Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.

Walter P. Paepcke, Aspen Institute Co-Founder

B-Sides

Every leader has a B-side.

The version before the title. Before the recognition. Before the highlight reel. B-Sides: The Deeper Cut of Leadership with host Lorelle Atkinson is a show about that version — the place where biography becomes instinct, and lived experience quietly shapes how someone leads.

Each episode is a candid conversation with leaders across the Aspen Institute’s global network — from tech innovators and journalists to mayors, founders, and artists — going beyond the résumé to uncover the moments that changed them, challenged them, and ultimately defined them.

Because leadership isn’t just what you do. It’s who you’ve been — and what you carry forward.

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Lorelle Atkinson, Vice President, Communications and Marketing at the Aspen Institute.

Meet the Host

Lorelle Atkinson is the Vice President for Communications and Marketing at the Aspen Institute, where she serves as chief strategist and steward of the Institute’s brand. She oversees the planning and execution of the Institute’s marketing and communications strategy, ensuring its voice reflects Aspen’s role as a trusted convener of ideas and leaders. She also leads Aspen’s in-house communications agency, providing counsel and creative strategy for more than 30 public policy programs.

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Institute Podcasts

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Work and the Social Contract in the Age of AI: How did we get here?
Podcasts Videos

Work and the Social Contract in the Age of AI: How did we get here?

“Social contract” has quickly become one of the most-used, least-defined phrases in the AI policy conversation. This first event in a two-part series will trace the origin and history of the American social contract, examining how work became the anchor of economic security, mobility, and civic identity in the United States.

Disposable Workers: A Book Talk with MIT Sloan Professor Paul Osterman
Podcasts Videos

Disposable Workers: A Book Talk with MIT Sloan Professor Paul Osterman

For decades, economists and policymakers have debated how to help workers get better jobs. But what if the more fundamental problem is that employers have systematically redesigned work itself to make a third of the workforce expendable? In his forthcoming book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment,” MIT Sloan Professor Emeritus Paul Osterman examines this idea and what it would take to reverse it.

How Tax Policy Can Help Employers Expand Access to Learning
Podcasts Videos

How Tax Policy Can Help Employers Expand Access to Learning

In this interview, Chelsea Miller of Upskill America speaks with Nick Greif of InStride about how employers can design education benefits that are more accessible, strategic, and aligned with workforce goals.

Metrics that Matter: Improving Financial Analysis of CDFI Small Business Lenders
Podcasts Videos

Metrics that Matter: Improving Financial Analysis of CDFI Small Business Lenders

CDFI boards, leadership teams, investors, and regulators have long relied on a familiar set of financial metrics to assess organizational performance.

The Impact of Foundational Skills on Workforce Success
Podcasts Videos

The Impact of Foundational Skills on Workforce Success

This is the final event in our Job Quality in Practice series. In this conversation, hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program on May 7, 2026, we hear from the Institute’s Job Quality Fellows who are embedding job quality into their work across a range of contexts and strategies — from employee ownership models that give workers a direct financial stake in their company’s success, to apprenticeship programs that create structured pathways to higher-wage careers, to worker advisory committees that bring employee voice into business decision-making.