Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Why Founders Must Rethink Their Teams in the Age of AI

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

AI is changing more than workflows — it is changing what teams are, how leaders lead, and what kinds of people businesses need next. In this episode, Ryan Alford talks with Veronica Shelton, co-founder of Oak Theory, about accessibility, inclusive design, neurodivergent thinking, leadership without ego, and why curiosity is often the trait that separates good founders from great ones. They also go deep on the practical side of AI adoption: how roles are blending, how companies can stay lean without losing humanity, and why resisting change is no longer a viable option. Ryan connects with Veronica especially around founder leadership, team evolution, and the challenge of helping people adapt to a world where AI is becoming part of nearly every role. The result is a smart, current conversation for anyone building a company, managing creative work, or trying to understand where modern work is actually headed. Topics Covered Veronica Shelton’s path into product design and creative tech Why curiosity drives real success Accessibility, psychology, and better digital experiences The human implications of AI at work How Oak Theory is evolving team roles with AI Why leaders need to drop ego and tell the truth Ryan Alford and Veronica Shelton on what adaptation really looks like Links Oak Theory: oaktheory.co Under the Oak: undertheoak.co Veronica Shelton on LinkedIn: LinkedIn profile for Oak Theory co-founder Veronica Shelton. Right About Now / Ryan Alford: ryanisright.com

Leave you or go out the door and always be straightforward and honest. People who will want to work with you will work with you. I don't think I'm smarter than anyone on my team or else why the hell would they be there? I think with those things in mind, it allows me to be honest with my team open. I'm not anyone on my team's competitor. There's nothing in me that wants to feel better than you. I want you to feel like you want to be here because at the end of the day, the truth is, each one of those people on your team are building your dream.

Most business advice is wrong. built on opinions, echoed by people who've never done it. But the truth, it's simpler and harder. You don't win by following the playbook. You win by rewriting it. 700 episodes deep with the people who actually built something real. No theory, no fluff, no shortcuts. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford.

Hello and welcome to write a lot. about now. We're always mixing things up. You never know what to expect, even with our countdowns for our guests. I am excited today. I'll be honest. You do this show. I've had 700 guests. Sometimes I get in here and I start talking with the guests. I'm going to jive with this person, but we're going to make some lemonade out of lemons. I don't have a problem today. We have the lovely Veronica Shelton. She is the co-founder of Oak Theory. What's up, Veronica? What's up, Ryan? Hi, how are you? I am fabulous. Reading everything you've done, all the brands you're working with, everything you're doing with Oak Theory, it's cool.

What the hell is Oak Theory? Oak Theory, we're a product design studio. Now we're calling ourselves a creative tech studio. We build product, software, applications, digital experiences, and just flow with it. Full service. How'd you get into this? Nothing gets my attention like neuro-spicy creativity. I am neurotypical.

I have autism, but level one, that played a huge part in me being with in the industry that I'm in. I'm obsessed with and not just tech, but how humans do. use it and how we adapt to things, which is going crazy right now with AI. There's a huge psychological side to it. What's the key to success? Because everybody wants the blueprint. A lot of people listen to the show. They're wanting to get the cheat sheet from people like yourself and others. Curiosity. The most successful people are the most curious people I know. They have to like figure something out because if you don't have that, then you probably aren't solving a problem that you

would get paid to solve anyway. If you're curious about something, you go deeper. You just like something like, oh, I like this business. I'm just going to do this business surface level. Well, you'll just stay in that space. You'll never get more. You're a woman of color. You've got two things that are very untypical for that space. Being both a woman and a woman of color, what's that been like? I am what my friends call a go to retriever. Always happy, smile glued. Even in that situation, I feel like it's been such a superpower. I have a perspective that not a lot of people have because of who I am. I bring that to the table with everything. The way you look at tech is probably different sometimes in the way I look at experience.

experiences and in the way that I even have to go into meetings and how I am listened to versus not listen to sometimes. There's been, of course, these learning moments. I'd rather call them learning than negative across the board. There's been a lot of positive in it. If you're vocal about the value that you bring and you don't hide it, it leaves a lot of space for us to lean in and focus on innovation and how to do things and stay curious about things together. What I think, wouldn't Veronica's perspective because she's smart, she understands the stuff, the diversity that you bring. I'm totally stereotyped here. So I don't need another dorky 27-year-old guy telling me something about tech. What do you think when you have those discussions or you're working with clients? What do you think that diversity and thought process for you? What colors do you paint with? What do you think changes it from your perspective when you get in those discussions about technology or building products? With technology, the one beautiful thing that I like about it is similar to math. Certain demographic data doesn't matter. A lot of times with tech, it's more so about our brand. how we navigate things.

That's something we share across the board as humans. It brings us together. It's why there's so much unity in it because there's so little bias that is surface level. It's all here. Usually the conversations never have to do with how I look until we get past look.

A lot of times of clients when they come in and they meet Hannah and I. Hannah is Korean. I'm black. We're both women. People do not expect us to be who we are because of the biases and shit that's out there. That is a mountain that we have to climb over in a lot more meetings than I'd like to admit to be able to get to the good stuff.

Usually, we've had it more times. Are you guys? It would be working on the project. Hi. Who's the tech lead? Hi. Really? Yes.

Can we please just, I promise you, if we can get to it, you'll understand. Google, Disney, and Sephora. Can you talk about the types of projects or things you've done with some of these companies? With Disney, I was working on children's books. I got to creative direct quite a few big titles, which was really. really fun. And that was me working with brilliant artists and copywriters and printing team publishing. There was a lot of different books that I worked on. It was going into a project doing a global campaign with a humongous company, makeup company. And that was working on things all the way from

figuring out what models were going to use. I was very vocal about being a black woman in tech. I say back then, it was maybe 10 years ago, eight years ago. It was a bit more on the publishing side. With Sephora, it was like, hey, you have these models. You have one type of Asian model. You have one type of black model, one type of Latina model. If we look at some of the stats, I was able to come to the table and be like, if we look at the numbers, this is not what they all look. Usually models that have a look that's not commercial enough for it to probably attract the demographic you're going for. Here's numbers to prove what I'm saying, so it doesn't sound stupid. Same with Lamsonamo. I was able to work on a project that introduced the first

family of black family in their catalog. So those are things that were race related in those projects. And then when we go to things like Google working on their diversity supplier platform, which is bigger. It's a bigger issue when it comes to diversity because we're talking about a lot of people across the board. Google's huge of global. We're looking at a diversity platform. It's not a black and white thing. There's people of all shades and all colors and all backgrounds who go into that fun projects to work on.