What does it take to lead when the machines are smarter, faster, and increasingly autonomous? In this episode of Sarah’s Studio, IKN CEO Sarah Clarke reconnects with Cameron Hedrick — Chief Learning Officer at Citi and one of the most thoughtful voices in enterprise learning — almost exactly a year after they first shared a stage in New York City discussing AI preparedness.

A year later, the landscape has shifted dramatically. The conversation has moved from prompt-based tools to agentic AI systems that operate semi-autonomously — and the implications for leaders, L&D functions, and the workforce at large are profound.

In this episode, Cameron and Sarah explore:

• The Wisdom Economy — Why the premium on wisdom, discernment, and ethical judgment is rising as AI absorbs more of the knowledge and processing work that used to define careers
• What leaders are least prepared for — Their own insecurity, the speed of the agentic transition, and the challenge of building psychological safety in human-machine teams
• The evolution of L&D — Why the traditional L&D function must expand its scope to work more closely with recruiting and culture, becoming architects of both human and synthetic intelligence deployment
• Two actionable moves for managers today — Creating a genuine culture of AI experimentation, and using structured reflection to begin building the wisdom-adjacent skills machines can’t replicate
• The entrepreneurial mindset as a survival strategy — Why thinking like an entrepreneur — systems thinking, long time horizons, accountability — is the best frame for navigating an ambiguous AI-driven future
• Disrupting yourself before AI does — Cameron’s direct challenge: be the one who re-architects your role, or wait for something else to do it for you
• What’s durable — The enduring human qualities — love, pain, multi-disciplinary perspective, connection — that machines don’t do well and likely won’t for some time

Cameron also shares a personal thread that runs throughout: how growing up as a musician — where 99% of the work happens alone, in private, before a single moment on stage — shaped his understanding of discipline, critique, and the slow process of becoming good at something. A timely reminder in an era that wants to microwave everything.

Cameron writes regularly about AI, leadership, and the future of learning on Substack. Sarah will drop the link in the show notes.