High Growth Matters: Recent Episodes
OpenComp
High Growth Matters is a podcast for influential players in tech looking for insider knowledge on building a badass business. You’re about to hear a conversation around hiring, retention, fundraising, leadership, diversity, and more. Welcome to High Growth Matters!
How can people leaders work with their founders and executives to prioritize pay equity and transparency — something employees, candidates, governments, and boards increasingly demand? In this episode, we speak with Brian Kaiser, Co-founder, and CTO of a Series D company backed by impressive VCs like Accel, Bain, and others about their journey toward pay transparency.
While some organizations treat recruiters like order takers, others prioritize talent acquisition as a function that’s central to company success. In this episode, we talk to Julie Farr-Voller, head of recruiting at late-stage hypergrowth startup Dataminr, about how her team has elevated recruiting into a strategic function.
Join us as we discuss:
- How to prioritize talent acquisition
- Pay transparency in the global landscape
- Improving employee retention
In a candidate's market, speed is essential.
In this episode, Nick Vossler tells us how he reduced his employer's time to hire by 32% in one quarter while maintaining a 92% candidate NPS. Nick is currently a senior recruiter at OpenComp and has spent time recruiting GTM and technical roles at companies like HouseCanary and recruiting firms like Connery Consulting and Michael Page.
Join us as we discuss:
- Streamlining the hiring process without compromising quality
- Establishing a talent pipeline
- Strategies for accelerated recruiting
As pay transparency laws sweep the nation intending to close the racial and gender pay gaps, pay equity has become a priority governance issue for corporate boards.
In this episode, Kathie Ross, C suite executive and independent director, shares where we’re at in the pay equity conversation, where we’re heading, and what we can do to improve our environments.
Join us as we discuss:
- The evolution of the pay equity conversation in recent years
- Current challenges boards face as they wrestle with pay equity
- The future of equity at work
Crafting inclusive spaces characterized by belonging and acceptance takes strategy and consistency, and it starts in the hiring process and extends throughout the entire employee experience.
In this episode, we speak with Paul Brown, Racial Equity Advisor at Rise. He walks us through his work in diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and accessibility (DEIBA) and how he’s worked with dozens of clients to apply DEIBA across hiring, culture, and communication.
Join us as we discuss:
- Best practices for creating spaces of acceptance and belonging at work
- Top hiring and retention tactics that support DEIBA
- How HR leaders can measure the impact of their strategies and tactics
Once a task-driven, compliance-oriented role, HR has rapidly evolved to serve as a collaborative partner of the CEO that ensures people alignment, engagement and retention. In today’s episode, we talk about the quickly evolving charter of a Chief People Officer in the modern organization — as well as the role that data plays in earning, keeping, and succeeding in it.
Our guest is Joanne Walters —TEDx speaker, Ph.D. candidate and Chief People Officer of emergency response platform Simplesense, who also happens to be an OpenComp customer. With a personal mission to help underrepresented people tell their stories, Joanne is passionate about diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, acceptance, and working at a company that helps those who help others.
Join us as we discuss:
- The shifting relationship between CPO and CEO
- Data’s role in attracting diversity with pay
- The importance of finding your voice
With pay transparency comes a new level of employee and employer communication that can prove challenging to navigate. Luckily, there are ways to embrace these new policies and come through stronger as an organization.
Gianna Driver, Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at Exabeam, joins us to walk through her preparations for transitioning to pay transparency as a resident of California, where pay transparency laws go into effect on January 1, 2023.
Join us as we discuss:
- The need for educational content around pay transparency
- The functions of a Compensation Committee
- Preparations for transitioning to pay transparency
Self-service unlocks the door to a highly-effective organization. Empowering each employee to leverage their autonomy supports employee development and, as a result, improves company culture. However, encouraging self-service and enhancing company culture doesn't have to be dull or cost an arm and a leg.
In this episode, Christine Maxwell, VP of People at Rippling, shares a few core strategies for curating a lean, highly-effective organization.
Join us as we discuss:
- Cornerstones of a highly-effective organization
- Methods for supporting employee development
- The power of active feedback and automation
In this episode, Panther’s VP People Pamela Golden and Head of Talent Shathiya Rengalwar illuminate their process for earning a 4.8-star rating on Glassdoor and building a company known for its empowering leadership team, value of DEIBA, and excellent worth ethic — all before reaching 100 employees.
Join us as we discuss:
- Critical elements of an employee-centered company
- Creating a dynamite employee experience
- Providing transparent candidate experiences
- How using OpenComp empowers their recruiters and people managers
With today’s competitive talent market, oscillating economy, and tight-fisted investment landscape, businesses have a high bar to climb in 2023 — and HR will be at the center of it all… responsible for increasing retention, morale, and performance to new heights, while cutting costs. In this episode we talk to Nancy Connery, Emily Sweet and Thanh Nguyen about the four major trends they predict will separate industry leaders and laggards, and how HR leaders can prepare to guide their businesses to be on the winning side.
Emily is the VP of Social Impact at OpenComp and lead executive for OPEN Imperative. Thanh Nguyen is the Founder and CEO of OpenComp. And Nancy Connery we all know… cofounder of OpenComp and Principal Connery Consulting, and I’m sure highest on her priority list, cohost of High Growth Matters.
Join us as we discuss the four main trends for 2023:
- Developing compensation IQ will be the most requested skill training
- VCs will demand pay progress from their portfolio companies
- One-time rewards and alternative benefits will rise in popularity
- The Dobbs decision will have unexpected effects
Resources mentioned:
- Join the movement to end gender pay disparity at OPENimperative.org
- Get the HR leaders guide to preparing for pay transparency https://www.opencomp.com/lp-on-demand-webinar-the-hr-leaders-playbook-4-steps-to-prepare-for-pay-transparency
- Get the Pro Repro Playbook https://www.protectreproductivehealth.org/
Today we talk about the past, present, and future of HR — as well as the importance of philanthropy, mentorship, and work-life tradeoffs with Nancy Connery. Nancy began her career partnering with Marc Benioff to build two key divisions at Oracle Corporation, including the company’s first philanthropic venture. Marc later recruited Nancy as salesforce’s fifth employee. As founding VP of HR, Nancy helped fuel salesforce's remarkable growth by building its industry-leading HR infrastructure, personally recruiting more than 650 hires globally. In 2007, Nancy founded Connery Consulting, the premier human capital consultancy that partners with the fastest growing tech companies of all time. She also co-founded OpenComp, serves on multiple boards, and is an active philanthropist and mentor in the community.
Join us as we discuss:
- The future of HR and it’s evolution in tech over the last few decades
- Words of advice and wisdom for first-time startup founders
- The importance of giving back through mentorship and philanthropy
Hypergrowth has a reputation for being complicated, and few executives have lived the ride through multiple funding stages during global expansion. In this episode, we talk with Krystal Shields — who’s done so twice. She began her career in finance at Common Sense Media and Credit.com before transitioning to people operations and talent management at Lendup, D2iQ, and Harness, where she’s currently Senior Director.
Join us as we discuss:
- Asking for help as an HR leader
- Advice on common areas of missing knowledge amongst HR leaders
- Variance in pay transparency around the world
- Guiding principles for navigating hypergrowth
Check out these resources:
- Read more of Krystal’s insights here: https://www.opencomp.com/blog/krystal-shields-harness-keeps-pay-fair-equitable-and-transparent
Today we talk about what gender equity is and isn’t, and how HR leaders can reimagine they way it’s operationalized in their companies. Joining us is Amy Cross, founder of Gender Fair, a marketing and corporate social responsibility platform that showcases companies that serve women well, what they call Gender Fair companies.
Join us as we discuss:
- What companies are doing wrong when it comes to gender equity
- How Gender Fair works with companies to operationalize pay equity
- The most important steps employers can take to eliminate gender pay disparity
When most of us think about compensation, we think about something that’s super complex, but it doesn’t have to be. Today, we chat with Kyle Murphy about the most common misconceptions that he sees across OpenComp’s customer base of almost 4,000 high-growth organizations — as he helps them find clarity at the point of every compensation decision. Kyle leads customer advocacy at OpenComp and draws from his experience in compensation and customer success at companies like PayScale, MedBridge, and more.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why it’s important to avoid compensation misconceptions as an HR leader
- The top #5 most common compensation sins
- Letting your knowledge of your organization shape compensation practices
Check out these resources from the episode:
- https://www.opencomp.com/blog/sins-of-compensation-top-interview-mistakes-to-avoid
- https://www.opencomp.com/blog/sins-of-compensation-top-job-offer-mistakes-to-avoid
- https://www.opencomp.com/blog/top-quarterly-review-mistakes
- https://www.opencomp.com/blog/top-merit-cycle-mistakes
- https://www.opencomp.com/blog/top-mistakes-during-company-milestones
On September 27, 2022, California Governor Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 1162, a groundbreaking pay transparency bill that will have a direct impact on employers and employees across the state. As of January 1, 2023, California will join Colorado, Washington, New York City and other municipalities by requiring employers of 15 or more employees to include salary ranges in all job postings. New York City’s legislation goes into effect two months earlier on November 1, 2022.
In this episode, we talk to Noreen Farrell about the rapidly evolving landscape of pay transparency legislation — and what employers need to know. Noreen is the Executive Director of Equal Rights Advocates, one of the nation's leading legal nonprofits advocating for women and girls at work and school. Among many other awards, Noreen was recently named a top Legal Innovator in Law and one of the Top 100 Women Lawyers in California.
Join us as we discuss:
- What’s going on in pay transparency legislation today
- How this legislation is poised to close pay gaps
- What’s on the horizon for pay transparency legislation and what trends are coming
Check out these resources from the show:
- https://www.equalrights.org/
- Listeners can join OPEN Imperative and get a free pay equity report at https://www/openimperative.org
- https://www.opencomp.com/blog/what-businesses-need-to-know-about-california-new-pay-transparency-legislation
While compensation planning falls under HR’s purview, many HR leaders lack expertise in its ins and outs.
In this episode, we chat with Julia Dow, VP of Compensation Advisory at OpenComp, who has over a decade of experience working in global compensation at companies like VISA and Forrest Point before her current role as VP of Compensation Services at OpenComp. Her team works with thousands of the world’s fastest-growing organizations to scale their businesses with compensation, and today we’ll dive into a 101 primer into how to approach compensation planning.
Join us as we discuss:
- Compensation planning and why is it so important
- Common areas of oversight budgeting and compensation review process
- Steps to creating a salary bands
- How to make adjustments when pay inequities are discovered
- How to handle Pay For Performance within your organization
Executives significantly influence how quickly companies thrive or flail — so much so that independent surveys from Stanford and Harvard, each of nearly 900 VCs, revealed that execs contribute more to a startup’s success or failure more than product itself.
Today, I am talking to Kate Bullis of SEBA Executive Search, known in Silicon Valley and beyond as a go-to executive search firm. Kate leads the marketing and revenue practice, and together, we’ll dive into common misconceptions that disrupt the executive search process and how to redesign a mecca-like experience for all parties involved… whether you’re hiring an external firm or leading the search internally.
Join us as we discuss:
- How people misconstrue the terms executive search and executive fetch
- What characteristics executive candidates look for in an executive search firm for best candidate experience
- The four guiding principles that an executive searcher uses to getting the proper candidate
In this episode, we explore how passion and process have guided John Jensen’s career as an individual contributor and sales executive at global leaders like Alteryx, Informatica, Tableau, and his current role as RVP of Strategic and Enterprise Inside Sales at Gong.
We’ll cover topics from building sales culture to hiring, career pathways, compensation, and John’s advice for HR business partners.
Join us as we discuss:
- The four core values to build a high-performance sales team
- A reliable profile for top sales hires
- How to build career pathways and measure employee promotion readiness
HR invests a lot of passion and resources in supporting people managers across hiring, retention, compensation and more. That’s especially true for sales teams, the revenue backbone of the modern business.
In this podcast, we talk to seasoned executive Jesse Osborn, the VP of Global Sales Development at Tipalti, about what he’s learned about managing successful sales teams in a hyper-growth environment. He’ll also share tips for HR professionals wanting to support thriving sales organizations.
Join us as we discuss:
- How hiring profiles change as your company grows
- Tips to develop scalable incentive comp plans and how to measure success
- Career pathways that empower top talent
The venture backed ecosystem is intimately familiar with the importance of “failing fast,” especially in times of economic uncertainty — just so long as you learn from it.
In this conversation, serial HR executive Jessica Marucci shares top lessons from her decade at DigitalOcean as it scaled from 5 to 500 employees, first in the role of finance manager then director of employee experience - as well as what’s she’s doing differently at Catalyst Software in her role of VP of People & Places.
Join us as we discuss:
- Common HR mistakes during economic shifts
- Top reasons for employee attrition today
- How to encouraging employees to vocalize their needs to be productive at work
The traditional relationship between Human Resources (HR) and Finance is about as warm and fuzzy as that of sales and marketing teams. HR and Finance success may be interdependent, but that doesn’t mean either team loves their day-to-day interactions.
In this podcast, we talk to two seasoned operators, Ashley Brounstein & Steve Poon from OpenComp — one from each side of the fence — about what’s at the core of this traditional division and how HR and finance leaders can co-develop a path forward that’s characterized by deeper collaboration, productivity, and dare we say it - fun.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why HR and finance departments tend to be at odds in the workplace
- The most common area of disagreement between HR and finance
- Steps HR leaders can take to enhance their relationship with finance
At its core, the issues of reducing pay gaps in the workplace and ensuring compensation transparency boils down to one question: How do we democratize information about salary, equity, and benefits, so employees and employers are on the same page?
We dive into these nuts and bolt with Amy Spurling, who is currently the Founder & CEO of Compt and previously led finance and HR teams at six high-growth companies - five of which had a successful exit.
Join us as we discuss:
- How focusing on employee benefits benefit companies in the long run
- What transparency means for salary, equity, and benefits
- Tips for HR leaders to empower employees to talk about compensation and equity
It costs up to nine months of an employee's salary to replace him or her. For executive roles, this estimate can scale to more than 25 months of a salary.
Regardless of the specifics, getting the right employees in the front door matters, especially as new headcount gets extra scrutiny.
In this episode, we talk to Chris Starr, Senior Recruiter for Engineering Leadership at Airbnb, about how to do just that — as well as to support your company’s investment in talent acquisition across the entire employee lifecycle.
Join us as we discuss:
- Common things HR may perceive about recruiters or recruiting that they should think differently about
- Characteristics of an HR department that give the best pathway to success
- How to properly align a company’s values and compensation to a candidate
To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The High Growth Matters Podcast on our website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or just search for The High Growth Matters Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
On this episode of High Growth Matters, we talk with Traunza Admas about equity in the workplace and how to operationalize it.
Traunza Adams has been a Chief People Officer, advisor, and executive leader at companies large and small — from startups to Salesforce, AppDynamics and SAP.
Join us as we discuss:
- How loving on our people helps businesses thrive
- A 4-step framework HR heads and managers can use to scale and reinforce equity
- How to empower candidates and teams to determine which companies are serious about equity
To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The High Growth Matters Podcast on our website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or just search for The High Growth Matters Podcast in your favorite podcast player.
During an economic downturn, it is imperative that people leaders know what and what not to do, especially when leading a global team.
Sheri Kelleher, the Senior Vice President of People Success at Incorta, has helped high-growth organizations navigate shifting economies several times.
Join us as we discuss:
- How being an ally to your team outperforms traditional feedback
- A strategic way to approach organizational redesign and budget cuts
- Building a global team while keeping regional nuances
Welcome to the trailer for High Growth Matters, a podcast brought to you by OpenComp. This podcast is designed for the professionals that are building the backbone of these growth companies. Leadership, diversity, compensation, hiring, retention, and more will be a part of the discussions on this podcast.
The hosts of High Growth Matters are Caitlin Allen, VP of marketing for OpenComp and co-founder of OpenComp, Nancy Connery.
Join us as we discuss:
- Caitlin and Nancy’s background and their love for dogs
- The biggest challenge that faces growth companies today
- This podcast’s charter