The General Podcast Anna Binder (Asana) x Erica Galos Alioto (Retool) on the Chief People Officer job
In this conversation, Erica Galos Alioto (Chief People Officer at Retool, formerly Grammarly) and Anna Binder (former Chief People Officer at Asana) sit down for a candid conversation about what it actually felt like to lead through the last five years of work, from the chaos of the pandemic to the whiplash of DEI to the existential questions raised by AI.
They start with the “supper club.” It was a small, trusted group of HR leaders who became each other’s professional lifelines during COVID, and use that foundation as a lens to unpack how the role of HR fundamentally changed since then.
From there, they get into the uncomfortable parts: the performative rise (and retreat) of DEI, the growing fear and ambiguity leaders are navigating today, and the tension between AI as a productivity unlock vs. a job disruptor.
It’s a conversation about what it means to be a people leader when the rules keep changing.
In this conversation, you’ll learn:
- Why the best Chief People Officers are business leaders first, HR leaders second
- Why the best AI adoption strategies come from the edges of an organization
- Why hackathons and internal tooling beat top-down AI mandates
- How macro fear and politics are shaping CEO behavior more than most admit
- How the best DEI programs got embedded into business operations
- The shift from knowledge work to question-asking as a core skill
- How “open-sourcing” internal comms can be a survival tactic for leaders
- How founders can best partner with a great Chief People Officer
Where to find Erica:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-galos-alioto-9140832
- https://retool.com/
Where to find Anna:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/annabinder
Where to find The General Partnership:
- Website: thegp.com
- LinkedIn: The General Partnership
- X (Twitter): @thegp
- Substack: The General Partnership