Meaningful Conversations with Annyse
Meaningful Conversations with Annyse
Podcast Description
Meaningful Conversation is a heartfelt series of discussions led by Annyse Balkwill, featuring inspiring female leaders from the water industry and beyond.
With warmth and compassion, Annyse and her guests explore the possibilities for a future shaped by equity and inclusion, envisioning a world we want our sons and daughters to thrive in. Together, they delve into what our homes, systems, and organizations could look like if they genuinely valued and embraced women of all backgrounds.
By stepping into a space of imagination, these conversations allow us to pause, reflect, and uncover our true desires. In this creative state, we unlock the potential to envision—and ultimately create—a future that reflects the power of inclusion and possibility.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The show focuses on equity, inclusion, and the future of women in leadership roles, with episodes that explore innovative ideas in the water industry, like the PFAS Management Company's approach to environmental challenges and personal stories of female leaders shaping inclusive systems.
Meaningful Conversation is a heartfelt series of discussions led by Annyse Balkwill, featuring inspiring female leaders from the water industry and beyond.With warmth and compassion, Annyse and her guests explore the possibilities for a future shaped by equity and inclusion, envisioning a world we want our sons and daughters to thrive in. Together, they delve into what our homes, systems, and organizations could look like if they genuinely valued and embraced women of all backgrounds.By stepping into a space of imagination, these conversations allow us to pause, reflect, and uncover our true desires. In this creative state, we unlock the potential to envision—and ultimately create—a future that reflects the power of inclusion and possibility.
What would it take to make sure everyone – everyone – has access to safe, clean, affordable water? In this episode, Annyse sits down with Wendy Broley for a conversation that moves from a single card drawn from a deck (”Hope”) to the future of water, the limits of control and the kind of leadership the next chapter will actually require.
Wendy's throughline is disarmingly human: the hardest problems in water aren't only technical – they're relational. Solving them means stitching back together a system we deliberately broke into pieces and that takes vulnerability, trust and the willingness to show up as our whole selves. By the time the recording stopped, it felt less like an interview and more like two friends thinking out loud. We suspect you'll feel the same.
About Wendy
Wendy Broley is Executive Vice President at Brown and Caldwell, where she leads the firm's private sector business unit after previously serving as Chief Technology Officer. A licensed professional engineer with a background in drinking water and reuse planning, engineering, and operations, she has spent 25 years working with municipal and private sector agencies to build more diverse, resilient water portfolios through alternative supplies and integrated ”One Water” planning.
Wendy is also Executive Director of the California Urban Water Agencies, where she's helped shape state water policy on reuse, One Water, affordability, and accessibility. She was a Co-Principal Investigator on the Water Research Foundation's Blueprint for One Water, advancing One Water thinking into the culture and operations of water organizations.
What we cover
- Wendy chose the ”Hope” card and why hope is action, clarity, and vision rather than something soft
- The Hopes & Fears practice for teams, and why naming hopes and fears out loud changes outcomes
- Control as a source of tension and how hope redirects that energy toward shared movement
- ”What got us here is not going to get us there”: why the water industry's past successes won't solve its next problems
- One Water – reconnecting the fragmented governance of water, wastewater, and stormwater into a single interconnected cycle
- How the California Urban Water Agencies built unity among 11 agencies around one shared vision
- Water as an economic engine and the workforce development opportunity hiding in plain sight
- The ”And” in leadership – holding your own role while lifting the whole organization
- Why slowing down and defining the problem beats defaulting to speed
- Two-way doors, treating decisions as experiments and seeing mistakes as data
- Authenticity over persona and the myth of control that keeps us small
Memorable quotes
”What got us here is not going to get us there.”
”The solutions aren't just technical – they're relational, they're regional, they're about connection and trust.”
”A mistake is just data, and we are just learning.”
”Creating room for people to just be calms the collective nervous system.”
Resources & links
- Brown and Caldwell – Home – Brown and Caldwell
- California Urban Water Agencies – California Urban Water Agencies
- Water Research Foundation, Blueprint for One Water – Blueprint for One Water | The Water Research Foundation
- UN Sustainable Development Goal 6 (Clean Water & Sanitation) – Goal 6: Water and Sanitation – United Nations Sustainable Development
Disclaimer
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