Amanda's Podcast
Breaking barriers between technology, leadership, and the human condition.
Hosted by Amanda Mercier — technologist, strategist, and storyteller — this podcast explores what it means to lead, grow, and build in complex systems. From the battlefield to the boardroom, Amanda shares lessons on transformation, creative discipline, and personal resilience — drawn from years of leading AI, data, and modernization efforts across government and industry.
Each episode begins with a story — about leadership, health, or the creative process — and ends with a call to action you can use right away. Whether you’re scaling a team, writing your next big idea, or just trying to see your own progress more clearly, this show helps you bridge the gap between thought and action.
Themes:
- Leadership and self-awareness
- Technology, AI, and the people behind it
- Creative process, burnout, and recovery
- Building cultures of accountability and impact
- Transformation in large systems
Because thinking deeply is only half the battle — the real change comes when you act.
Amanda Mercier is the Chief Digital and AI Officer at U.S. Army Special Operations Command with a history of experience leading technical teams in government and industry. The views expressed here are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of War.
Amanda's Podcast
Difficult By Design
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Sometimes it’s not the person who is difficult; it’s the role.
Transformation leaders are often designed to be disruptive. The role exists to challenge legacy processes, to inject technical rigor into decisions that were once made relationally or politically.
That shift creates friction.
When data replaces intuition, someone loses power. The role becomes “in the way.” And so the role gets labeled difficult.
That label is often a signal that transformation is working
Subscribe at www.AmandaMercier.com