Sunny Ray interviews Leo, founder and CEO of Strong Tower Partners, an executive search firm that has placed high level leaders across the globe for six years. Leo shares lessons from nearly two decades in recruiting, including his time at Deloitte and competing against the top executive search firm in the world. He explains how the most successful leaders he has met, regardless of wealth, treat everyone with equal humanity. The conversation shifts to his new venture, Kinected, an app ecosystem built around a conscious concierge AI named Kai. Kai connects to wearables, reads biometrics, and curates personalized prayer, meditation, and affirmation content to help users return to their highest self. Leo describes the origin of the idea during a plane conversation, his belief that data should remain sacred to users rather than sold, and his larger vision of building strong tower communities where people meditate and pray together at scale, aiming to unite a billion people toward shared wellbeing.
An executive search veteran reveals why guiding people beats simply extracting talent, and unveils an AI concierge built to elevate you.
Tell me about Strong Tower Partners and Kinected, kick us off with both.
I am a search guy who started at Deloitte doing high level executive recruiting, then moved to the top search firm in the industry before starting Strong Tower during COVID. We place people in six, seven, and eight figure seats, often working with people who influence the global economy. About 30 weeks ago I also started Kinected, an ecosystem with an AI conscious concierge named Kai that curates prayer and meditation content using frequency and music to elevate people rather than deflate them.
How do you track whether Kinected is actually helping people?
We track it through people's stories and through biometrics that stay sovereign and sacred to each user. The AI keeps a record of conversations, meditations, and prayers so users can see where they started and where they are now. It is a personal journey, some people take weeks, others take months or a year, and the concierge offers options rather than pressure.
What specific signals are you looking for to know if someone is having a good or bad day?
It is personalized. When you first set up your concierge it asks questions to learn your personality, whether you are calmer or more intense, and your goals. It reads biometrics from wearables if you have them, or your voice and inflection if you do not, and matches suggestions to your frequency and stated goals rather than making assumptions.
You have sat across from thousands of leaders. What patterns did you notice in people winning on paper but running on empty underneath?
The most successful people I met could speak to anyone at any level and treat them as equals regardless of status. I once cold emailed a Wall Street executive managing over 110,000 people and he called me back within ten minutes, dropped all formality, and we ended up talking about pizza and his hometown. That humility is the number one ingredient I have seen in truly successful leaders.
If the old grinder version of you sat across from the person you are today, what would he refuse to believe?
He would say I am not supposed to be here, that I was supposed to stay limited instead of unlimited. I was risk averse my whole life and stuck following the program, only dreaming sometimes of doing more. The sleeping giant that was always asleep has now woken up and is thriving.
When did this stop being a private practice for you and become something you had to build into a product?
It happened about 30 weeks ago on a plane when a stranger asked me questions about my highs and lows and what let me achieve what I had achieved. The idea of a conscious concierge just came out of my mouth before I even realized what I said, and she told me she needed that right now. That conversation led to 48 hours without sleep building out the business plan.
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