EEC 399: From Escaping Saigon to Leading a Biotech Company, with Quang Pham
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Release Date: 09/16/2025
EEC 427: How Using Your Whole Brain Drives Organizational Performance, with Stephanie Bacon
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Stephanie Bacon, PhD, is an organizational consultant, speaker, and researcher specializing in adult social and emotional competence, nervous system regulation, and human-centered leadership. She works with leaders who care deeply about performance, culture, and impact—and who recognize that strategy alone does not create alignment. You talk about “human capacity” as the missing piece in organizational performance. What do you mean by that? You describe your work as “Embodied SEL.” How is that different from traditional emotional intelligence or leadership training? What are the...
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EEC 426: What You Need to Know about Brilliant Jerks Part 2, with Dr. Katrina Burrus
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Dr. Katrina Burrus is a catalyst in transforming brilliant but abrasive leaders into executives whom people actually want to follow. She also helps leaders to fast-track high-potential talents to the C-Suite and coaches CEOs of multinationals through their most high-stakes moments of change. Do Brilliant Jerks have high EQ? What are their reasons for reacting in a destructive way with others? Do you find Brilliant Jerks in families? Can you see clues that a child might become a Brilliant Jerk? In your TEDxMakati, you said that Brilliant Jerks aren't villains but have a damaged framework of...
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EEC 425: What You Need to Know about Brilliant Jerks Part 1, with Dr. Katrina Burrus
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Dr. Katrina Burrus is a catalyst in transforming brilliant but abrasive leaders into executives whom people actually want to follow. She also helps leaders to fast-track high-potential talents to the C-Suite and coaches CEOs of multinationals through their most high-stakes moments of change. How do you define a Brilliant Jerk or a toxic leader? What are the consequences of having a Brilliant Jerk in a company? How common do we find Brilliant Jerks in companies? What is the cost to the company of having a Brilliant Jerk leading a company? How do Brilliant Jerks behave? Do you behave as a...
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EEC 424: Why Employee Connection Is Becoming a Leadership Imperative, with Jonathan Thorp
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
As the visionary leader of Quantum Connections, Jonathan spearheads Quantum Connections’ strategy to support its mission to bring the power of dialogue to workplaces and individuals while expanding the organization’s global influence. What are performance metrics missing? What is most important to retain employees today in a environment where 70% if employees are disengaged from the company they work for? What is missing when you only use compensation, perks, or flexibility as retention tools? How can you scale and strengthen relationships? What role does connection play in periods of...
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EEC 423: Life After Loss: The Energy of Now, with Pamela Steele
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Pamela Steele, PhD, is an educational psychologist, certified mediator, and conflict resolution trainer who helps people communicate effectively and define practical, realistic ways to meet challenges head-on. How did you get from where you started professionally to where you are today? What inspired you to write your book? What personality characteristics do you believe have supported your growth and survival, given all the losses you've experienced? What do you hope people will take away from reading your book or hearing this interview? Pamela Steele Pamela Steele, PhD, is an educational...
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EEC 422: How to Overcome Adversity and Make a Thriving Business, with Brit Nicole
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Brit Nicole found herself leaving an abusive marriage with nothing. No money. No backup plan. Just herself, my dog, and the belief that she could build something — anything — from scratch. Tell me what challenges you have confronted and how, despite it you created a thriving business? What does "being happy without an agenda" mean to you? What are the similarities and differences between overcoming an abusive husband and being betrayed in business? How do you overcome people who project their own fears onto you because it's not something they would do? Brit Nicole Brit Nicole found...
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EEC 421: How to Overcome Shame and Depression, with Tiffany Jones
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Tiffany Jones is a Greenville, SC native who grew up in a culture where mental illness was stigmatized and often silenced. After almost 20 years of hiding and suffering quietly, Tiffany was determined to find real answers. Where does your interest in mental health come from? What do you mean when you say you have to be with the right people? What are the signs of a person being depression? What are the different types of shame, and how to overcome them? What happens if someone with depression self-medicates? Tiffany Jones Tiffany Jones is a Greenville, SC native who grew up in a culture...
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EEC 420: Sustainable Clinical Practice: How Clinicians Thrive Without Burning Out, with Helen Malinowski
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Helen Malinowski, LICSW, SEP, is the founder of the Somatic Integration Institute and the Catalyst Collective. She is passionate about supporting clinicians in building sustainable, nourishing practices that prevent burnout and compassion fatigue. Why are so many experienced clinicians burning out, even when they love their work—and what can be done to prevent it? How does somatic regulation transform both clinical effectiveness and practitioner wellbeing? What makes community support essential—not optional—for sustaining a long-term clinical career? How can clinicians grow their...
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EEC 419: Discover Your Hidden Superpower and Unlock Your Inevitable Outcome, with Randall Thames
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Randall Thames is an author, CEO, and Executive Leadership Advisor of Inspirit Institute, a Concierge Executive Leader Agency providing bespoke representation for current and aspiring CEOs. How did 8-year-old Randall go from "less than ordinary" to discovering his superpower? What internal 'dragons' prevent leaders from reaching ‘Inevitable Outcomes’? Why leave corporate success to help others discover their superpower? What is "Process as Armor" and how does it neutralize adversaries? What's one quick win to 'elevate in place' and gain executive influence today? Randall Thames Randall...
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EEC 418: Transforming Resistant Leaders Through Embodied Coaching, with Julius Lassalle
Excellent Executive Coaching: Growing Your Business and Enhancing Your Craft.
Julius Lassalle is a leadership consultant, coach, and author based in Berlin who specializes in Embodied Leadership. After experiencing "Führungsfrust" (leadership frustration) during his 5+ years leading teams in high-pressure tech and e-commerce environments, Julius developed a revolutionary methodology that integrates psychology, neuroscience, and somatic practices. How did your experience working with leadership frustration lead you to develop Embodied Leadership? What role does somatic intelligence play in helping executives who resist traditional emotional intelligence approaches? How...
info_outlineQuang X. Pham is a biotech executive, war veteran, author, speaker, and community leader with a remarkable journey shaped by resilience, service, and entrepreneurship. He made history as the first Vietnamese American to earn naval aviator’s wings in the Marine Corps and lead an initial public offering (IPO) on Nasdaq.
- How can someone starting as an underdog in this country (this area, this company) succeed?
- Why did you join the Marines, and what did you learn from your service?
- How did you overcome the business and personal obstacles in your life?
- What did you do to prepare for the leaps in your life, from the Marines to business, from entrepreneur to author, back to entrepreneur, from startup to IPO, and back to author?
- Why is it hard for Americans to understand/accept the high cost of prescription drugs?
Quang Pham
Quang X. Pham is a biotech executive, war veteran, author, speaker, and community leader with a remarkable journey shaped by resilience, service, and entrepreneurship. He made history as the first Vietnamese American to earn naval aviator’s wings in the Marine Corps and lead an initial public offering (IPO) on Nasdaq.
His inspiring American underdog journey, told in first person, is unlike any other.
Born in Saigon, South Vietnam, Quang and his family fled as refugees when he was 10, while his father, a Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilot, remained and was imprisoned for more than a decade. After earning a degree from UCLA, Quang served seven years on active duty, flying CH-46 helicopters in the Persian Gulf War, Somalia, and in the Reserves.
Following his military career, Quang transitioned into business, founding multiple pharmaceutical companies. In 2000, he launched MyDrugRep.com (which became Lathian Systems), an innovative online platform for physician marketing engagements, which was later acquired. In 2015, he founded Espero Pharmaceuticals and Jacksonville Pharmaceuticals. His leadership and entrepreneurial success earned him the Florida EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2018. Today, Quang serves as Chairman and CEO of Cadrenal Therapeutics (Nasdaq: CVKD).
Quang is also the author of the award-winning father-son memoir, A Sense of Duty: Our Journey from Vietnam (Penguin Random House, 2005), as well as his new book, Underdog Nation: Unleash Your Inner Underdog by Starting with Success. Committed to giving back, Quang has served on the boards of private companies, veteran charities, and educational organizations. He lives in Florida with his family, continuing to lead and inspire.
Excellent Executive Coaching Podcast
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The EEC podcasts are sponsored by MKB Excellent Executive Coaching that helps you get from where you are to where you want to be with customized leadership and coaching development programs. MKB Excellent Executive Coaching offers leadership development programs to generate action, learning, and change that is aligned with your authentic self and values. Transform your dreams into reality and invest in yourself by scheduling a discovery session with Dr. Katrina Burrus, MCC to reach your goals.
Your host is Dr. Katrina Burrus, MCC, founder and general manager of Excellent Executive Coaching a company that specializes in leadership development.