Rivers, Rocks, and Rubies: A New Career Model | Dan Pontefract | 736

Leveraging Thought Leadership · Sep 3, 2026 · 41m

Here's an uncomfortable question: if you replaced "Gen X" with a racial or ethnic label in a hiring conversation, would anyone tolerate it?

Dan Pontefract — leadership and corporate culture strategist, six-time author, and former Chief Learning Officer at SAP and TELUS — thinks the answer says a lot about how casually organizations discriminate by age.

In this conversation, Dan traces the arc that led to his sixth book, The Future of Work Is Grey — from a "reverse ageism" encounter as a 26-year-old college administrator to a career-defining moment when, at 51, a longtime speaker bureau…