Sapling Partners

Sapling Partners is a bespoke talent advisory for investment firms and their portfolio companies.

- scale firms / companies and functions (HR, recruiting) through significant headcount growth
- develop the organization’s leadership or high potentials through modalities such as executive coaching, gathering and delivering 360 degree feedback, or conducting structured talent assessments (e.g., Hogan Assessments)
- serve as an active mentor to the current Head of HR or Head of Recruiting to accelerate their growth into a VP- or C-level executive
- examine and support the organization for basic compliance (e.g., FLSA classification, HRIS documentation, pay transparency) or more sophisticated capabilities ahead of fundraising and operational due diligence (e.g., headcount plans, organizational charts)
- run confidential employee engagement surveys, “stay interviews” to retain high performers, or exit interviews to glean organizational insights
- provide expert, operationally grounded advice on employee underperformance and separations, reasonable accommodations and leave requests, or other ad hoc matters

Chief People Officer (Fractional) | Advisor | Executive Coach

Galvanize Climate Solutions LLC

Founded in 2021, Galvanize is a climate-focused global investment firm delivering capital and expertise to accelerate climate solutions. Founded by Katie Hall and Tom Steyer, Galvanize invests across asset classes including venture capital and growth equity, public equities, and real estate. 

Hired to design, build, and lead two functions: internal HR and recruiting, and portfolio talent.

- Management company member (Partner)
- Grew the firm from ~10 FTE (one office, one strategy or fund)  to ~60 (multiple offices in US and UK, multiple strategies), while maintaining the representation of women at >50%
- Led the build out of - or built directly - all HR systems and processes from onboarding through offboarding, including performance development, compensation, and employee relations, while limiting use of external vendors to payroll and benefits
- Led Portfolio Talent function, including hiring the VP Portfolio Talent. Created multiple case studies and references, personally leading projects such as a Series B CEO and a Series B Chief People Officer.
- Responsible for internal recruiting with <25% of new hires sourced by outside search firms
- Remained a hands-on operator with ownership of individual assignments, while coaching and supporting a highly regarded group of mid-level HR and talent professionals
- Drove creation of Galvanize’s cultural values from ideation through external communication, maximizing alignment among executive stakeholders

Partner and Chief People Officer

GI Partners

Led the firm’s efforts to attract, develop, and retain world-class investment and fund operations professionals. Founded in 2001, GI Partners is a private investment firm with offices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Scottsdale, and Greenwich. The firm has raised over $25 billion in capital from leading institutional investors around the world to invest in private equity, real estate, and data infrastructure strategies. The private equity team invests primarily in companies in the Healthcare, IT Infrastructure, Services, and Software sectors. The real estate team invests across a broad range of platforms and strategies. The data infrastructure team invests primarily in hard asset infrastructure businesses underpinning the digital economy.

Chief Human Resources Officer

Index Ventures

A global, multi-billion (€) venture capital and growth equity firm, Index Ventures was founded in 1996 in Geneva, expanded to London in 2002, and opened its San Francisco office in 2012.  Notable investments include Skype, Zendesk, King, Etsy, Dropbox, Slack, Adyen, Farfetch, Wealthfront, Robinhood, Deliveroo, and Roblox.

Coached Founders, CEO's, and VP's Ops of US companies within the Index Ventures' portfolio, to troubleshoot HR- and recruiting-related challenges.

- drove executive and core team searches to successful placements, by collaborating with CEO's and hiring managers, recommending search firms, providing opportunistic candidate referrals, conducting off list references, interviewing and closing candidates.
- supported the growth of in-house talent operations at Series A and Series B portfolio companies, by creating a community of "First Recruiters". As part of a 90 day pilot, five offers were made as a result of eight candidate introductions from this First Recruiters community.
- provided tactical expertise on HR topics such as compensation, benefits, performance management, immigration, and employee terminations.
- led all hiring for Index Ventures US (2014 - 2017), focusing on diversifying the investment team.

Talent Partner

Originally hired to build a firm-wide capability to accelerate the growth of Index Ventures' portfolio companies, in terms of revenue, headcount, or international presence.

- recruited and managed experienced operators in areas such as talent, business development, and communications.
- launched Index Ventures' Executive Briefing Center for enterprise sales.
- authored the "0-to-50" study, examining 1,000+ hires in depth to analyze how startups in Europe and the US recruited their first 50 employees.
- coached Founders, CEO's, and VP's Ops of portfolio companies in Europe and in the US, to troubleshoot HR- and recruiting-related challenges.
- led all hiring for Index Ventures US (2014 - 2017).

Director of Portfolio Services

RelateIQ

RelateIQ was an enterprise SaaS startup acquired by Salesforce.com, Inc. in 2014 for ~$400M, approximately four months after raising $40M at a $245M valuation. To quote TechCrunch: "RelateIQ uses large-scale data-mining technologies to automate relationship tracking in the enterprise and CRM world."

Signed with the company while it was in stealth, to join as its first in house People (recruiting and HR) hire. Member of the operating team (executive staff). Attended and participated in all meetings of the Board of Directors. Scaled and led the function responsible for a nearly 3X annual headcount growth rate across all technical and business teams, including executive, core team, and university recruiting.

Head of People, Operating Team (Executive Staff) Member

Glocap Search

Glocap Search ("Glocap") is an approximately 60 person search firm focused on the alternative asset industry. 

In my management role as Practice Head, I led a multi-office team that placed investment professionals into the firm's venture capital and private equity clients, across all stages and geographies. I also served on the firm's Management Committee and Operating Committee.

As a recruiter, my area of focus was placing investment professionals from a wide variety of operating and investment backgrounds into venture capital and growth equity partnerships throughout the US and Europe. Clients included Accel Partners (Partner, Associate), DCM (Associate), Index Ventures (Associate), Kleiner Perkins (Partner, Associate), New Enterprise Associates (Partner, Associate), and Dropbox (Business Operations). For four months in late 2012, I moved to Dropbox full time as their Head of Executive and Non-Engineering Recruiting.

Managing Director and Practice Head

Catamount Ventures

Investment professional at a $125MM venture capital firm focused on early stage information technology, clean tech and green household startups.

Principal

CenterPoint Ventures

Investment professional at a $450MM venture capital firm focused on early stage information technology startups in Texas.  Individual specialization in consumer-facing technologies including new media business models, and enterprise software. 

(Note: I initially started in 2002 at a smaller fund named Verity Ventures and followed one of the General Partners in 2004 to CenterPoint Ventures, when Verity Ventures was unable to raise a new fund.)

Enspire Learning

Advisory Board Member

Dell, Inc.

In a role most similar to a Chief of Staff, I was one of six team members responsible for corporate strategy engagements for the President and COO, and Chairman and CEO.

• Led an extensive cross-functional engagement, defining worldwide market opportunity for the company’s eventual expansion into the consumer electronics market.  Responsible for all early product marketing tasks such as identifying target segments and establishing timing of specific product launches. 

• Executed independent valuation of company, including separate valuations of each line of business. 

• Authored the President and COO’s quarterly presentations to the Board of Directors.

Office of the Chairman

Former water polo coach turned human capital leader. Investment, fund (internal) operations, and portfolio operations experience in the alternative asset, tech, and climate sectors.

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