I led Toast's People organization through three simultaneous high-stakes transformations: navigating COVID-19 disruption, preparing for and executing our IPO, and scaling the company aggressively in a hyper-competitive talent market. The challenge was to build systems and infrastructure that could support explosive growth while maintaining the quality and culture that made Toast successful.
I took a systemic approach across several critical pillars, with a few to note. First, I redesigned our performance management system and culture to shift the organization from activity-based metrics to impact-driven accountability, creating clarity around what great performance looked like at scale with calibration and an aligned system across the entire company, including promotion process, hiring and termination rigor, and more. Second, I led our globalization strategy by establishing local HR infrastructure and cultural integration programs as we expanded into new international markets, ensuring we could compete for talent globally while preserving our core identity.
The results were transformative. We scaled headcount globally across the business by more than 100% while maintaining if not improving quality of hire while keeping cost per hire below peer benchmarks industry. Employee engagement scores increased, signaling that our people felt supported and energized despite the pace of change.