Vendr
vendr.com · Software Development · Founded 2019
Software pricing shouldn’t be a mystery. For too long, buyers and sellers have relied on guesswork, hidden discounts, and endless negotiations. Vendr is changing that. Our mission is to bring transparency to software pricing, eliminating the old-world haggling and replacing it with real data—so buyers can purchase with confidence and sellers can close deals faster. With the world’s most trusted SaaS pricing dataset, Vendr provides free, real-time pricing insights that empower better decisions. Headquartered in Boston, Vendr is a privately held company founded in 2019 by Ryan Neu. Read more at vendr.com.
Filled Critical Talent Gaps Improving TTH, TTF, and OAR
Following a major funding round, Vendr was scaling rapidly, but several critical technology, business leadership, and go-to-market IC roles had sat open for months. This stalled company progress against key goals, creating urgency to overhaul how we approached hiring. As Head of People, I took direct ownership of fixing this in partnership with our TA professionals. I assessed our entire hiring process, instituting weekly pipeline reviews with TA leads and hiring managers to maintain accountability and momentum while improving decision quality and reducing bias. I also drove an evaluation of our ATS and reporting capabilities, and integrated AI-powered tools into our sourcing and pipeline parsing processes to increase efficiency and improve talent acquisition outcomes. The results were significant: within two quarters, in partnership with our TA team, we filled critical roles across the organization. This unblocked long-standing delays and directly enabled the company to hit critical product, engineering, and sales/service milestones that had been at risk due to gaps. And, our efforts improved average time-to-hire to 34 days, average time-to-fill to 42 days, and OAR to 95%. The initiative demonstrated how a structured, data-informed approach to hiring can directly translate into business execution and growth.
Overhauled Employee Benefits Portfolio, Cutting Costs 25%
At Vendr, benefits costs had steadily climbed year over year while employee satisfaction with our offerings remained flat. We were spending above industry benchmarks without seeing any corresponding lift in recruiting or retention outcomes. Leadership asked me to take a hard look at the entire benefits portfolio and determine how to realign spend with actual value delivered to employees. I led a comprehensive audit of all existing primary and ancillary benefits, evaluating each against usage data and direct employee feedback. I benchmarked our offerings against peer companies to identify gaps and redundancies, then negotiated renewal terms directly with brokers to secure better rates. As part of the redesign, I consolidated overlapping vendors and rationalized underused legacy benefits, while introducing new optional ancillary offerings including financial well-being programs, pet insurance, and additional life insurance to better match what employees actually valued. The results were significant: annual benefits spend dropped by approximately 25%, bringing Vendr's costs back in line with industry benchmarks. Participation in the newly introduced ancillary benefits rose during the very first open enrollment period following the changes, and employee satisfaction survey scores on benefits improved measurably. Recruiters also reported increasingly positive feedback from prospective candidates about the benefits portfolio, contributing to an improvement in our offer acceptance rate to 95%.
Overhauled Compensation, Leveling, Performance, and Rewards
As Vendr scaled rapidly to roughly 400 employees, the organization had outgrown its informal approach to compensation, leveling, performance, and rewards. Without a formal framework, the company faced growing pay inequity, inconsistent promotion decisions, and leaders who lacked a basis for making hiring, performance, or talent decisions. This created risk both for employee trust and for the company's ability to scale its people practices sustainably. As Head of People, I owned with the team the end-to-end design and rollout of a comprehensive compensation and leveling overhaul. I partnered directly with the CEO and C-suite to establish the company's compensation philosophy, then led an 8-week project to build a formal leveling framework from the ground up. I transitioned the company from an insufficient external benchmarking tool to a consolidated compensation partner, built out wage program ranges that incorporated equity considerations, and developed a pay transparency strategy. In parallel, I revamped the benefits portfolio to better align cost and value. Before launch, I trained all leaders and managers across two dedicated sessions to ensure they understood and could confidently apply the new framework, then rolled out a redesigned annual and mid-year performance review process in Lattice. The results were significant and measurable within just two quarters: we closed identified pay gaps for 95% of flagged employees, cut benefits costs by 25%, and saw a marked rise in manager confidence around compensation and promotion decisions, as reflected in post-training surveys. Voluntary regrettable turnover in key roles also declined as employees gained clearer visibility into growth paths and engaged in more substantive career development conversations with their managers; turning a fragmented, ad hoc system into a scalable, equitable foundation for talent decisions.
Built AI-Powered Ask-HR Agent That Automated 80% of Routine Employee Questions
Our HR team was drowning in repetitive inquiries, spending over 15 hours per week answering the same questions about benefits, PTO policies, and employee handbook items. Employees often waited for responses, which created frustration and prevented our HR team from focusing on strategic initiatives that could drive real organizational impact. I led the design and implementation of an AI-powered Ask-HR agent using Claude, integrated directly into Slack where employees already communicated. Working closely with our Head of IT & Security, I connected the agent to our knowledge base and established a governance framework to ensure accuracy and appropriateness. The most critical challenge was tuning the system to provide reliable answers while intelligently escalating sensitive questions that weren't suitable for a public Slack channel. I piloted the tool with a small group, continuously refined the prompts based on real interactions, and then rolled it out company-wide with ongoing monitoring and adjustments. Within the first month, the agent handled ~80% of routine questions and saved the HR team 8-10 hours per week. Employees loved the instant answers and appreciated no longer needing to hunt through our Notion employee resource center or policy documents. The agent even became a helpful resource for HR team members handling escalated questions. The impact was visible to our entire executive and leadership teams, who saw measurable improvements in both team efficiency and employee satisfaction scores.
Designed and Delivered Five-Module Leadership Training Program Improving Engagement by 30%
During a period of rapid organizational growth, our company faced significant leadership challenges. Many managers were new to leadership roles or had never led remote teams, resulting in struggles with change management, communication, and collaboration. Employee engagement scores revealed particularly low trust in senior leadership, and I was consistently hearing feedback about trust issues and misalignment that were actively affecting team performance. The situation demanded a comprehensive solution to equip our leadership team with the skills and frameworks needed to lead effectively in this new environment. I took ownership of the solution from concept to execution. After assessing the specific needs and building a business case, I designed a comprehensive five-module training program covering: 1) Expectations of Leadership with a focus on building and fostering trust, 2) Partnering with the People team on core areas including Process & Policies, Hiring & Onboarding, and Feedback & Performance, 3) Leveling, Compensation, Performance & Rewards, 4) Preparing, Delivering, and Following up on Feedback, and 5) Career Development Conversations. I personally delivered the mandatory training to all leaders and managers in small group sessions, evaluated impact through 1:1 meetings with participants, and provided additional post-delivery coaching sessions for those less familiar with the concepts. Over the course of 12 months, I rolled out the complete program to approximately 30 managers across the company. The results were significant: during my tenure, eNPS improved by 64% and overall Employee Engagement increased by 30%. We saw measurable upticks in trust in senior leadership, communication, collaboration, and organizational alignment. Qualitatively, mid-level managers provided powerful feedback about how the training transformed their ability to lead teams effectively and drive higher performance. The program became a cornerstone of our leadership development approach during a critical growth phase.