Way back in 2019, we started this fifth season of the podcast, ‘Learning Leaders,’ with a commitment to let you hear from Learning Leaders from industry, academia, and technology who have made significant contributions to workplace learning, EdTech, and talent leadership disciplines. The program was originally initiated in collaboration with The Learning Leaders Conference, and some episodes were recorded onsite at the 2019 conference in Washington DC Watch this space for more details; this is one, though we haven’t featured a chat done this way for some time. We have a great return episode, though: Fernando Sanchez-Arias, a former member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Talent Development (ATD) but who is now powering away at a Washington, DC-based think tank for research and education on culture, leadership, innovation, connection, and knowledge he set up called the CLICK (Culture, Leadership, Innovation, Connection, and Knowledge) Institute. When we spoke last year, Sr Sanchez-Arias was Head of Learning, Cultural Diversity, and Innovation at the body after being Chief People Officer; now he is now the organisation’s pro bono Co-Chair of the Advisory and Academic Councils. It was great to talk to Fernando last year, and it’s wonderful to be able to share this with you now. I am also delighted to say this is another episode in the Season sponsored by our friends at The Future Workplace Academy—a curated collection of five week online cohort courses to up-skill HR and HRIS team members for the future of work, with all content designed by and for HR leaders and which is being guided by an advisory board led by Future Workplace. It’s a great project, and I hope you have time to join us—but first, let’s hear from Fernando and his current schedule of splitting his time between D.C. and a ‘beautiful, green’ planned community in North Houston, as well as: his personal journey from studying business in Venezuela to Texas via Belgium, via time in armed forces, oil &gas and academic contexts that’s included many great milestones—including his years leveraging Learning as a way of building Trust with the world’s largest home improvement firm, Home Depot (which we dive right into!); his deep interest in multi-disciplinary approaches combined with a primary alliance to data, research and the science wherever possible; the way he’s pursuing the Lifelong Learning pathway, including an on-going Micro Master program; the aims and tactics of the CLICK Institute and the international network he’s rapidly building with it; the five ‘diseases’ that ‘kill’ innovation; the mentors who challenged him to leave his original love, business administration, to this world; and much more.