CAREER & SPIRITUALITY
Conversations
We investigate where professional and spiritual journeys intertwine.
Episode 54 – The Human Edge in the Age of AI
With Roy Vella
About this episode
In this episode of Career & Spirituality Conversations, I had the pleasure to interview “grizzli-stricken” globe trotter and fintech expert Roy Vella, about the intersection of AI, spirituality, and human connection at work and beyond.
We explored how curiosity fuels innovation, how collective intelligence can make teams more effective, and why presence—not performance—is the true measure of success. Roy also shares how his company is reimagining meetings through AI-driven collaboration analytics, helping leaders create smarter, more conscious workplaces.
About Roy Vella
Roy is a deep-tech strategist, futurist, and CEO of Next Collab, a platform that uses AI to measure and improve meeting effectiveness. With a background in business and law and decades of experience across continents, Roy blends technology, psychology, and collaboration science to help teams work with more clarity, purpose, and humanity.
He describes himself as curious, extroverted, and enthusiastic—driven by a belief that giving and learning are two sides of the same coin.
Episode Takeaways
- How curiosity shaped Roy’s journey across technology, AI, law, and global adventure
- Why presence and attention are the real foundations of meaningful leadership
- What spirituality looks like without religion — the “energy between people”
- How collective intelligence explains better teamwork, better decisions, and better meetings
- What Roy learned about identity and belonging from his time living in Cameroon
- How feedback from introverts changed his entire approach to communication
- How his company Next Collab uses AI to transform meetings into shorter, smarter, more intentional collaboration
Ready for a more efficiently collaborative workplace?
You’ll find this conversation useful if you’re curious about using AI to improve teamwork and productivity, if you’re seeking to build spiritually intelligent organizations, blending technology and humanity for real impact, and learning from curiosity, connection, and collective wisdom.
About Roy
Roy’s spent most of his career leading growth in fintech organizations, from founding one out of Stanford (that was acquired), then starting 3 new lines of business at PayPal (that is, Merchant Services, Travel and Mobile which brought him to London) to working with a wide array of enterprises large and small throughout EMEA. Now back in the States, Roy’s focused on deeptech (AI/ML, Big Data, Climate, Energy, etc.) ventures, that is, impressive core science that needs help commercializing. More details and further background are obviously available at LinkedIn.
