CEO & Co-Founder GrowthAssistant | Helping 200+ companies leverage elite global talent to delegate rote tasks and maximize ROI

I did the scary thing. I’m a mom, wife, and now a first-time founder/CEO:

Yet - within 4 years - we crossed $20,000,000 ARR. Totally bootstrapped! The secret to our growth? The value and ROI we provide make my company GrowthAssistant a simple business decision.

So what is GrowthAssistant doing? Why are 100+ companies - including brands like Calm, Hubspot, WeightWatcher, WPP or DoorDash - relying on us?

The idea is simple: We embed elite offshore talent into your company. When done right, it's magic. And we support you along the way to ensure it's done right.

Embedding offshore talent? Here's what it means:
Your $100k hires are likely still doing $15 / hour tasks. Tasks like launching ads, scheduling posts, pulling the weekly report or checking UTMs. Those tasks bog down teams. And our talent - we call them Growth Assistants - take them off your plate.

They join your team including Slack, Zoom and any other systems.  They work your hours. They are the secret sauce many effective teams use to scale.

Want to learn more? Just drop me a LinkedIn message and let's connect!

That's me: After running HR for 10+ years in a trading firm, I am now the CEO of my own company. And it has been wild. I learned a lot. Failed a lot. (See my featured posts for some of my learnings)

After Harvard, Jamie Dimon rejected Goldman to work for Sandy Weill at Amex.

15 years later, their partnership created CitiGroup.

It’s a wild story. Full of lessons.

Here are the highlights:

When Dimon finished HBS and was contemplating which job to take (Goldman or MS), Weill offered an alternative: to be his assistant at American Express, which had recently acquired Shearson.

Weill didn't have any portfolio at Amex, but he saw something in a young Jamie Dimon.

Jamie for his part was an adventurer. And he couldn't pass up the chance to learn from a guy who'd done it at the highest level.

They soon left Amex and Weill bought Commercial Credit. They built a minnow into an acquisition machine and bought company after company.

Primerica, Salomon Brothers, Shearon and then Travellers, all became targets.

Weill was a dealmaking opportunist. Dimon was the execution machine.

He was decades younger than most of his colleagues. Yet he was running, at various points, investment banking, asset management, corporate banking, and other crucial parts of a business moving at breakneck speed.

And he was across every single deal they did.

Sandy would set the target, put the ball in motion, and Dimon would bring it home.

Buying a sizable financial company is a tremendous undertaking. Hundreds of things can break. Systems, risk, cost, people, assets, and so on.

Doing it on repeat for a decade-plus?
Unheard of.

Jamie Dimon was instrumental at a young age in making it happen.

In 1998, their partnership reached its zenith.

They merged Traveller's Group (the name of their conglomerate) with CitiBank to create CitiGroup. One of the largest financial institutions in the world.

Trillions in value.
From a two-man partnership.

Because of an unlikely hire by a former stockbroker.

Iconic.

Adriane Schwager

Last week I interviewed two amazing candidates for a leadership role.
But what happened after told a different story:

Both came highly recommended.

Both impressed in conversation.

But what happened after told two very different stories.

Candidate A had strong qualifications, great energy in person

But after an in-person local meeting, she didn’t send a text, a note, or even a quick “thanks for your time.” Nothing.

Candidate B, on the other hand, flew across the country for her interview.

She took feedback from every conversation that day, went back to her hotel that night, made updates to her work incorporating the input, and then hand-delivered handwritten notes to everyone she met.

Same opportunity.

Same access.

Completely different signal.

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

In a world where everything’s become transactional taking a few extra minutes to acknowledge the connection will completely change how people see you.

We use these and dozens of other frameworks to assess motivation, hard skill, and soft skills of everyone we hire. 

That’s why DoorDash, Hubspot, Reddit and hundreds of other brands use Growth Assistants to hire designers, marketers, influencer assistants and more. 

Check out the talent behind the biggest brands in the world:
https://lnkd.in/gVmQiCKR

I stopped hiring ‘high performers’ three years ago. 
Here’s what I hire for now:

My favourite interview opener isn’t “Tell me about your proudest project.”

It’s this:

“Which piece of work is still generating value long after you left it?”

Because here’s what 2025 is really demanding from teams:

- Voluntary turnover drains $1T from U.S. companies every year.
Compounding work is the only antidote.

- Degrees are losing their gatekeeping power.
69% of managers now rank lived experience above a diploma.

- Proactive people don’t just self-start.

They score higher on career adaptability in peer-reviewed studies.
- Yet 1 in 4 hiring managers still say grads arrive unprepared to prove any of this.

So here’s the litmus test I use:

1️⃣ Show me the asset: a dashboard, SOP, or campaign that’s still creating lift.
2️⃣ Explain the hand-off: how you documented or automated it so the value compounds.
3️⃣ Name a constraint you hacked: budget, buy-in, or time.

Swap the classic “biggest weakness” question for the Second-Mile Test.

If you hire for compounding value, you never need to micromanage again.

We hire for this and 13 other parameters when hiring Growth Assistants. 

That’s why 1000+ support brands like Reddit, Shopify, Calm, Ro etc in influencer marketing, design, paid ads, and dozens of other roles. 

DM me to hire global teams to grow for a fraction of the cost.

62% of re-orgs fail because leaders mismanage role transfers. 
Here’s what a 10/10 transfer looks like:

As part of a re-org, my implementations lead became the Account Manager for our 60 biggest clients.  

It completely I rewired how I think about internal transfers. 

1. Accelerate your 90-onboarding doc

On day 2 of her move, she sent me a list of her 60 clients bucketed by risk. 

The institutional knowledge she brought was worth more than any external hire, in time and in dollars.

Next time someone changes roles, I’m running a quick skills and context audit to see what they already know to design a 30-day acceleration plan, not a 90-day onboarding that overestimates the time we need. 

2. Coach them to own mistakes

When someone is in a new role, they're hyper-sensitive to signs of failing. 

Leaders need to: 

-> Validate that mistakes are inevitable.
-> Encourage accountability .
-> Support them in fixing mistakes, not covering

3. Get them expert consultants

Two weeks in, she asked for senior leadership’s eyes on her agency accounts, as well as an expert consultant who'd been CEO of a $50M agency before.

But the unlock wasn’t just the knowledge. It was trust. 

Once she felt validated that the ROI would be there in her training, it unlocked a whole new strategic confidence. 

4/ Distinguish the time frames

Every role runs on a different clock. 

Account management is quick turnaround. Short feedback loops. 

Implementation is the long game. 

In role shifts, the best leaders clarify exactly how those timeframes should change.

In week one, literally map timelines together: “Here’s what a good week looks like. Here’s what a good quarter looks like.”

5/ Reflect on the changes between positions

The differences were obvious to me. 

Implementation works for us: putting out fires, no matter the level of the stake holder. 

AMs work for the client: if you keep adding value in any way you can, they will want to expand the relationship.

6/ When they say they’re strapped, believe it

She said she could handle 60 clients, but a month in, she’s finally realizing how many 60 is.

“60 clients is almost 150 POCs who I’m still meeting for the first time.” 

I heard her and embedded a Growth Assistant into her workflow to run AI-powered org charts in Clay.

That freed her up to get into strategic thinking instead of rote research.

We’re unlocking 200+ teams to return to strategic moves with global talent experts in analytics, design, marketing, and more. 

DoorDash, SoFi, Reddit, Calm and more global brands - for a fraction of the cost of US FTEs. 

Ready for a change? Let’s talk:

https://lnkd.in/gCNYv_H3

A 21-year-old asked for my best career advice.
My answer: learn to manage up. Most people suck at this. 

8 ways to manage up like a pro:

1. Set the stage.

Executives are busy. Start every email or meeting with 60 seconds of context:

↳ "What are we talking about?"
↳ "Why is this important?"
↳ "Where did we leave off?"

2. Value their time 10x more than yours.

This will make you disciplined about:

↳ Follow-ups
↳ Action items
↳ Clear, concise communication

3. Use FYI and NNTR.

Not every message needs a response or action.

↳ Example: "FYI, the dashboard is updated as you requested. No need to reply."

4. Understand the hierarchy of communication.

Some modes are better for urgency:

↳ Most Urgent: Phone
↳ Less Urgent: Text, Slack
↳ Async: Email (with "Request" in subject and a clear deadline)

5. You still own the monkey.

If you ask your boss for something, it’s still your job to ensure it’s done. Escalate as needed until it’s complete.

6. Always follow up.

After meetings, send a quick summary with action items.

↳ Specify: WHO will do WHAT by WHEN.

7. Regular reporting.

Create a system for progress updates. Make them:

↳ Regular
↳ Quantitative
↳ Data-driven

8. Seek feedback.

Ask: "Do my updates make it easy for you to see progress? What can I do to make it a 10/10?"

At GrowthAssistant, we teach all our assistants to manage up to execs. 

That’s why 500+ Growth Assistants work for marketing teams like DoorDash, HubSpot, Shopify, and 100+ others. 

Sign up to check out the talent the best companies in the world use (for a fraction of the cost of US FTEs)

https://lnkd.in/gVhcw9kQ

8 ways to manage up

Your brand is already LOSING money for Cyber Week if you’re not using this paid social cheat sheet. 

The least successful marketing teams I talk to are winging Black Friday prep: 

Scrambling with new creatives, trusting their gut with spend, and “hoping” for a Christmas miracle. 

That’s a mistake. 

Paid social is a competitive advantage. 

54.5% of all holiday sales last year were made on mobile (up from 51.1%) — that’s $132B in mobile sales.

And retailers using social commerce like TikTok shop or Meta saw **19%** of total sales from those channels.

Here’s the data-backed playbook I stole from a friend who runs paid socials for a 7-figure e-com brand: 

Step 1: Pull and analyze last year’s Cyber Week creatives

Label all of the creatives you ran last year and categorize them - eg - text overlays with discounts, hero product drops, urgency messaging

Open up Excel and label a chart from the Thursday before Black Friday to the Friday after. 

Note what’s different between every creative. 

Identify patterns 

Step 2: Track these 5 data points:

CPM: understand auction competitiveness through the sale

SPEND: see where the money actually went

PURCHASES: measure which days drove action.

ROAS: compare efficiency across days.

ROAS vs. Avg: to compare for which creatives truly outperform.

Step 3: Game Plan Using the trends

My friend saw her highest ROAS on Cyber Monday. 

Now, she front-loads testing early in the week and dumps spend on Monday and she expects conversions to spike. 

Another company we work with rotated between a BOGO sale, 40% off, and free expedited shipping to create new reasons to buy every two days.

Winning Cyber Week is about planning and anticipation - it will pay off in multiples.

I embed Growth Assistants into e-com teams, small and large, to build marketing analytics like these so CMOs can strategize without making more pivot tables. 

Global talent, at a fraction of the cost, trusted by DoorDash, Reddit, HubSpot, and over 200 others. 

Want a GrowthAssistant to run this for you?  

Book a call here:
https://lnkd.in/gnBHBFPd

Last week, deciding between two amazing leadership candidates for the same role, I realized that CEOs only get paid to do one thing:

Handle doubt

My team and I were torn between the two candidates. 

When tough decisions like these come up, most leaders only see two options:

A. Make the call themselves and kill doubt
B. Hand it to the team and invite doubt. 

The best leaders choose C: 
Radical candor and open disagreement.

Here’s how I did it: 

1. Start with clarity. 

I began the discussion by saying this (steal it!):

“Hearing everyone’s thoughts is important to me. Let’s discuss this for 30 minutes, then based on everyone’s thoughts, I’ll make a decision.” 

Good leaders invite disagreement. 

Great leaders clarify how disagreement shapes the final decision.

2. Nurture productive dissent. 

If everyone on your team was agreeing, why did you hire them? 

Most leaders want disagreement, then punish as soon as someone disagrees. 

When my team disagrees, I always ask WHY:

“From your perspective, what do you see that I would miss?”

That simple question changed the tone of the room. 

Dissent turned into learning. 

3. Listen intentionally. 

Conscious listening starts with your head, your heart, and your gut. 

Listen to what someone says- then reflect it back: 

“I hear you saying we should go with this choice, because of X, and how you feel about Y. Is that right?”

When people feel genuinely heard, they can disagree with a decision and still commit. 

CEOs aren’t hired to eliminate doubt. 

We’re there to nurture it, and make decisions anyway. 

If you lead a team, save this so you can use the script in your next tough decision.

We use these and hundreds of other frameworks to hire 1000+ influencer marketers, paid ad specialists, and designers for clients like DoorDash, Hubspot, Reddit and more. 

Check out GrowthAssistant to hire elite AI powered talent for a fraction of the cost:

https://lnkd.in/g8YAEXdc

taplio

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