Beyond The Blue Badge

Ross Hunter joined Microsoft in 1983 and was one of the company’s first program managers. He spent 17 years at the company before getting involved in the public sector. He became a representative for the Washington State Legislature and now is the secretary of the Department of Children, Youth, and Families. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Paul Shoemaker talks with Ross about the early days of Microsoft, transitioning to the public sector, and the important work he’s doing now to foster early upstream change for children and families across Washington state.

Ed Fries created his first video game when he was only in high school. He landed a job at Microsoft in 1986 and helped develop Word and Excel before running the games group. Ed was crucial in Microsoft’s breakthrough into the gaming industry. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Rich Kaplan sits down with Ed to discuss his journey through fast-growing Microsoft in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the trials and triumphs of building Microsoft’s gaming group, and the most successful products he’s been a part of including Xbox and Halo.

Mylene Padolina spent a decade at Microsoft helping shape diversity and inclusion initiatives, primarily surrounding disability inclusion and youth. Now, she’s a consultant through MPadolina & Associates and works with various organizations on disability inclusion to support all. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Eddie Pate sits down with his former colleague to discuss her time at Microsoft, what made her who she is today, and how you can get involved to make the workplace inclusive and help everyone reach their full potential.

Daniela Braga is founder and CEO at DefinedCrowd, a fast-growing Seattle startup that that’s working to make artificial intelligence smarter. Daniela worked at Microsoft for almost seven years in multiple program manager roles in three different countries, including her native Portugal. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host T.A. McCann sits down with Daniela to deep dive into her two decades working in cognitive technology, taking the leap to found her own startup, life as a female founder, and advice for early-stage entrepreneurs.

J Allard spent 19 years at Microsoft.  Leading teams ranging from 20 to 3,000, J helped develop multiple businesses, brands, and initiatives at the company, including Xbox. He was an early advocate of Microsoft’s foray onto the internet. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Rich Kaplan sits down with J to discuss his early days at Microsoft, the birth of Xbox, and the platform he’s built post-Microsoft.

In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Eddie Pate sits down with his former Microsoft colleague, Jose Pinero. Jose spent 19 years at Microsoft in multiple sectors from entertainment services to diversity and multicultural marketing. Jose is a business and career coach largely working to empower underestimated populations. He’s also launching the first Latinx startup studio to infuse the startup world with diverse entrepreneurs. In this episode, Jose talks about his formative years at Microsoft, the importance of cultural knowledge in corporate America, and how he plans to change the future of work with his new startup studio.

Dianne Calvi is president and CEO of Village Enterprise, a nonprofit working in sub–Saharan Africa that aims to alleviate poverty through entrepreneurship and innovation. Dianne worked across multiple sectors — including an 11-year stint at Microsoft — before joining Village Enterprise in 2010. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Paul Shoemaker talks with Dianne about how she’s scaling Village Enterprise and why she’s rooted in empathy. They also dive into how tech, data, and partnerships are crucial in the fight to alleviate poverty.

In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge, host T.A. McCann talks with his former Microsoft colleague, Terry Myerson. Terry is the CEO of Truveta, a new health tech startup that’s building a data platform to better study U.S. health using de-identified patient data. Terry was an executive vice president at Microsoft for more than 21 years before joining Madrona Venture Group and The Carlyle Group and subsequently launching Truveta. He also is part of the Seattle Sounders FC ownership group. In this episode, Terry dishes on his time at Microsoft, the opportunities that followed, utilizing his connections to soar, and how his new mission is using data to save lives.  

In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Rich Kaplan sits down with alum Robbie Bach — former Xbox chief and president of entertainment and devices. As the 20th anniversary of Xbox approaches, Robbie reminisces on the early trials and triumphs of the industry-changing product. He also reflects on his early days at Microsoft, lessons learned in different product groups, and what he’s been doing following his 22-year career at the company.

Charles Stevens spent 22 years at Microsoft as a corporate vice president from 1984 to 2006. Now, he’s focused on what he calls “giving forward.” Charles sits on the boards of multiple nonprofits including Seattle Children’s and United Way of King County. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Eddie Pate — who was hired by Charles at Microsoft — talks with his former colleague about leading diversity initiatives, lessons learned over the past two decades, and the systemic racism that guides many sectors in the U.S. including business, education, and healthcare.    

Microsoft alum Njideka Harry is founder and executive board member at Youth for Technology Foundation. Njideka is a social entrepreneur that experienced the “Digital Canyon” first-hand when she moved from her native Nigeria to the U.S. for university. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Paul Shoemaker talks with Njideka about her personal journey to start and grow YTF, Microsoft’s influence, and why she’s passionate about ensuring technology training and lifelong learning skills are available to all communities in sustainable and accessible ways.

Dr, Kai-Fu Lee helped establish Microsoft China and Microsoft Research China before moving on to do the same for Google. He now is the CEO of Sinovation Ventures and he’s invested in more than 350 different companies in China. He’s literally written the book on AI and innovation. In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge, he speaks with podcast host T.A. McCann about the differences between entrepreneurs in China and the U.S., innovations in health tech, the many companies in China that are led by Microsoft alumni.

Orlando Ayala retired from Microsoft in 2016 after 25 years in a number of leadership roles, including overseeing 40,000 people in 115 subsidiaries around the world to working directly with Bill Gates on his senior leadership team as Worldwide Sales Marketing and Services Group’s executive vice president. But retirement didn’t mean slowing down. In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge, Orlando talks with host Rick Kaplan about his Microsoft days and how he’s using his knowledge of tech and his position on company boards to disrupt and transform the healthcare and energy industries.

Microsoft alum S. Revi Sterling heads the U.S. Agency for International Development Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative’s WomenConnect Challenge. What that means is that she gets to put her passion for eliminating the digital gender divide to work every day in places around the world. In this episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Eddie Pate will talk with Revi about her time at Microsoft, how the seed for what she’s doing today was planted there, and the impact she’s having from a socioeconomic, cultural, policy and financial-inclusion perspective.

When Jon Browning looks back at his 24-years at Microsoft, he thinks about the mentors who helped him along his career path from first installing telephones fresh out of college to eventually becoming a director at the tech giant. When he left the company, he knew that there are so many people who don’t have anyone help them bridge between the academic world and the professional workforce. He founded Global Mentorship Initiative to change all of that. In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge podcast, host Paul Shoemaker talks with Jon about Global Mentorship Initiative, helping underserved students bridge that gap, and matching mentors with hundreds of individuals from around the world, including refugees from Chad, South Sudan, Syria and Palestine. They also talk about how you can help.

Building and managing a fast-growing company with more than $1B valuation Outreach.io is one the rare "unicorn" startups with more than $1B in valuation, and Microsoft alum Manny Medina is at the helm. Manny talks with T.A. McCann about fundraising, how his Microsoft experience helps, and advice to fellow entrepreneurs in the second part of this two-part episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast.

Outreach.io is one of the fastest-growing tech companies with a valuation of more than $1.33 billion. Microsoft alum Manny Medina is at the helm. Manny talks with T.A. McCann about managing, building the right team and board, fundraising, and rapid growth of this “unicorn” in the first part of this two-part episode of our Beyond the Blue Badge podcast.

Steve Ballmer has always been a numbers guy. When he left Microsoft, he started to dig into our nation’s numbers to get a better picture of where his philanthropic dollars could do the most good and USAFacts was born. In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge, host Rich Kaplan talks with Steve about USAFacts, big data around some of the nation’s biggest issues from the economy to the elections, from COVID to obesity and why seeing and understanding all the data matters.

In this episode of Beyond the Blue Badge, host Eddie Pate talks with Sean Kelley, a veteran of the U.S. Navy and veterans' advocate while in his roles at Microsoft, Starbucks, and Amazon. On this Veterans Day episode, Eddie and Sean talk about hiring veterans in tech and beyond, why advocacy and inclusion of veterans for a diversified workforce is essential and smart business, and how alumni can fight the good fight.