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The official CEO.com podcast featuring unfiltered conversations with the leaders shaping our world.
Clint Betts: Heather, thank you so much for coming on the show. You’re the CEO of Torch. To start things off, tell us what Torch is.
Heather Conklin: Thank you so much for having me.
Torch is a leadership coaching platform. We work with large businesses around the world to help their leaders develop and become better leaders in service of the company’s goals.
We partner with organizations to understand what they’re trying to accomplish strategically and what leadership behaviors they need to get there. Then we provide both human coaching and AI coaching to help leaders align around those goals and consistently demonstrate the leadership behaviors the company wants to see.
Clint Betts: That’s really interesting—the idea of human leadership and AI leadership. How are you integrating AI into Torch?
Heather Conklin: Last summer, we acquired a company called Praxis Labs.
Praxis Labs brought us two major capabilities: AI role-play simulations and an AI coach.
Recently, we launched a new product that combines the best of Praxis Labs with Torch’s coaching methodology and approach. Companies can now provide AI role-play simulations and AI coaching at scale, giving leaders access to personalized development experiences whenever they need them.
Internally, we’re also going through the same AI transformation as everyone else. Our engineering team uses AI, our customer success team uses AI, and we’ve integrated it throughout our operations.
Like every company, we’re figuring out how AI can make us more effective while also embedding it into our products and services.
Clint Betts: Before we go deeper into AI, let’s start with a simpler question. What is leadership?
Heather Conklin: It sounds like a simple question, but it’s actually a very difficult one.
One thing I strongly believe is that leadership is not a title.
A lot of people hear the word “leader” and immediately think of executives or senior management. I don’t see it that way at all.
Leadership is about how you show up for other people. It’s about motivating people, helping them move toward a common goal, and bringing them somewhere new together.
That’s why at Torch we don’t just coach senior executives. We believe leadership exists at every level of an organization.
Anyone can be a leader.
Leadership is really about how you connect with people, listen to them, understand them, and help them see how they fit into a larger purpose—whether that’s a business, a sports team, or any other kind of organization.
Clint Betts: Everybody leads differently. You have loud leaders, quiet leaders, leaders who lead by example, leaders like Steve Jobs who were known for demanding excellence, and others who are more empathetic.
What common traits do great leaders share?
Heather Conklin: I believe great leaders care just as much about how results are achieved as they do about the results themselves.
Steve Jobs is actually a good example. He was phenomenal at producing results and building world-changing products. But he’s also known for not always treating people particularly well.
For me, both sides matter.
You have to hold a high bar for performance. You need to drive results, grow the business, win the game, whatever success looks like.
But you also have to care about the people.
You need to help them grow, support them, and demonstrate that they matter.
You can be the best performer in the world, but if you treat people terribly, that doesn’t work for me.
On the other hand, you can be incredibly empathetic and supportive, but if you never produce results, that doesn’t work either.
The best leaders are able to hold both of those truths at the same time. They navigate the tension between accountability and humanity.
That’s where great leadership lives.
Clint Betts: AI seems like it’s making leadership more important than ever.
People are wondering whether they’ll have jobs six months from now. There’s anxiety, uncertainty, and disruption everywhere.
How do you think AI is affecting leadership?
Heather Conklin: I think leadership is more critical now than ever.
There’s actually some encouraging research emerging around this. The Wall Street Journal has written about it, and there was a recent MIT study that found most AI pilots are failing. When researchers looked at the small percentage that succeeded, one of the biggest differentiators was strong leadership.
AI is exposing a lot of cracks that already existed.
Many leadership weaknesses were there long before AI arrived. AI is simply shining a brighter light on them.
One challenge is that we aren’t necessarily starting from a strong leadership foundation.
We’ve spent years focusing heavily on productivity, efficiency, and results. AI accelerates all of those things.
But if leaders can’t bring people along on the journey, if they can’t build trust, communicate effectively, and help people navigate uncertainty, they’re going to miss out on a lot of potential.
People often call these “soft skills,” and I hate that term because there’s nothing soft about them.
I prefer to think of them as human skills.
Communication, empathy, adaptability, resilience, and the ability to manage complexity—those are becoming increasingly important.
The challenge is that these aren’t simple skills you can teach in a workshop. They’re deeper leadership capacities that take time to develop.
Clint Betts: Why do you think we’re starting from a leadership deficit?
Heather Conklin: A few reasons.
First, we’ve experienced major shifts over the last several years.
During COVID, organizations invested heavily in supporting employees. There was a lot of focus on people and well-being.
Since then, the economic environment has changed dramatically. Now there’s much more focus on productivity, efficiency, return-to-office mandates, and results.
The pendulum has swung hard in the opposite direction.
Second, I don’t think organizations have really figured out how to develop great leaders at scale.
Most people learn leadership from whoever happens to be around them. If someone had a poor manager, they often end up replicating those behaviors without realizing it.
Bad leadership habits get passed down.
Without a deliberate system for developing leaders, those patterns continue.
The combination of those leadership gaps and the uncertainty of the current environment makes this moment particularly challenging.
Clint Betts: How important is personal leadership? The idea that if you can’t lead yourself, you probably can’t lead others.
Heather Conklin: I’m a huge believer in that.
Before I got into coaching, I thought I was a pretty good leader because I delivered results.
I was very execution-oriented.
But coaching helped me realize I hadn’t spent much time understanding myself—my values, my strengths, my blind spots, and how I wanted to show up in the world.
Once I did that work, everything changed.
I became better at seeing other people, understanding their motivations, connecting with them, and helping them succeed.
I don’t think I would be where I am today without that self-reflection.
Personal leadership is foundational.
Clint Betts: What does a typical day look like for you?
Heather Conklin: I have three young daughters, so my day starts with chaos.
Usually one of them wakes me up before I’m ready.
I work remotely, which helps tremendously with balancing family life and work.
Because many of my colleagues are on the West Coast, I try to keep my mornings relatively open for deep thinking and focused work.
I’m a big believer in creating space for reflection and strategic thinking.
Then the day becomes meetings, collaboration, and all the normal responsibilities of running a company.
In the evenings, I switch back into mom mode until the kids go to bed.
After that, I’ll often finish whatever work remains.
Lately, I’ve also been trying to prioritize my own health more—Pilates, meditation, and things that help me take care of myself.
It’s a constant balancing act.
Clint Betts: How do you build a coaching business?
Heather Conklin: I actually didn’t found Torch.
I joined as the company’s first COO after the founder had raised a Series C.
I came because I’m incredibly passionate about leadership development. That passion really grew during my time at Salesforce.
Since joining, much of my work has focused on scaling the company and making difficult strategic decisions about where we should focus and where we shouldn’t.
The economy has been challenging, which has made those decisions even harder.
One of my favorite parts of the job is that we have a Slack channel where customer feedback automatically gets posted.
Every day I see stories from people describing how coaching has transformed their careers and lives.
That’s what makes the work meaningful.
I’ve worked in software before, and people might love a product, but coaching can genuinely change how someone experiences their work and their life.
That’s incredibly rewarding.
Clint Betts: How do people become coaches?
Heather Conklin: We have more than 350 coaches in our network.
Most coaches go through certification programs and earn professional coaching credentials.
But at Torch, we look for more than that.
We want coaches who have both coaching expertise and real leadership experience.
Many of our coaches have spent years leading teams, running businesses, or working inside organizations themselves.
That combination is powerful because they understand both coaching and the realities of leadership.
There are a lot of coaches in the world, so when we recruit we receive plenty of applications.
We simply maintain a very high bar.
Clint Betts: What are you reading?
Heather Conklin: These days I listen to a lot of audiobooks.
One book I recently read was The Body Keeps the Score. It’s fascinating and explores how our brains and bodies process stress and trauma.
A CEO friend recommended it to me, and I found it incredibly insightful.
As far as leadership books go, Brené Brown’s work has probably had the biggest impact on me.
Books like Daring Greatly continue to shape how I think about leadership.
Her work provides practical guidance for building empathy, vulnerability, and connection within teams.
If more people practiced those principles, I honestly think both workplaces and society would be better off.
Clint Betts: Finally, we end every interview the same way.
At CEO.com, we believe the chances one gives are just as important as the chances one takes.
Who gave you a chance that helped get you where you are today?
Heather Conklin: That one is easy.
Before Torch, I was at Salesforce.
When Bret Taylor became Chief Product Officer, I had an opportunity to speak with him as a rising leader in the product organization.
I shared some ideas about how I thought we could work differently, and he gave me the opportunity to create and lead Salesforce’s Associate Product Manager program.
I had never run a program like that before.
I didn’t have a blueprint.
But he trusted me to build it.
That experience changed my career.
It opened my eyes to leadership development and the incredible impact that investing in people can have.
If Bret hadn’t taken that chance on me, I wouldn’t be sitting here today as the CEO of a coaching company.
Clint Betts: That’s incredible.
Heather, thank you so much for coming on the show. Congratulations on everything you’ve built. What an honor to have you.
Heather Conklin: Thank you so much. I’m really glad we got the chance to do this. Thanks for all the great questions.