Burnout is not caused by too much work. That's the argument at the heart of this episode — and Yana Carstens has earned the right to make it. After 12 years in the design and tech space, and her own burnout behind her, Yana shifted into executive coaching, where she now focuses on burnout prevention and authentic leadership for women in tech. In this conversation, Yana and Toni get into what taking radical responsibility for your own wellbeing actually means — and why most of what we call "wellness" is polishing the car while nobody looks under the hood. They dig into hyper-responsibility, the reflex that makes everything your fault; why rest is a prerequisite for success rather than a reward for it; and how leaders who model genuine wellbeing quietly reset the culture of everyone around them. If you're stepping into a new role, carrying everyone around you, or wondering why the vacation didn't fix it — this one is for you.

Ever looked at an opportunity, a stretch role, a speaking slot, a bold idea, and thought “I could do that”… and then let it pass? And then been quietly furious with yourself weeks later? It probably wasn’t a courage problem. It was an energy problem. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, Toni Collis introduces the Leadership Energy Model: the relationship between bravery, grit, and confidence, and why understanding it changes how you take on hard things, how you recover from them, and how you lead a team through them.

What outcome are you actually after? It's one of the most important questions a leader can ask — and one most organizations get wrong. Jessi Szurek, Associate Partner at Synthesis, joins Toni for a conversation about outcome-focused leadership, AI adoption done right, and the career-defining skill of speaking up when you're being overlooked. Jessi's path took her from an architecture degree at Cornell to an MBA at NYU, through 17 years at Ernst & Young working across process automation and AI with global financial institutions, to a smaller consulting firm reinventing what client value really means. This episode is full of practical wisdom for anyone leading change, adopting AI, or trying to get clear on what actually matters — plus one of the best examples of calling out being ignored that we've had on the show.

You’re delivering. You’re the one your team relies on, the one who steps up, the one whose reviews are consistently strong. People call you invaluable, dependable, a safe pair of hands. And yet when the conversations that matter happen, the succession discussions, the stretch assignments, the rooms where the next senior appointment gets decided, you’re not in them. Someone else is being talked about as a future leader while you’re being talked about as a great performer. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, Toni Collis breaks down the gap between the leadership you’re delivering and the leadership you’re being credited with, and gives you the practical system for closing it. Not by working harder, and not by becoming someone you’re not, but by changing the signals that build how you’re seen.

What does it mean to build products that truly work for everyone — including the people most systems were never designed to include? Debbie Hsu, EVP of Product at Experian Consumer Services, joins Toni for a conversation that spans the full arc of her career — from software engineer at Oracle to leading product at one of the world's most significant consumer financial data companies — and gets into some of the most important questions facing product leaders today. Debbie leads the evolution of EVA, Experian's AI-powered virtual assistant, and brings a consumer-first lens to everything she builds. In this episode she shares how AI is changing team structures and role boundaries in product, why over-reliance on AI risks making every product look and sound the same, and what the socioeconomic stakes of AI access mean for product leaders who care about inclusion. She also shares three pieces of advice that I see as foundational to leading: Being humble is not the same as being invisible. Self-advocacy is not the same as bragging. And never let an official meeting be the first time people hear about your idea.

There's a room you're not yet in. Maybe it's a literal room — the board meeting, the investor briefing, the conversation at the level above yours where decisions get made that shape your organization and your career. Maybe it's more of a concept — the level of credibility where people seek out your perspective rather than just your report. Where you're consulted, not just informed. Becoming a trusted advisor to a board is one of those topics that sounds like it belongs to a specific career stage. But the behaviors, habits, and communication patterns that make someone genuinely valuable at board level are not developed the week before you need them. They're built over years — and the leader who starts now will be genuinely ready when the moment comes. In this episode of Leading Women in Tech, Toni Collis breaks down exactly what board-level credibility looks like, how it's built, and what you can start doing right now — wherever you are in your career.