Sharon Pollard
Spent 15+ yrs working on one question: what actually makes people thrive at work? Today I lead People & Culture at CloudZero, where we're proving you can be an AI-native company and a deeply human one at the same time.
Boston, MA
Validated traits
Artifacts
Attivio (acquired by ServiceNow) · HR GeneralistAs the sole recruiter at Attivio, I was tasked with scaling headcount from roughly 50 to 135+ employees within 18 months, a mandate directly tied to the company's strategic shift into AI-powered search. The steepest challenge was hiring for hard-to-fill NLP/ML engineering roles that had remained open for 6+ months, at a time before modern automation and advanced ATS technology existed to ease the burden. To meet this challenge, I built a direct sourcing pipeline specifically targeting PhD candidates from NLP research labs, recognizing that traditional job postings wouldn't reach this specialized talent pool. I partnered closely with hiring managers to redesign the technical interview loops for ML roles, ensuring the process could accurately assess candidates while remaining efficient. I also launched a targeted employee referral incentive program focused exclusively on ML roles to tap into existing networks. Without the benefit of today's recruiting technology, success hinged on deliberate network and community building, strong hiring manager enablement, and persistence through a long, iterative process. The results were transformative: I grew headcount from 50 to 135+ employees in 18 months and filled more than 20 previously stalled NLP/ML positions. This talent build-out was a critical enabler of Attivio's shift into cognitive search products, directly supporting the strategic direction that ultimately positioned the company for its acquisition by ServiceNow.
CloudZeroAs the AI era fundamentally reshaped how we work, I recognized an urgent need to reimagine our people programs at the intersection of human and machine. As VP of People & Culture at CloudZero, I saw that traditional approaches to employee development, mentorship, and performance conversations were no longer sufficient. The challenge was clear: how could I leverage AI to amplify our people initiatives and create a culture where employees took greater ownership of their growth, engaged meaningfully with their managers in developmental conversations, and accessed mentorship at scale? I threw myself into the uncomfortable and designed an entirely new AI-native platform to foster these behaviors. Starting with a clear vision of how employees and managers needed to interact—from quarterly developmental touchpoints to ongoing mentorship connections—I taught myself Claude Code and began building. Over four weeks, I partnered cross-functionally with Revenue Engineering to brainstorm feature solutions and deploy code, while collaborating with our Security team to ensure safe architecture throughout the platform. I learned to integrate code and feature updates into GitHub, committing and pushing 48 pull requests from concept to launch. The results were transformative: 100% of employees and their managers now conduct quarterly developmental 1:1s (Touchpoints) through the platform, and 100% of people leaders have completed their mentor/mentee profiles within the mentorship module, ready to be paired. What began as an experiment in building at the intersection of people practice and AI became a fundamental shift in how CloudZero approaches employee development—proving that HR leaders can be builders, not just buyers, of the technology that shapes workplace culture.
Testimonials
Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Rival
Director of Recruiting at Tomorrow's Women TODAY
Work history
May 2024 - Present · 2.5 years · VP, Head of People & Culture
Sep 2021 - Apr 2024 · 2.7 years · Sr. Director, HR Business Partner
Sep 2015 - Sep 2021 · 6.1 years · Senior Human Experience Strategy Partner, HR Business Partner, HR Generalist
Jan 2012 - Dec 2015 · 4 years · HR Generalist
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