#174 | A-Players, Task Monkeys, and the AI Reckoning w: Francis Brero (VP AI Strategy @HG Insights)

▶︎ #174 | A-Players, Task Monkeys, and the AI Reckoning w/ Francis Brero (VP AI Strategy @HG Insights) In this episode of the Leman Tech Leadership Podcast, Alex welcomes Francis Brero: VP of AI Strategy at HG Insights and Co-Founder of MadKudu, a French-born engineer who swapped the grandes ecoles of Paris for Silicon Valley and has spent 15 years building AI-powered systems for some of the world’s leading B2B revenue organizations. Francis brings a mathematician’s rigour and a founder’s scar tissue to every conversation about teams - and this one is no exception. What drives this episode is Francis’s deceptively simple framework for mapping any team: the task monkey who executes, the problem-solver who adapts, the system thinker who diagnoses root causes, and the rock star who spots the problem before anyone else named it. The conversation moves fast from there - to the hidden cost of keeping “okay” players on the roster, why brilliant jerks are rarely as indispensable as they think, and why the bar for what counts as a rock star has shifted dramatically with AI. If you are managing a team right now and quietly wondering whether you have the right people in the right seats - or whether you yourself are operating above or below the system-thinker line - this episode will give you a sharper lens. ✔︎ Mentioned in the episode: Radical Candor - Kim Scott vast.ai (GPU rental platform): https://vast.ai ✉︎ FOLLOW FRANCIS ON: ⤵︎ LinkedIn: @francisbrero HG Insights: https://hginsights.com ✉︎ FOLLOW ME ON: ⤵︎ LinkedIn: @aleksandralemanska TikTok: @aleksandra_lemanska X: @lemanskills Startup Community Poznan: @startup-community-poznan-scp www.lemanskills.com Join Leadership Pulse! https://lemanskills.com/pulse/