When I joined CloudZero in May 2024, the company had reached 65 employees with strong market traction and headcount growth signals—but no dedicated HR leadership. The people function had critical gaps: no performance management system, compensation philosophy, talent strategy, career frameworks, structured onboarding, or repeatable hiring practices. Founders were spending valuable time on people issues rather than product and strategy. The company needed modern, scalable people practices to support its next phase of growth. I began with a comprehensive listening tour across employees and leadership to understand pain points and priorities. From there, I developed and launched a full People Strategy anchored in creating a high-performing, inclusive, and highly connected workplace. I prioritized building foundational infrastructure: a compensation framework and Total Rewards strategy rolled out in Q3 2024, a structured onboarding program, and a new ATS to standardize hiring. Critically, I led with a recognition pillar first—establishing trust, respect, and psychological safety as the foundation for all subsequent initiatives. In June 2024, I launched a peer-to-peer recognition program tied to company values, integrated it into Slack, and trained managers on reinforcing desired behaviors. The results have been significant. Despite substantial organizational transformation and multiple product strategy pivots, employee engagement scores (eNPS) have consistently ranged from 82-85%. The recognition program achieved 98% adoption within 90 days and drove a 12-point increase in our Recognition survey metric. Operationally, time-to-hire remains under 30 days across all departments, with new hires reaching meaningful impact within just 14 days. I built a scalable people infrastructure that not only freed leadership to focus on strategic priorities but positioned CloudZero to attract, retain, and develop talent through its next growth stage.
