Skin in The Game with Debbie Go

“Behind every job title is a person.”

What changes when leaders move beyond hierarchy and connect as humans?

In this episode of Skin in the Game with Debbie Go, Lilian Sanada, Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer at Sanada Labs, and Founder & CEO of DanceFloor, shares why one unexpected practice, dance can dissolve barriers, build trust, and unlock creativity in the workplace

In this conversation, you'll discover:

Can working with your hands physically lower your stress and make you a more grounded leader?

In this episode of the Skin in the Game Podcast, host Debbie Go sits down with Federica Perri, founder and CEO of Handmade Ikigai, a mindful art creativity platform designed for busy, overwhelmed minds. After managing over $20 million portfolios at Google and Meta, Federica made the leap from Big Tech to build a business that helps leaders pause, reconnect, and lead with greater presence through tactile experiences like pottery, kintsugi, and...

🎨 Can creativity make you a better leader?

In this teaser episode of Skin in the Game with Debbie Go, Federica Perri, Founder of Handmade Ikigai, shares why some of the biggest breakthroughs she's witnessed haven't happened in boardrooms—but around an art table.

Her participants include executives and leaders who spend their days making high-stakes decisions and leading large teams. During a mindful art experience, however, they're invited to do something radically different: slow down, focus on what's right in front of them, and simply create.

The...

What happens when a data architect leaves behind a stable high-tech career to build a bridge between Chinese manufacturing and the U.S. market? On this episode of #SkinInTheGamewithDebbieGo, Ping Yan, founder of ABS International and CEO of EverGrace Home, shares the unfiltered, practical leadership lessons that only come from navigating real uncertainty.

Ping didn’t just change industries. She walked away from a predictable path and into a world with no roadmap. Over two decades, that move taught her something about leadership that’s easy to overlook.

“<...

When Ping Yan built ABS, she believed a leader’s job was to have every answer.

She worked day and night, solving every problem, trying to control every outcome. The moment she began to release that belief, her business started to thrive.

In this episode of #SkinInTheGamewithDebbieGo, I sit down with Ping, CEO of ABS International and Co-founder of EverGrace Home, to understand that shift. She now calls the result “quiet strength.”

Early on, Ping thought leadership meant having all the answers. Over time...

🩺 “Being a doctor isn't just about getting the antibiotic right; it's about healing patients emotionally as well as physically.” – Dr. New Sang, CEO & President of Sang Medical Corp & Sang Pediatrics.

In this candid conversation on #SkinInTheGamewithDebbieGo, I sit down with pediatrician, CEO, and philanthropist Dr. New Sang to explore a side of medicine rarely taught in medical school: the emotional and generational layers of pediatric care. From leaving a tight-knit island community on Kauai, Hawaii to build his practice in Fresno, to braving public anti-science sentiment during the pandemic, Dr. Sang shares what it truly...

Why was a pediatrician giving COVID shots to 85‑year‑olds?

Because healing isn’t just physical.

On this teaser episode of #SkinInTheGamewithDebbieGo with Dr. New Sang, CEO & President of Sang Medical Corp and Sang Pediatrics, shares a frontlines lesson that changed how he practices medicine:
“100% of people remember how they felt. Being a doctor is about healing emotionally as well as physically.”

From comforting elderly patients who hadn’t left home in over a year to rethinking what care really means, this conversation stays with you.

👉 Watch the full...

AI isn’t the threat; the real danger is flying blind.

Mariia Potupchik is the Founder & CEO of YourSkills. Previously, she led teams at Skyeng, one of Europe’s largest online education platforms—and she learned this firsthand while managing over 100 people. She had dashboards full of data, but on a customer support call, she discovered a woman in a small town learning English to support her disabled child—flagged as a “retention risk” on the dashboard, yet she was the most dedicated learner.

“We were optimizing for averages,”...

Your HR system tells you a person’s title and function. It tells you nothing about their skills.
If you have two "Senior Product Managers," your dashboard likely treats them as identical units. But in reality:
- One is a data analysis and AI integration expert.
- The other is a stakeholder management and design thinking expert.

On paper, they are the same. In practice, their readiness for AI transformation is worlds apart.

In this #SkinInTheGameWithDebbieGo teaser,  @MariaPotupchik  —Founder & CEO of  @YourSkills_Pro —cuts through the AI hype to...

There is a paradox emerging in the age of Generative AI.

Business leaders are trained to be skeptical of raw data. They question spreadsheets. They interrogate dashboards. But the moment that same data is wrapped in a conversational sentence by an LLM? The skepticism vanishes.
In the latest episode of Skin in the Game, I sat down with Amit Shivpuja (Director of Data Product & AI Enablement @ Walmart) to discuss why our biggest AI challenge isn't the technology—it's the misplaced trust that comes with a friendly chat interface.

As Amit put it:

We’re wired to trust things that sound like us. It’s a psychological shortcut that helps us navigate the world, but in the realm of AI, it’s a major liability.

In this teaser from #SkinInTheGamewithDebbieGo, Walmart Data & AI Leader Amit Shivpuja explains why natural language interfaces are a double-edged sword. While these tools make AI more accessible than ever, they also create a dangerous illusion of certainty.

Amit highlights a fascinating shift in how we process information:
"People are a little skeptical if you give them a table of num...

Thai food is world-famous, but Thai coffee remains a mystery to most. 

In this episode, we uncover the origin story of Coffee Culture Thailand and its visionary founder, Susan Borvornpotsakul Villota.

When the 2020 pandemic hit, Susan lost 90% of her marketing clients. Instead of giving up, she leveraged her digital expertise to build a bridge - connecting Thailand’s remote coffee farmers with a global audience of coffee drinkers.

In this #SkinInTheGamewithDebbieGo episode, we discuss: 

✅ The "Zero Product" Launch: How she raised 60,000 THB wi...

“There’s more to Thai coffee than we know… I thought, this is something we can actually do and help.” — Susan Borvornpotsakul Villota ☕️

Turning crisis into opportunity, Susan launched Coffee Culture Thailand after losing 90% of her marketing clients during the pandemic. Starting with zero inventory, she raised 60,000 baht through a story-driven campaign—igniting a marketplace that now amplifies Thailand’s hidden coffee varieties to the world.

Tune into #SkinInTheGamewithDebbieGo to learn:
🔍 How she uncovered Thailand’s diverse, under-the-radar coffee profiles
🚀 Why she started with no product—just belief and a powerful story<...

Web3 and blockchain founders and execs: Are you pushing innovation at the cost of your own health?

The relentless pressure to stay ahead while "laying the rails for the future" creates a unique burnout cycle. As Vita Veda co-founder Oscar Sundman puts it:
💬 "You'll have a million problems until you have a health problem. Then you only have one."

In this episode of #SkinInTheGamewithDebbieGo, I sit down with Ciara Nicole and Oscar Sundman. After personal loss led them to become "resilience architects," their mission is to bridge Eastern philosophy with Western innovation—creating a new l...

"You have a million problems until you have a health problem. Then, you only have one."

In the race to build the future, Web3 founders and tech leaders are often the first to break—not just systems, but themselves. What’s the real cost of the "move fast and break things" culture?

On the latest episode of #SkinInTheGameWithDebbieGo, I sit down with Oscar Sundman and Ciara Nicole, co-founders of Vita Veda. We go beyond burnout clichés to discuss how they’re bridging Eastern philosophy with Western innovat...

“Talent opens doors. Your Board of Advisors brings opportunities to you” – Karla Blanco. 💡
Feeling like a passenger in your own career? It's time to take the wheel.

In this episode of the Skin in the Game with Debbie Go podcast, I sit down with Karla Blanco, an ex-Intel Director turned bestselling author and executive coach. She unveils the strategic framework that propelled her to the top and now helps her clients achieve rapid growth.

Here are the key insights you can’t afford to miss: