Merav Yanai spent 30 years watching companies fail their managers, then built an AI to fix it.
She’s an HR executive who was handed an operations team after an acquisition (a team that openly wondered "what does this HR person know?"), led a major merger, and then left corporate to found Leap, an AI chief of staff for mid-level managers that works in real time, privately, in the flow of work.
In this episode, we talk about the leadership moves nobody teaches you: how to walk into a room that doubts you, why saying "I don’t know" is actually your most powerful tool, and what really happens to your identity when you change roles or companies.
We also get into AI, management, and the 70% of leadership that’s still learned by trial and error — and why that’s both the biggest problem and the biggest opportunity in the future of work.
CHAPTERS
00:00 — She walked into a room that doubted her
01:16 — Intro: Merav’s story and why this conversation matters
02:35 — Welcome + Google for Startups
03:26 — Impact and partnership: the two things that drive her to move
05:20 — The planned transition: "By 42, I need to be VP HR"
06:19 — The unplanned one: the acquisition that changed everything
07:45 — The elephant in the room — and how she put it on the table in week one
10:16 — The power of not knowing
15:05 — What nobody warns you about: you lose your identity when you change roles
16:03 — Every change builds a new muscle
17:57 — A huge frustration — and the startup it became
19:52 — Why ChatGPT was mind-blowing (and what she did about it)
21:30 — Managers don’t think in terms, they think in problems
22:26 — A real session with Robin: the 2026 work plan that went sideways
25:50 — What Robin knows that other AI tools don’t
28:55 — Mid-level management is the core of the organization
29:45 — "Am I telling you my Coaching job is redundant?"
34:07 — The 10-20-70 rule — and what Robin actually does differently
35:07 — Results: 12% faster decisions, 30% better strategic thinking
36:06 — Vision for Leap: make managers better
CONNECT WITH MERAV
🔗 Leap: myleap.ai
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merav-yanai/
CONNECT WITH LIMOR
🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/limorbergman/
🔗 Coaching: https://limorbergman.com/coaching/
🔗 Newsletter: https://limorbergman.substack.com/
