How Daniel manages risk, builds trust, and advocates for safety in the TikTok era.

In Leaders in Learning, we sit down with industry leaders and explore their lives and experiences to uncover the learning principles, key moments, and common threads that shape careers, businesses, and journeys. Through these collective stories, we'll piece together the bigger picture of what it means to be a leader in learning.

In episode 6, we sit down with Daniel Garcia Alfisi. Daniel's career spans decades, industries, and continents, giving him an incredibly unique and global perspective on the intersection of technology, education, and culture.

At the time of recording, Daniel was the Global Head of L&D, Talent Development, Trust & Safety at ByteDance ( TikTok ). His title provides a pretty accurate preview of some of the topics we tackle. 

During our conversation, Daniel reflects on his experiences living on almost every continent and working for companies like IKEA, Millicom (Tigo), Amazon, and ByteDance. He draws on his past and offers invaluable insights into new career frameworks, nurturing global talent, fostering trust, safety, and growth (for social media users, content creators, and employees), building resilience and adaptability, making learning as addictive as social media, why he believes blockchain could be a game changer for the future of talent mobility, and more. 

Get it all in the full episode, or read on for the key takeaways.

An unconventional take: L&D as a risk management function

We’ve had many conversations about learning and development this season, but this is the first time we talked about it as a risk management function. (Quite the departure from the feel-good projects we typically associate with L&D, like leadership development or performance enhancement.)  

When you’re dealing with technology and social media platforms, safety is a top concern. In Daniel’s words, “It’s crucial.” So crucial that it’s part of his job title.

"People need to feel that when they navigate these platforms, that they are safe, the content is safe, their children are safe."

Daniel explains how the stakes are incredibly high at ByteDance due to the nature of the content being moderated on the TikTok platform. "You're talking about sexual abuse, trafficking, toxicity, bullying.” (Not to mention elections, wars, etc.) “You need to take it very seriously.” He adds, “The tone of voice of everything that you develop from a learning standpoint has to meet that need. But at the same time, you also need to engage your learners.” He admits that finding the right balance between gravity and grabbing the learner’s attention can be tricky but, in this environment, it’s the key to success.

He also highlights the importance of readiness as an element of risk management, especially in crisis situations. He grounds his point in a recent real-world example. "All our moderators have their own political views, different religions, and even if they don't mean to, they judge content in different ways.” During the Gaza conflict, Daniel’s team had to develop training that helped moderators understand and manage their biases. Of course, there’s the potential for technology to help with this but, just like people, technology also needs to be trained not to be biased. (A concept Taggart McCurdy explored in his episode.)

"We need to train our algorithms to evolve… to get smarter so they can help filter content."

Daniel strongly believes diverse points of view are key to success for social platforms. “We can count on all those perspectives to make something the audience will be as balanced as possible.” This idea of diverse perspectives and global teams adding value was central to our conversation.

Navigating global nuances and scaling learning

Going global isn’t just good for diversity. It’s also good for business. In recent years, emerging markets and developing economies collectively accounted for approximately 60% of global GDP. This translates to tens of trillions of dollars. Figuring out how to take a global strategy and localize it in emerging markets will be critical for many businesses to grow.

While going global represents a huge opportunity, it’s not without its obstacles. When asked if he had any tips on navigating these challenges, especially cultural nuances, Daniel suggests grounding conversations in data, rather than values. “Values are really close to our heart. The moment you talk about values with someone, you trigger emotions because it becomes your emotions and beliefs versus theirs," which derails the conversation. He also encourages people to be curious, empathetic, and authentic. These traits transcend culture, and as Jason Weeman shared in his episode, they’re traits great leaders have in common.

As for scaling earning programs, Daniel suggests starting small. It can be tempting to try to reach as many people as possible as soon as possible, but he advises against it. In his experience, when you design for scale from the beginning, “that’s when you make mistakes” because you skip so many of the vital lessons you learn by starting small.”

"Those things you think are an overnight success have been two years in the making and started small."

The same goes for trying to repeat success. Daniel cautions that just because something works in one region, doesn’t mean it’ll work in another. Case in point: The Millennium Project, a United Nations-back initiative to train midwives in remote villages in Africa. (Oddly enough, Daniel isn’t our only guest to learn valuable lessons about how the IT infrastructure in Africa can impact learning. Maureen Lonergan shared a similar story with us.)

By this point in his career, Daniel had successfully built IKEA's first digital learning center. So he was pretty familiar with designing, deploying, and scaling digital learning programs. What he wasn't familiar with was the infrastructure. Africa bypassed traditional wired internet and leapfrogged directly to wireless technology. Which meant the computer-based approach that had worked for IKEA wasn’t going to fly in Africa. Fortunately, wireless technology was gaining traction, so Daniel and his team ventured into mobile learning and created small JavaScript apps for early model Sony Ericssons and BlackBerry devices.  

Daniel considers how his varied experiences living and working across continents shaped his approach to problem-solving and innovation. "It's an intangible component of what you bring in terms of experience. It helps you anticipate looking around corners and maybe avoid making some mistakes," he reflects.

So, Daniel figured out how to deliver effective learning in Africa. Does he have any tips for developing effective learning in the social media era?

Making effective learning in the social media era

Social media is shrinking attention spans, making it more challenging for L&D professionals to capture and maintain learners' attention. Daniel acknowledgesd that while platforms like TikTok and YouTube have made learning content more accessible, they also pose challenges in terms of engagement and retention. "Shorter attention spans are not helping anchoring significant relevant learning," he notes.

To address this, Daniel emphasizes the importance of creating content that is both engaging and educational—something only 18% of L&D professionals think they do well. He shared insights from his time at business school, where understanding the customer journey and designing experiences that matter to the customer were key strategies. "The first secret is really understanding your target audience and designing intentionally for what they really need and what they really want."

He points out that learning apps like Duolingo succeed because they capture people who are already motivated to learn.

"You don't go to Duolingo to see funny videos about cats. There’s already an intention to learn a language."

He calls out the potential for AI to help with this by making learning experiences more personalized to engage and motivate learners.

Daniel also sees the potential of another technology: Blockchain. Daniel predicts, "Blockchain can bring trust and transparency to our achievements in terms of diplomas, certifications, or anything we want to show that we've learned in our career." MIT and IBM are already using blockchain for this purpose, and Daniel thinks it will become more prevalent." If he’s right, this could revolutionize how we manage and verify credentials, making it easier for professionals to navigate global job markets, which could dramatically change career paths.

Non-traditional career paths

If we’ve learned one thing this season, it’s that there’s no single, “right” formula to becoming a leader in learning. Many of our guests (most in fact) don’t have what you’d consider a conventional education in L&D—making Daniel something of an exception. He acknowledges, "I was lucky enough to know that education was a passion for me.” He followed that passion and got degrees in Educational Psychology, E-learning, and Information & Communication Technology. What he didn’t know was where it’d take him. 

Just as Daniel was beginning his career, education and IT were converging, e-learning was becoming increasingly popular, and mobile learning was nascent. He recalls, “Maybe 20 years ago in Italy, I was playing with mobile and e-learning and these very new authoring tools. And I discovered there’s a lot of potential in what we are building here!” That serendipitous experience put him on the path to becoming a learning leader.

"There's no ‘right’ way. There's no ideal path."

As we talked about career paths and the different shapes they can take, Daniel muses that it’s less about the shape and more about creating the right environment for employees to learn and grow. (An opinion Josh Bersin shared in his episode.)

He advocates for a shift from traditional linear career paths to more flexible, Y-shaped career frameworks and believes organizations should allow employees to grow whichever way they want (whether it’s as technical experts or as people leaders.) "Creating those conditions for employees to thrive and say, "I've been doing this for a while, but now I want to do that,' is groundbreaking."

"An individual will feel successful if they can change careers or at any time."

He explains how this approach not only helps retain talent but also ensures that employees are aligned with business goals. As long as an employee is contributing, and that contribution aligns with what the business needs, Daniel believes “it will lead to positive results.” He argues, “This obsession with retaining people plays against the sustainability of the business." Daniel believes organizations can build a more resilient and adaptable workforce by nurturing talent and allowing them to explore different career paths (even if it means encouraging them to leave). What Daniel is describing is a talent destination. As Jessica Winder explores in her episode, being a talent destination is about more than retention or attrition, it’s about growth.

"Think about how you can develop. How you can learn. How you can tap into something or someone that can help you grow."

Throughout our discussion, Daniel highlights the multifaceted nature of learning and development. His perspective underscores the critical role of learning in preparing global employees to navigate the complexities of the modern world—which is particularly vital for technology and social media companies like TikTok, where employees need to moderate content and maintain platform safety. It also serves as a reminder that while L&D functions may vary across organizations, the primary goal remains consistent: To foster an environment that encourages resilience, adaptability, and growth.

If anything we covered in this edition piqued your interest, be sure to watch the full-length interview, as Daniel explores these topics (and many more) in greater detail. 

If you have questions or thoughts about anything covered in episode 6 let us know in the comments. And, if you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to Leaders in Learning so you’ll never miss an episode.