Andrew Stockwell
Business-First HR Executive | Head of People | Building High-Trust, High-Performance Cultures in SaaS & Tech | Board Member | SHRM-SCP, MBA
Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
Business-First HR Executive | Head of People | Building High-Trust, High-Performance Cultures in SaaS & Tech | Board Member | SHRM-SCP, MBA
Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
Validated traits
Artifacts
Vendr · Head of PeopleAs 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.
Vendr · Head of PeopleFollowing 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.
Testimonials
CEO at Vendr
Direct Manager
Work history
Trove
HRLF (Human Resource Leadership Forum)
Vendr
ZoomInfo
Vecteris
Lux Research
Kantar
Forrester Research
JUL 2026 - PRESENT · 3 months
Member, Trove Advisory Board
JUL 2026 - PRESENT · 3 months
AUG 2025 - PRESENT · 1.2 years
Member and Vice Chair, Board of Directors
AUG 2025 - PRESENT · 1.2 years
As a member of HRLF's Board of Directors, I helped lead the organization through a critical transition after our association management company (AMC) began struggling with responsiveness and service quality. Following a thorough board review, we concluded that the risk of remaining with the underperforming AMC outweighed the disruption of switching, and selected a new firm with a stronger track record supporting organizations of our size. To manage the complexity of the changeover, I personally drove the execution across a 90-day window, coordinating 9 team members and 45 discrete workback items. I established a weekly cadence of check-ins with each stream owner to maintain visibility and accountability, built a shared tracker to monitor progress on all 45 items, and stepped in directly to negotiate the migration timeline with the outgoing AMC to keep the project on schedule. The results validated the approach: we completed all 45 workback items within the 90-day timeline, hit our go-live date on time, and had no missed operational tasks or communications throughout the process. The board formally recognized the transition as causing zero disruption to programming or revenue, a significant outcome given the scope of change involved. The HRLF board observed the transition firsthand and can attest to how smoothly it unfolded, and several committee chairs relied on the tracker I built to keep their own work on schedule.
Co-chair of committee that launched HRLF Ignite; the organization’s first ever all day event for over 200 HR leaders in Boston in April of 2025. We had 5 months to put on this event. I co-led the team responsible for everything from content planning, to selling sponsorships, to logistics, to budgeting. I also coordinated the work between our volunteers, our association management company, and a third party event planner. The outcome was a packed room, phenomenal speakers, great networking, and a successful event. The result for me personally was that HRLF asked me to become a board member in Aug. of 2025 where I am now vice chair. Based on our success, HRLF is also putting on the Ignite event for 2026 to be held Oct. 1st in Boston.
JAN 2023 - FEB 2026 · 3.2 years
Head of People
MAR 2023 - FEB 2026 · 3 years
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.
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%.
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.
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.
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.
Senior Director of Operations
JAN 2023 - MAR 2023 · 3 months
Reporting to the CFO/COO, led projects in support of strategic value delivery and streamlined operations.
JAN 2022 - NOV 2022 · 11 months
Senior Director of Revenue Operations
JAN 2022 - NOV 2022 · 11 months
Led team delivering strategic programs and outcomes for go-to-market and executive leadership. Sample projects led included: - Acquisition and integration of Dogpatch Advisors, and subsequent launch of their capabilities as ZI Labs to spur a new stream of revenue - Program to accelerate the ramp-time and upsell productivity of new Account Managers - Optimization of SMB market segment go-to-market operations - Creation and launch of new ROI dashboard and associated client retention campaign - Development of Salesforce.com position management solution as a bridge to Workday implementation - Revamp of international partner relationship to support global sales - Evaluation of new sales methodologies for pilot program
FEB 2021 - DEC 2021 · 11 months
Product & Strategy Consultant
FEB 2021 - DEC 2021 · 11 months
Strategized with B2B information services and SaaS technology companies on solution development, product-market fit, go-to-market, and customer/employee experience efforts that empower them to scale. Sample work included: - Product strategy, go-to-market, and thought leadership for an employee experience company aiming to scale a SaaS product. - Strategy, new product launch, and sales enablement support for a security company. - Market and message testing, solution development, go-to-market strategy, pricing, and packaging for a B2B services company developing a syndicated training solution.
NOV 2017 - JAN 2021 · 3.3 years
Senior Vice President, Research, Product, & Operations
NOV 2017 - JAN 2021 · 3.3 years
Led overall product, including research and consulting, and operations for PE-owned information services business focused on emerging technology innovation. Drove overall product portfolio including strategy, client and business requirements, go-to-market, and operations. Responsible for the growth and well-being of approximately 70 of Lux’s 100 global employees. - Directed product transition to tech-enabled data and insights platform; included creation of automated software tools from diverse data sources, modernization of search, personalization of platform, and other UI improvements to embed Lux into client workflows. - Launched new products and services capabilities based on outside-in understanding of client needs to target new revenue streams. - Re-engineered and improved processes that enhanced efficiency (revenue per headcount), increased profitability (gross margin), and ultimately drove revenue growth by double-digits during my tenure. - Launched new pricing and packaging which increased ASP ~20% and drove substantial increase in multi-year ARR relationships. - Oversaw development of user personas and establishment of VoC to improve ongoing customer understanding and alignment of content strategy, customer experience, and operations against client innovation journey.
JUN 2014 - OCT 2017 · 3.4 years
Chief Product, Strategy, & Marketing Officer
SEP 2016 - OCT 2017 · 1.2 years
Directed product, strategy, and marketing for Kantar Retail's portfolio of global research, shopper, events, webinars, and executive peer networking information services products. - Drove overall product and company strategy, including qualification of new market and vertical opportunities as well as potential acquisitions, in partnership with senior leadership team. - Spearheaded the ongoing creation and refinement of our data and insights platform, including innovative front-end and back-end development of www.kantarretailiq.com, VoC programs, UI/UX improvements, and technology infrastructure. - Launched new pricing and packaging strategy for all syndicated products in portfolio to respond to competitive developments.
Chief Research Officer
JUN 2014 - AUG 2016 · 2.3 years
Led Kantar Retail’s global research and insights team responsible for developing multi-channel shopper and retail insights for Fortune 1000 CPG/FMCG organizations. Orchestrated content and team strategy, operations, thought leadership/content planning, and overall team development. - Implemented major process and operations overhaul in first 12 months to establish global content strategy, content planning and rationalization, roles and measures which supported overall scale and profitable company growth. - Led development of unifying content construct and thought leadership research narrative including integration of theme throughout global content outputs. - Built a global eCommerce/Digital practice to help suppliers better engage, market, sell, and serve their shoppers.
FEB 2001 - MAY 2014 · 13.3 years
Vice President and Practice Leader (various)
FEB 2001 - MAY 2014 · 13.3 years
Led the global practices serving eBusiness & Channel Led teams in roles spanning product, sales, and consulting for a global information services and advisory firm. • Drove all aspects of Forrester Research's business for marketing and strategy professionals in Asia Pacific (APAC). o Grew revenue across APAC 33% and in China 173% during my expat assignment. o Led content, keynoted, and hosted Forrester’s first ever event in China and exceeded all targets. • Led the global practices serving eBusiness, Digital Marketing, and Product Strategy professionals. o Managed ~$20mm total P&L and exceeded profit margin targets with consecutive quarters of revenue performance improvement, and won most improved Net Promoter score for Q2 2010. o Developed globalization strategy including identifying key growth markets and prioritization which culminated in my move to China to lead the effort. •Directed the consulting organization serving marketing and strategy professionals. Managed global business development, and consultant and advisory delivery functions for $18mm in consulting revenue in 2009. o Achieved 109% of consulting bookings plan for 2008 ($10mm) and 104% for 2009 ($13mm). Led project consulting business development efforts achieving over 100% of 2005, 2006, and 2007 quotas. o Closed $3.6mm of consulting business in 2007, or 141% of goal, as #1 consulting salesperson. Managed and serviced the relationships for twelve of Forrester’s top tier, $1b+ revenue clients. o Achieved 117% of quota in 2003 and won 2003 Customer Experience team sales contest.
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