Radical Reinvention: Leading with Resilience in the Age of AI and Climate Crisis with Caroline Stokes

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“It’s not about adapting to chaos—it’s about reinventing ourselves and our organizations from the ground up.” - Caroline Stokes

What if the leadership frameworks you rely on today are the very reason your organization won’t survive the next decade?

In this episode, I speak with Caroline Stokes, author of Aftershock to 2030: A CEO’s Guide to Reinvention in the Age of AI, Climate and Societal Collapse. Together we explore why outdated leadership models no longer work, how to embrace radical reinvention, and how AI, trauma-aware systems, and resilience can prepare leaders and organisations for the seismic challenges ahead.

Key Takeaway Insights and Tools

• The BANI Framework replaces VUCA – Leadership must move beyond volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity to face a world that is brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible. (00:09:37)
• Shareholder confidence depends on reinvention – Companies clinging to quarterly results risk irrelevance; resilient organizations align with climate, AI, and societal disruption. (00:15:49)
• Radical Listening with AI – Using AI as a tool for systematic listening across employees and stakeholders enables leaders to identify gaps, opportunities, and emerging risks. (00:19:14)
• Reinvention requires a reset – Leaders need to let go of outdated models and adopt new cognitive scaffolding, shared language, and trauma-informed systems to thrive. (00:22:48)
• Resilience is rooted in neuroplasticity – Leaders can cultivate adaptability by embracing growth as a practice, rewiring their brains through learning, reflection, and constructive conversation. (00:55:28)

Bio:

Carolyn Stokes is a leadership strategist for the 5th Industrial Revolution and author of AfterShock to 2030: A CEO’s Guide to Reinvention in the Age of AI, Climate, and Societal Collapse. Her work offers a radical roadmap for navigating disruption, grounded in trauma-aware systems, emotionally intelligent AI, and adaptive intelligence.

A Sony alum who helped launch PlayStation, Caroline has evolved from executive headhunter to a globally recognized authority on psychological and strategic leadership reinvention. She works with CEOs, boards, and executive teams to build sovereign, trust-based systems that align with today’s complex, polycrisis environment.

She is also the author of Elephants Before Unicorns (Entrepreneur Press, 2019), co-author of the HBR Guide to Navigating the Toxic Workplace (2024), and contributor to Coach Me! (Wiley, 2022). Her insights have appeared in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Forbes, and The Globe and Mail.

Books & Concepts Mentioned:

• Carolyn Stokes – Aftershock to 2030: A CEO’s Guide to Reinvention in the Age of AI, Climate and Societal Collapse

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