Interview Requests
Podcasts and panels
I run three organizations and study what makes them durable. I take a small number of interviews a year, and the useful ones are the conversations where a host wants specifics rather than a highlight reel.
What I bring to an episode
More than fifteen years in operating roles across cancer advocacy, commercial real estate, and health technology, and one problem that kept recurring in all of them: an organization builds real capability, the capability turns out to live inside one or two people, and when they leave it leaves with them. In August 2026 I began doctoral study at Texas State University's McCoy College of Business to study that formally.
I bring numbers, the parts that broke, and what I would do differently. I have joined shows including The AI Edge, Flex Uncensored, INspired INsider, and The Stupid Cancer Show.
Subjects I can speak to
What happens when the operator leaves
Between 2012 and 2016 I built an online store inside a nonprofit that grew from a single twenty-dollar t-shirt to roughly $275,000 a year and funded national programs. It was financially successful and it did not survive a leadership transition. That failure is the reason I went back to school, and it is a more useful story than most success stories.
- Organizational durability
- Leadership transitions
- Knowledge transfer
Three organizations, one operating job
CEO of a private office company, CEO of a national cancer nonprofit, CTO of a health technology company. Different sectors, different constraints, the same underlying work: write the procedures down, design systems that do not require a specific person to run them, and stay close enough to notice when they break.
- Operations
- Nonprofit leadership
- Executive practice
Building something a small team can maintain
At the Testicular Cancer Foundation we put patient support in front of people in ten languages, outside staffed hours, with a very small team. The interesting part is not the technology. It is what had to be documented first, and whether the thing still runs when the person who built it is on vacation.
- Health technology
- Documentation
- Small-team operations
A sitting CEO goes back to school
After fifteen years working alongside people with licenses, degrees, and certifications I did not have, a doctorate was the natural next step. What is genuinely surprising is how quickly formal research methods change the way you read your own organization, including which of your convictions turn out to be untested.
- Doctoral research
- Executive education
- Evidence and practice
The details
A bio for your show notes
Kenny Kane is CEO of Firmspace, a premium private office and executive suite company with locations in Austin, Denver, Houston, and Atlanta; CEO of the Testicular Cancer Foundation; and Co-Founder, Board Member, and Chief Technology Officer of Gryt Health. He spent six years at Stupid Cancer, joining as an intern in 2010 and leaving as Chief Operating Officer in 2016. He is the author of three books and a doctoral student at Texas State University's McCoy College of Business, where his research interests are in organizational durability and leadership transitions. He lives in Austin, Texas.
Let's make a good episode.
Send your show's name, format, and the subjects you want to cover. I respond within 48 hours.
Email Kenny