Notion! Notion is an infinitely customizable blank canvas of ultimate power. 

Notion's greatest advantage is also it's biggest weakness. That's where I come in.

As the GTM Lead @ Optemization, I specialize in helping companies in hyper growth mode scale effectively without letting their workspace become a "dumping ground" for scattered info, links, meetings notes, and outdated docs that no one can trust. 

Optemization is an Ops Design consultancy focused specifically on the adoption of Notion. 

That could mean large migrations onto Notion, improving current workflows, creating custom automations and integrations, or auditing what you're currently working with.

If you've made it this far and want to learn more, here's some resources that can help:

Notion's Eleven - A free online course exploring the fundamentals of building an effective Notion workspace for teams of all sizes:

https://optemizations.notion.site/Welcome-to-Notion-s-Eleven-317a0fd26bf24d0295504e4cab1eba83

AND, my last offer is if you ever want to about anything related to Notion, I'm your guy 😎 

Lastly the fun part. My Special Skills and Fun Facts include:

🏆 3x Cornhole Champion 🏆 
🏅 3x Dodgeball Champion 🏅 
👨‍🍳 Former Food Cart Owner 👨‍🍳 
🥩 Steak Off Champion 🥩 
🐔 Notoriously known as “The Chicken Man” 🐔

Skyler Birk-Stachon

Maybe the LinkedIn DMs aren't so bad after all...

Your new favorite Notion and Pickleball guy | I scale your company’s Notion usage and host epic Pickleball Tournaments (or both!)

Baby it’s colddd outside.

But this surprise gift was the warmest thing I’ve seen all week!

Thanks so much Apollo.io, you're the best!!! 🫶

Incredibly unexpected but I appreciate you thinking of me!

Best gift box to pair with my Apollo pickleball paddle.

And they gave me a year's subscription to Calm which I already use daily.

Incredible!

Love when companies go the extra mile.

If you threw me back into time and I wanted to break into sales...

Here's what I would do:

Be a literal sponge to absorb and learn as much as humanly possible.

Here's the books I would read:

→ Never split the difference - Chris Voss
→ How to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie 
→ Gap selling - Keenan
→ The challenger sale - Matthew Dixon
→ Atomic habits - James Clear

Here are the LI sales creators I would follow:

→ Brian LaManna - All around 🐐 of everything sales and quota killer
→ Chris Orlob - Without Pclub I wouldn't be where I am today
→ Lauren Goodell - Everything you need to know about using AI in sales
→ Giulio Segantini - Your cold calling 🐐 
→ Morgan J Ingram - The Pipeline and Sales Nav Jedi
→ Troy Munson - Actionable tactics and software you should use
→ Julia Carter - Occasionally funny, usually useful 

Here is the course I would invest in

pclub.io - Literally unreal how much value is packed into it for the price

I'm currently a one man sales team who had never sold B2B before, there's no way I'd be where I am today if I hadn't bought it 

I would practice rejection therapy

Leverage AI to practice, you can cold call AI bots that are pretty damn good

When you start in sales, you're going to get your teeth kicked in 
**(that's just the reality, sorry not sorry) 

You're going to suck at it
**(cause of course you are, you've never done it would be unreasonable for you to not suck at it, but it'll get better over time)

But if you have the right mindset, are a coachable sponge and work hard...

You'll be just fine :)

10 Notion hills I will die on

#1 98% of companies use Notion wrong

#2 You can’t use Notion AI if your workspace is a dumping ground

#3 You need to stop letting your employees create random pages

#4 The reason you’re not getting the most out of Notion is that you haven’t properly invested into it

#5 I love Notion but 90% of Notion’s fancy features don’t actually matter to your employees

#6 You don’t have a Notion problem, you have an adoption problem

#7 Your company has a tool culture problem if you don’t have a unified way of working in Notion

#8 If you didn’t architect Notion correctly from the start you probably hate it now

#9 If your company isn’t database driven you’re using Notion wrong

#10 You’d be a fool not to be on a business or enterprise plan 

**cat is unrelated, he is simply just a goober

Vanessa Jupe

Leva

Leva is a wellness platform reimagining how we support working parents, because parenthood shouldn't mean career penalty or burnout.

Key Highlights:
◆ 60% improvement in retention for parents at employers using Leva
◆ 85% ongoing use after 6 months (high engagement)
◆ 65% exclusive breastfeeding at 12 weeks in a clinical trial (vs. 45% nationwide)
◆ 10× ROI 
◆ Award-winning, multi-service platform supporting lactation, mental health, sleep, nutrition, and career reintegration.

I founded Leva to close the gap in maternal and family support, especially during postpartum and the transition back to work. Our platform delivers personalized care through expert coaching, mental health services, and digital tools that help families thrive and employers retain top talent.

Founder and CEO

I help mission-driven companies modernize their digital experiences and scale with clarity, empathy, and intentional strategy. Drawing from 20+ years of executive product leadership at large, international companies, I partner with teams to bridge vision and execution, with a strong bias toward action and impact.

Consulting focus includes:
◆ Digital transformation strategy & product roadmapping
◆ AI/ML Implementation 
◆ Customer experience redesign & go-to-market planning
◆ Tech stack evaluation & vendor recommendations
◆ Team structure, roles & capability building
◆ Executive alignment & change management

Digital AI Strategy Consultant

Clearcover

◆ Introduced new ways of working that delivered strategic alignment on roadmaps across the enterprise 
◆ Delivered mix shift to profitable segments through machine-learning technology (+$290 ARPU)
◆ Led servicing and mobile efforts to increase retention, delivering 4pp better than the goal
◆ Through engaged leadership, increased employee satisfaction scores by >7pp 
◆ ‘Best’ Award: 2022 Comparably Best Product and Design Team

Senior Vice President of Digital Business

H&R Block

◆	Created vision and product strategy for online business unit 
◆	Managed product roadmap for large portfolio, using creative thinking to solve problems
◆	Leveraged excellent communication skills to explain complex business and technical concepts 
◆	P&L responsibility for >$400M business  
◆	Delivered +60% revenue growth in only three tax seasons, exceeding financial goals
◆	Led double-digit client growth in 2019 and 2020 – largest client retention growth ever
◆	Transformed the organization thru automation, AI, user-centered research and design
◆	Automated the tax preparation experience – ideation, design and pilot in production in 8 months which enabled clients to do their taxes 34% faster
◆	Created culture of hypothesis-driven experimentation, bringing in tools and processes to increase testing
◆	Delivered new two-sided marketplace product line (+86% revenue growth in year 2)
◆	Hired first technical product managers to deliver machine learning platform/infrastructure model
◆	Established cross-enterprise leadership team of Product, Engineering, and Design to collaborate on product development best practices and roadmap alignment 
◆	Analyzed data and metrics to drive business results and impact; taught team to do the same
◆	Partnered with CEO, CTO, and CMO
◆	‘Best’ Awards: Business Insider, Nerd Wallet, CNET, PC Mag

Vice President, Digital Products and Services

USAA

◆	Built 20-person team that delivered sales growth (2016 +22%; 2017 +18% YoY) 
◆	Led redesign of dotcom/mobile, increasing conversion by over 50% 
◆	Led move to agile methodology reducing cycle time by 25%
◆	Led research/design for new product; received multi-million-dollar funding stream
◆	Leadership awards (‘top talent’ and mentoring)
◆	‘Best’ Award: JD Power

Executive Director of Digital Investment Products 

I build systems that don’t just work for people — they fight for them.

As Founder & CEO of Leva, I lead a platform that helps companies retain working parents through a blend of digital innovation and personalized human care. We close the gap between workplace policy and lived experience, because parenthood shouldn’t mean career penalty or burnout.

I also partner with organizations on AI and digital product strategy — helping leaders cut through complexity, accelerate results, and build solutions that stick. Drawing on 20+ years as an executive in product management and design, I’ve led initiatives generating hundreds of millions in revenue while building inclusive, high-performing teams.

What drives me: Turning systemic challenges into measurable wins. I believe workplaces can be both people-first and performance-driven — and that bold leadership is the bridge.

Core values: Freedom, integrity, continuous learning, joy.

If you want to create cultures and products that retain top talent, deliver innovation at scale, and reflect the world we want to live in, let’s talk.

Senior Vice President of Product and Design

Retirement is a myth we sold ourselves to endure a life we hate.
We are conditioned to believe that life happens in three stages:

1. Learn (School)
2. Grind (Work)
3. Live (Retirement)

We trade our energy, our health, and our best years for a promise of freedom at 65.

But what if that promise was never real?

The system only works if we believe joy is something we earn later.

If you’re miserable today because you think it will pay off in 20 years, it might be worth checking the math.

Joy is not a crumb you save for later. It’s the whole point.



#FutureOfWork #LifeDesign #Retirement #MentalHealth #CarpeDiem

Host, 101 Ways Out | Documenting the Great Exit from Corporate Life | Digital Strategy Executive (20+ Yrs)

Friends and family stand in front of the Louvre on a sunny fall day.

Eighteen months ago, a public university canceled my speaking engagement because my story as a working mother was deemed a “DEI risk” under Texas SB 17.

At the time, I was angry. I called it chilling. I asked whether we were really ready to label 50% of the population as a liability.

Since then, the chill hasn’t eased. It’s become a deep freeze.

As we moved through 2025, this dynamic spread far beyond Texas. Across corporate America, we’ve seen what I think of as a Great Rebrand:
equity language softened or erased, programs renamed to sound neutral, leaders encouraged to be careful (or quiet) to avoid legal or political scrutiny.

Mentions of “DEI” in S&P 500 earnings calls and 10-K filings plummeted by nearly 70% between 2024 and 2025.

While institutions are busy scrubbing language to stay compliant, they’re losing their most valuable asset, their people.

When we stop talking about the realities of working parenthood, the challenges don’t disappear. They become invisible.

And when challenges become invisible, your best talent doesn’t stay to fix them. They leave.

Since January 2025 alone, over 400,000 women have exited the U.S. workforce—the sharpest decline for working mothers in more than four decades.

They aren’t “opting out.” They’re being squeezed out by a system that refuses to see and support them.

When institutions stop making room for women’s lived experience, women don’t just lose support.
They lose leverage.
They lose voice.
They lose the ability to shape the rooms where decisions are made.

101 Ways Out exists because of that reality.

Not as an escape fantasy.
But as a reminder that when the traditional paths narrow, women have always found ways to redesign their lives, their work, and their power.

These stories matter because they expand what’s possible.
They show that there is more than one way to build a meaningful, financially viable, values-aligned life—even when institutions fall short.

History is clear on this: cultures that silence lived experience don’t become safer. They become brittle.

To the organizations still brave enough to have the “risky” conversations: thank you. You are the ones who will win the war for talent.

And to the women who feel like their stories have become liabilities: Your experience is not a compliance complication. It is the data the world actually needs right now.

We aren't waiting for the systems to change. We are building the ways out.


#Leadership #WorkingMoms #FutureOfWork #101WaysOut #Resilience #InstitutionalChange

Vanessa in her studio wearing a burgundy top and silver necklace. Her hair is a dark blond color, maybe deeper than champagne. The background showcases modern slatted soundproof walls and gold/orange highlights. She has a serious expression on her face.

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Vanessa Jupe

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The Battle

Skyler Birk-Stachon

Vanessa Jupe

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Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Skyler Birk-Stachon's LinkedIn Performance

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