HR Heretics

Nolan Church and Kelli Dragovich host HR Heretics with the kind of bluntness you rarely hear in the people operations space. Both are former tech executives — Nolan was DoorDash's first Head of Talent and Kelli served as CPO at multiple high-growth startups — so their perspective comes from actual boardroom experience, not theory. The show publishes weekly and alternates between long-form interviews with CHROs and founders, and shorter "Heretics 101" segments where Nolan and Kelli riff on a single topic like compensation transparency or why most performance reviews are theater. They've built a reputation for saying the quiet part out loud. Episodes on recruiting strategy, executive coaching, and building culture during layoffs don't pull punches about what goes wrong and why. A standout recent episode explored why Zapier requires 100% AI fluency across their entire workforce — the kind of forward-looking HR story most shows haven't caught up to yet. The chemistry between the two hosts carries the show. They genuinely disagree sometimes, and those moments produce the most interesting conversations. With over 200 episodes and a growing Substack community, HR Heretics has become required listening for senior people leaders who want honest talk about building high-performing companies without the usual corporate polish.