, not just a compliance and payroll function
• What it means to turn HR teams into builders using agentic tools

Additional Resources:

• Cleary's AI-powered HR Chatbot
• Future Proof HR Community
• Connect with Laura Brittingham on LinkedIn