Tom Lenoble — Facebook Leadership, Surviving Cancer, and Finding Strength in “Terrible Gifts”

Tom Lenoble’s story is one of remarkable leadership, resilience, and reinvention. In this episode, Tom shares his extraordinary career journey leading customer operations at companies like MCI, Walmart.com, and Palm — and how he helped build Facebook’s first global customer operations team during its explosive early years. He reflects on interviewing with Mark Zuckerberg when Facebook was still a college platform, navigating rapid growth, and leading through constant change.But Tom’s greatest leadership lessons didn’t come from the boardroom — they came from surviving life-threatening illness. Tom opens up about living with HIV since 1989, battling metastatic cancer for 13 years, and the mindset and healing strategies that helped him keep moving forward. He also discusses his bestselling memoir, My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns, and High Heels (https://www.amazon.com/Business-Suits-Hospital-Gowns-Heels-ebook/dp/B0FV5WZQN1), and how sharing his story has been both liberating and transformative.Today, Tom is a leadership coach, speaker, and CEO of the Academy for Coaching Excellence, inspiring others to find strength, clarity, and purpose — even in life’s hardest moments.A powerful conversation about courage, vulnerability, leadership, and the unexpected gifts hidden inside adversity.Send Mike a Message!Support the showWant to be considered as a guest?  Fill out the form here: https://werenotstumped.com/podcast-guest-information/Learn more about our host Mike Bolland: https://mikebolland.com/