Meeting Title: Brainforge Senior Strategy Role Interview Date: 2026-03-10 Meeting participants: Kaela Gallagher, Leo


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1 00:00:10.560 00:00:12.430 Kaela Gallagher: Hey, Leo, how’s it going?

2 00:00:12.430 00:00:16.200 Leo: Hello! Good morning. Kayla? Is that right?

3 00:00:16.200 00:00:19.239 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, yeah, thanks for… for taking the time.

4 00:00:19.240 00:00:20.599 Leo: You’ve got it.

5 00:00:20.880 00:00:22.070 Leo: How’d get going.

6 00:00:22.190 00:00:23.939 Kaela Gallagher: Good, how’s yours?

7 00:00:24.090 00:00:25.540 Leo: Oh, it’s,

8 00:00:25.830 00:00:37.030 Leo: It’s been going, it’s been going. I have an international team based in Europe and New York, so I start very early. So yeah, yes, we’re doing great.

9 00:00:37.230 00:00:40.109 Kaela Gallagher: Oh my gosh, okay, what time do you usually start?

10 00:00:40.970 00:00:43.970 Leo: 7… 7.30…

11 00:00:44.090 00:00:51.280 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, yeah, earlier. Okay, cool. You’re currently at Disney?

12 00:00:51.490 00:00:56.610 Leo: I’m at the Walt Disney Company on the studio side within Walt Disney Pictures, that’s right.

13 00:00:56.610 00:01:02.300 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, I actually used to hire for Disney Studios quite a bit.

14 00:01:02.300 00:01:03.340 Leo: Hooray!

15 00:01:03.340 00:01:03.960 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, roughly.

16 00:01:03.960 00:01:06.600 Leo: Yay! You’re an ex-cast member, then.

17 00:01:06.600 00:01:10.649 Kaela Gallagher: Well, I was hiring, like, through an agency.

18 00:01:10.650 00:01:12.770 Leo: Okay, fair enough.

19 00:01:12.770 00:01:13.710 Kaela Gallagher: or anything, but…

20 00:01:13.710 00:01:17.009 Leo: You’re a Disney person, then. You don’t understand where we’re at.

21 00:01:17.010 00:01:18.830 Kaela Gallagher: I know, yes, yes.

22 00:01:18.830 00:01:19.550 Leo: Crazy.

23 00:01:19.550 00:01:22.349 Kaela Gallagher: I’m curious, who are you working with there?

24 00:01:23.000 00:01:46.609 Leo: I work with lots of people. So, initially, I was hired under George Kosaros’ organization, so he works with Eddie Drake, and Jamie Voris, and all of that studio technology. But the portfolio that I support is StudioLab, and that was started maybe about 6 or 7 years ago to actually

25 00:01:46.740 00:01:59.730 Leo: dive into R&D with AI, and to bring these technologies to all the studio manners. So, I think within 3 months, we had an org change, and then Studio Lab.

26 00:01:59.880 00:02:12.260 Leo: was put under the Office of Technology Enablement, and Jamie Boris, who was the CIO of Studio Technology, is now our studio,

27 00:02:12.330 00:02:22.969 Leo: CIO for all things AI across the entire Walt Disney Company, but my focus is film technology. Okay. Different banners, yeah.

28 00:02:22.970 00:02:28.199 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, got it. Are you working… do you know, like, Gia Vangieri, then?

29 00:02:28.610 00:02:28.990 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

30 00:02:28.990 00:02:31.400 Leo: Yes, yes, she is in my org, actually.

31 00:02:31.740 00:02:35.380 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, cool, yeah, I am familiar, awesome.

32 00:02:35.380 00:02:36.320 Leo: Alright!

33 00:02:37.020 00:02:38.300 Leo: How do you know Geo?

34 00:02:38.890 00:02:52.750 Kaela Gallagher: I hired for one of her, maybe two of her positions, like, in the past year or so. Okay. So, just, like, had multiple, you know, calls, just learning about what she was looking for and such.

35 00:02:52.750 00:02:59.930 Leo: Got it. Yeah, that’s really interesting. I had a brief talk with, Kyle Montgomery at

36 00:03:00.390 00:03:13.379 Leo: It’s a new agency that I’ve been talking to. I guess the folks that found you and connected you to me, and he did mention that you sort of… that your organization knew some of my people, so that explains.

37 00:03:14.450 00:03:24.509 Kaela Gallagher: Small world. Yes. Okay, cool. So, Kyle Montgomery, that is the agency that you’re, like, currently at Disney with, or through?

38 00:03:24.510 00:03:27.010 Leo: Yes, Bull City. Bull City.

39 00:03:27.010 00:03:32.330 Kaela Gallagher: The whole city. Okay. Okay. Okay. And then, like, what’s putting you on the market?

40 00:03:33.290 00:03:51.950 Leo: Great question. I would say a couple things. So, my… I’m on a contract, 2-year contract, and that is up in the end of May, so I’m very much on the market, looking for my next great opportunity within the AI space, and

41 00:03:51.950 00:04:01.890 Leo: We have an org change that’s in process. We have a new, CEO. Bob Iger is stepping down, so we anticipate lots of,

42 00:04:01.930 00:04:14.150 Leo: future work changes, no headcount, so, you know, there’s just not an opportunity to grow and move and extend right now. Okay. You know, but it’s been a great, great two years.

43 00:04:14.530 00:04:21.229 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, I was just talking with, like, one of my former coworkers yesterday, and she was saying that

44 00:04:21.390 00:04:25.210 Kaela Gallagher: the Office of, like, Technology Enablement is either, like.

45 00:04:25.410 00:04:32.300 Kaela Gallagher: converting all of their contractors, or, like, ending contracts? Like, it seems like there’s a lot of changes.

46 00:04:32.950 00:04:34.370 Leo: That sounds about right.

47 00:04:34.370 00:04:34.980 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

48 00:04:34.980 00:04:40.290 Leo: We don’t know what’s gonna happen. Yeah, so initially, I thought my contract would be renewed,

49 00:04:40.290 00:04:56.810 Leo: for a third year, so in addition, we max out at two years, and then you have to, like, go away for a year. Rare exceptions, they can do it for a third year if they can justify it, and I was one of those folks, and then with the announcement of Bob stepping down, and Josh.

50 00:04:56.810 00:05:02.599 Leo: Coming in to, you know, to lead, to help the company, you know, financial changes everywhere, so…

51 00:05:03.080 00:05:13.170 Leo: who knows what’s gonna happen, but yeah, there’s a very low headcount in my org, and I would say mostly everyone is what they call green badges at Disney Contractors.

52 00:05:13.350 00:05:15.090 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, okay. Okay.

53 00:05:15.090 00:05:17.970 Leo: Oh, that could happen, I don’t know. Yeah, we’ll see.

54 00:05:18.120 00:05:30.719 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay. I guess now that you’re, like, on the market looking for something new, what kind of, like, positions are of interest to you? You said you wanted to stay, like, in the AI space?

55 00:05:30.950 00:05:42.969 Leo: Absolutely, and I mean, it’s been a large investment on my time over the last 2 years, and this is where I think all of the energy and all the oxygen is going to now.

56 00:05:42.970 00:05:43.620 Kaela Gallagher: I trust…

57 00:05:43.620 00:05:58.159 Leo: within studio technology, but really in IT in general. So I’ve acquired a lot of expertise and comfortability, speaking to AI strategy, so I would see myself in one of those roles for sure.

58 00:05:58.160 00:06:14.880 Leo: or as a product lead, but I’d like to be more strategic, looking at going within organizations and seeing where the use cases are, and working on viability, feasibility of those, and, you know, delivering value against

59 00:06:15.650 00:06:24.490 Leo: the use cases that would ever come up. And what was interesting to me about this role is, obviously, I’m in Disney, it’s all entertainment, it’s all studio technology.

60 00:06:24.490 00:06:25.140 Kaela Gallagher: What’s good.

61 00:06:25.140 00:06:37.519 Leo: the ability to go out and market or strategize on a multiple client level is something I find really fascinating and intriguing, so here I am, excited to talk to you.

62 00:06:37.540 00:07:00.399 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, cool, yeah, so just to tell you, like, more about the role that we have open right now, I mean, we have a couple, like, data and AI engineers that we’re hiring, but on the strategy side of things, we’re hiring, like, a senior, associate, basically. We don’t have, like, traditional PMs at our company anymore.

63 00:07:00.560 00:07:16.939 Kaela Gallagher: We have actually kind of, like, built a lot of our own tooling to automate a lot of those processes, and so now people that are on the strategy side are not just, you know, PMing, but they’re client-facing and, like, very high-level strategy.

64 00:07:17.050 00:07:30.420 Kaela Gallagher: So, yeah, you would work with multiple clients, and kind of be, like, the bridge between the client and then, like, our technical teams that are building out solutions. So…

65 00:07:30.420 00:07:45.550 Kaela Gallagher: We have clients across, like, a lot of different industries. We have some, like, consumer goods, e-commerce kind of organizations. We have, like, a healthcare company, a finance company, so you definitely have exposure, to different

66 00:07:45.550 00:07:50.419 Kaela Gallagher: kinds of clients. And what we do

67 00:07:50.420 00:08:08.079 Kaela Gallagher: I mean, there’s some clients we have long-term that we kind of serve as, like, an in-house data team to them, but there’s other clients we have on shorter engagements where, you know, we’re cleaning up their data, and then once the data is structured and accurate, we can implement AI solutions on top of it.

68 00:08:08.080 00:08:12.050 Leo: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It’s a big to-do.

69 00:08:12.770 00:08:22.790 Leo: I would say as we all know, but many people do not know that that’s a major dependency, and often, you know, the kibosh that goes.

70 00:08:22.790 00:08:23.300 Kaela Gallagher: Me too.

71 00:08:23.300 00:08:28.140 Leo: AI projects. I’m dealing with a situation like that now, actually.

72 00:08:28.140 00:08:30.219 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, cool, yeah.

73 00:08:30.220 00:08:30.990 Leo: projects, yeah.

74 00:08:30.990 00:08:43.249 Kaela Gallagher: You’re familiar, yeah. I would say, like, the most important things that we’re looking for is, like, you know, obviously somebody that we trust to be client-facing and can, like, build those great relationships and communicate thoughts really clearly, especially, like.

75 00:08:43.309 00:08:56.809 Kaela Gallagher: technical thoughts in ways that, our clients might understand. And then somebody to just be really flexible, like, there’s, you know, we’re obviously a startup, we’re about 25 people right now, and

76 00:08:56.810 00:09:05.950 Kaela Gallagher: things are always moving. We work at a really fast pace. Our average engagement is about 3 months long, so we don’t have a ton of time

77 00:09:05.950 00:09:15.079 Kaela Gallagher: to, you know, implement the solution. So, just somebody that can adjust, can learn new things. We’re working a lot with, like.

78 00:09:15.120 00:09:21.529 Kaela Gallagher: cursor and GitHub is kind of like the brain of our company, and so,

79 00:09:21.700 00:09:31.580 Kaela Gallagher: like I mentioned, like, we’ve automated a lot of our PM tasks, and we would be asking you to, you know, use AI to do that as well. So, yeah.

80 00:09:32.130 00:09:34.519 Leo: What’s an example of a PM

81 00:09:35.100 00:09:37.830 Leo: automation. I have my own ideas.

82 00:09:37.830 00:09:38.240 Kaela Gallagher: Yay!

83 00:09:38.310 00:09:44.250 Leo: And I’ve automated some of my tasks, but I’m curious, kind of, what you’re seeing on your side.

84 00:09:44.530 00:09:47.929 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so we have automated,

85 00:09:47.950 00:10:05.409 Kaela Gallagher: a lot of things. Basically, all of our, like, calls like this are stored in, like, the brain of our company, and so we can go in and say, like, hey, you know, look at the meeting notes with this client from the past week and prep me for today’s call.

86 00:10:05.480 00:10:16.590 Kaela Gallagher: create a deck. You can even, like, create a slide deck, and then after the call, you can say, based on that meeting, create all of my tickets for engineers,

87 00:10:17.680 00:10:24.370 Leo: That’s great, that’s great. Yeah, we do, well, we’re rolling out Copilot, That’d be super helpful, yeah.

88 00:10:24.410 00:10:34.069 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah. So, I have one really complicated non-AI-related project that involves, tearing down the physical space where we showcase all of our AI demos.

89 00:10:34.150 00:10:47.400 Leo: And there’s so many dependencies, and, like, there’s, like, electrical engineering, there’s lighting people, power, I mean, it’s really… and it’s, like, the physical place where, like, Bob Eicher goes into, so it needs to be executed.

90 00:10:47.400 00:10:51.059 Kaela Gallagher: Oh my gosh. Wait, were you working with Todd Soli for that?

91 00:10:51.360 00:10:53.119 Leo: He’s… he’s in my org.

92 00:10:53.660 00:11:01.679 Leo: Not on this project, but Todd has been integral with the partnership. Sounds like you’re pretty familiar. Yeah.

93 00:11:01.680 00:11:02.240 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

94 00:11:02.240 00:11:06.930 Leo: standing up the Microsoft engagement that I did with the VFX program.

95 00:11:06.930 00:11:07.990 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

96 00:11:08.260 00:11:12.290 Leo: for Marvel, and for MPL Motion Picture Lab, with,

97 00:11:12.290 00:11:12.670 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

98 00:11:12.670 00:11:22.460 Leo: Matt Walters, yeah, he’s… he spearheaded, kind of, like, that partnership with legal. We work very closely with legal, you know, for the SOWs and the engagement and what that.

99 00:11:22.460 00:11:22.999 Kaela Gallagher: I’m gonna look.

100 00:11:23.000 00:11:33.789 Leo: like, that partnership, and, you know, how many VIK funding levels we’re gonna get, and if they’re gonna give us 2 or 3 engineers, full-time, part-time, that whole thing, yeah.

101 00:11:33.790 00:11:34.190 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

102 00:11:34.190 00:11:39.570 Leo: There’s a big hardware component there, AI machines, but yeah, Todd’s great.

103 00:11:39.920 00:11:40.480 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah.

104 00:11:40.480 00:11:54.830 Leo: So, to your point, yes, Copilot’s great, you know, with that really complicated project, there was, like, a hundred different action items, like, it’s all over the place. It’s amazing what… how useful that can be. So you can focus on building and delivering, right?

105 00:11:54.830 00:11:59.350 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, cool.

106 00:11:59.870 00:12:15.419 Kaela Gallagher: I guess, like, just an overview of kind of what our interview process would look like if you’re interested in moving forward. We have 3 rounds, so kind of like an initial, culture fit and, like, communication assessment, which I’m sure you would

107 00:12:15.420 00:12:23.150 Kaela Gallagher: Pass with flying colors. The second round is a bit more, like, technical, like, really kind of deep diving, like, into…

108 00:12:23.410 00:12:42.300 Kaela Gallagher: the role, and maybe going through some, like, practical examples of what you might, run into on the job, and then the third round, we give you, like, a challenge to solve, and so you basically bring, like, your solution to the final round, present it to a panel, and, they’ll, like, you know.

109 00:12:42.540 00:12:54.639 Kaela Gallagher: ask some questions about what you came up with. So, that’s what our process looks like now, but yeah, curious if this, like, senior strategy role sounds of interest to you, and if Brainforge is something you’re interested in as well.

110 00:12:54.640 00:12:59.419 Leo: It absolutely is something that I’m interested in. I have some questions as well.

111 00:13:00.930 00:13:02.829 Leo: On what you guys do.

112 00:13:03.700 00:13:19.510 Leo: Sorry, my phone just dinged. Can you give me a sense of what your typical engagement is with, your clients, in terms of strategy, advisory, or… like, you mentioned cursor,

113 00:13:19.590 00:13:26.750 Leo: and GitHub, but, like, essentially, what is the core product that you guys are, Promote it.

114 00:13:27.280 00:13:43.669 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so because we’re consulting, we don’t have, like, a product that we deliver per se. Like, we don’t have a software or, like, a, physical product, for example. We’re really, like, bringing in solutions, and I think a lot of consulting companies, like.

115 00:13:43.670 00:13:54.559 Kaela Gallagher: will kind of build maybe a plan for you, but then you have to hire engineers to actually implement it. But we do… we do it all. Like, we… we have engineers that are actually going to, like.

116 00:13:54.560 00:14:05.819 Kaela Gallagher: go into the data warehouse and structure that and, you know, set up some AI tooling and chatbot on top of it. And so we’re using, like, existing

117 00:14:05.820 00:14:21.940 Kaela Gallagher: tools. So, for example, we’re implementing, like, Omni for our clients, which is like a Power BI, basically. Or we’re implementing Snowflake, obviously, like, a huge data warehouse. So, really kind of like services for our clients.

118 00:14:22.610 00:14:23.260 Leo: Okay.

119 00:14:24.180 00:14:30.930 Leo: Good. You mentioned a few industries, medical.

120 00:14:33.540 00:14:34.990 Kaela Gallagher: consumer, yeah.

121 00:14:34.990 00:14:41.189 Leo: e-commerce? Yeah. Where are you seeing the most AI demand? What sector?

122 00:14:41.550 00:14:42.410 Kaela Gallagher: Hmm.

123 00:14:43.010 00:14:48.889 Kaela Gallagher: I mean, a lot of our clients have come from, like, relationships that our CEOs have.

124 00:14:48.940 00:15:06.780 Kaela Gallagher: They both used to work in, like, the e-com and CPG, like, spaces, so I think that’s just where a lot of our clients are right now, because that’s, like, our network. But in terms of, like, the most demand in the AI space in general.

125 00:15:08.140 00:15:16.710 Kaela Gallagher: I mean, that’s hard to say, it’s hard to name an industry. I just, you know, most of our clients are just in e-com or CPG, given our relationships.

126 00:15:16.880 00:15:25.429 Leo: Got it. So, small company, startup, how is your company funded?

127 00:15:25.510 00:15:42.470 Leo: you don’t have to go into all the detail behind that, but just kind of want to get a sense. And then, would this be… you know, what kind of setup are we talking about? Is this full-time? Is it on a contract basis? Is there a duration? Is it project-based?

128 00:15:42.780 00:15:45.550 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, yeah, so,

129 00:15:45.920 00:15:59.449 Kaela Gallagher: Funding, we’ve… we’ve never, like, taken, funding. We’ve been, like, profitable since day one, because it’s, like, consulting services, so we’ve always just charged for our services and, been profitable.

130 00:15:59.730 00:16:04.789 Kaela Gallagher: So that, yeah, that answers the funding question, and then what was your other one?

131 00:16:05.790 00:16:09.009 Leo: the role itself, what’s the setup? Like, what’s the.

132 00:16:09.010 00:16:09.340 Kaela Gallagher: Oh.

133 00:16:09.340 00:16:13.140 Leo: Or is it full-time? Is it contract? Project-based?

134 00:16:13.330 00:16:30.409 Kaela Gallagher: Yes. So, the goal is to be able to hire people W2. I’m… I actually was, like, brought on to help solve this problem, so, I’m in the process of, like, trying to convert people to W-2 and make that, like, more of a structured thing and bring in benefits.

135 00:16:30.410 00:16:40.610 Kaela Gallagher: But right now, everybody at the organization is, like, just 1099. Okay. And it’s, like, just indefinite. You know, it’s not, like, for a certain term.

136 00:16:42.060 00:16:42.970 Leo: Okay.

137 00:16:43.270 00:16:44.170 Kaela Gallagher: Fair enough.

138 00:16:44.210 00:16:45.040 Leo: Yeah?

139 00:16:45.590 00:16:46.170 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.

140 00:16:46.170 00:16:49.410 Leo: 1099 is good. And where are you guys based?

141 00:16:49.580 00:16:50.889 Kaela Gallagher: We’re fully remote.

142 00:16:51.230 00:17:08.999 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, so we have kind of, like, a core team in the US, but we also have some, like, technical talent outside of the U.S. as well. But for the most part, everybody’s, like, working Eastern hours, and then I’m based in LA, so I’m working, you know, 8 to 5.

143 00:17:09.750 00:17:11.449 Kaela Gallagher: Starting, like, a little bit earlier.

144 00:17:11.750 00:17:12.349 Leo: Yeah.

145 00:17:12.930 00:17:16.879 Leo: Okay, good, good, good. Great, let’s see what else I have for you.

146 00:17:17.290 00:17:18.060 Kaela Gallagher: Cool.

147 00:17:22.000 00:17:22.810 Leo: Okay…

148 00:17:29.160 00:17:41.110 Leo: I think that covers… just about every major area that I wanted to touch. I was scanning through… Okay.

149 00:17:41.300 00:17:43.149 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, and if you do think of anything later.

150 00:17:43.150 00:17:44.420 Leo: Like, feel free to…

151 00:17:44.970 00:17:46.869 Kaela Gallagher: Shoot me a message as well.

152 00:17:47.920 00:17:51.570 Leo: So, I’m very interested. I would love to,

153 00:17:52.510 00:17:58.370 Leo: you know, keep the conversation going. I suppose we need to talk about salary compensation?

154 00:18:00.470 00:18:04.139 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, what’s, like, the range that you’re… you’re targeting?

155 00:18:04.290 00:18:12.460 Leo: I am seeing roles in strategy, and I’m interviewing for actually quite a number of other studios as well.

156 00:18:12.850 00:18:17.910 Leo: The whole Warner Brothers thing is… I had a role that was,

157 00:18:18.080 00:18:33.039 Leo: you know, maybe about a month or so ago, and then the Paramount thing just totally put the kibosh on that, but I’m seeing, rolls for, like, between 160 an hour on a corp-to-corp, or a 1099 basis.

158 00:18:33.040 00:18:42.900 Leo: And full-time, between 250K, depending on, you know, what the bonus structures are like.

159 00:18:43.080 00:18:45.140 Leo: That’s in those areas.

160 00:18:45.140 00:18:50.570 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, okay, and the 215 to $250K, is that, like, total comp or base?

161 00:18:50.910 00:18:56.919 Leo: Between base, so I’d like to hopefully end up somewhere in the middle of that, 2.30, yeah.

162 00:18:57.780 00:19:00.489 Leo: Okay. 235, I think, is fair.

163 00:19:00.740 00:19:01.150 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

164 00:19:01.150 00:19:03.200 Leo: Strategy role, absolutely, yeah.

165 00:19:03.340 00:19:21.250 Kaela Gallagher: Okay, got it. Yeah, let me partner with, my CEO on that. We’re still building out some, like, structure to our rates as well. So yeah, I’m always asking, like, what people are targeting. So, yeah, before I move you forward, let me just make sure that that’s something that we could…

166 00:19:21.250 00:19:24.889 Kaela Gallagher: Meat, so that we don’t, you know, waste your time if…

167 00:19:25.080 00:19:34.800 Kaela Gallagher: If that’s something that’s not viable for us, and then, yeah, if it makes sense, then I can definitely, like, send you a first-round invitation, and we can go from there.

168 00:19:35.560 00:19:36.370 Leo: Sounds good.

169 00:19:36.370 00:19:37.050 Kaela Gallagher: Okay.

170 00:19:37.050 00:19:38.430 Leo: Definitely negotiable.

171 00:19:38.430 00:19:41.749 Kaela Gallagher: Okay. Alrighty, cool. Well, thanks so much for your time.

172 00:19:41.750 00:19:43.279 Leo: Pleasure, yeah.

173 00:19:43.280 00:19:44.979 Kaela Gallagher: Yeah, great getting to know you.

174 00:19:44.980 00:19:45.850 Leo: Same.

175 00:19:45.850 00:19:47.399 Kaela Gallagher: Alrighty. Talk to you later.

176 00:19:47.420 00:19:49.140 Leo: Have a great day. Bye.