Moments of impact from Tessa White's career
Vivint Solar · Senior Vice President of Human CapitalWhen I joined Vivint Solar, the company was scaling at a breakneck pace—hiring over 100 people a month as it expanded its footprint nationally—yet HR infrastructure was virtually nonexistent. We had just one recruiter and one HR coordinator, no reliable headcount data, and weren't even completing basic legal requirements like I-9 documentation. I was brought in with an ambitious mandate: get the company audit-ready and operationally sound in time to go public in six months. To meet this challenge, I built out the entire human capital function from the ground up. I hired a team of 15 recruiters along with key HR leadership—a recruiting and operations leader, a compensation design leader, and a senior human resources partner—to design and run the new function. Together, we implemented an integrated technology stack, including a new HR system, a recruiting and onboarding platform, and a learning management system, and we built the processes and compliance checks needed to ensure the company was legally compliant and audit-ready at scale. The results reshaped how the company operated. While the IPO took about two years rather than six months, Vivint Solar went public having scaled to over 4,000 employees with full I-9 and audit compliance, a solid compensation and titling infrastructure, and a recruiting pipeline built for sustained, organized growth. The onboarding system I led the design of cut new-hire ramp time from over 7 days down to just 24 hours—a critical advantage given our workforce was largely hard-to-hire, 100% commission sales reps. During a period when many competitors in the industry failed to survive rapid consolidation and intense "recruiting wars" for sales talent, this infrastructure gave Vivint Solar the resilience and organizational agility to adapt and keep growing.
The Job DoctorAfter years in corporate HR leadership, I saw too many talented people blindsided by layoffs and office politics with no one to guide them. In 2020, I left the corporate world to found The Job Doctor, a company built to translate insider HR knowledge into practical, accessible guidance for individuals navigating a career. I built the company from scratch across multiple channels simultaneously: creating podcast-style videos for TikTok that broke down real career navigation tactics, launching a companion podcast to extend reach, and landing a book deal with Harper Collins, one of the top business book publishers in the nation—all while growing a consulting client base through referrals and speaking engagements. My thought thought leadership on the future of work was quoted in articles and media across the globe, and hands-on client work at the same time in the company's earliest, most resource-constrained days. The results within two years were substantial: my TikTok following grew past 500,000, with my ad-hoc live sessions averaging 8,000–10,000 participants and ranking in the top 2% of similar creators. My book became a category bestseller and I built a six-figure consulting practice serving both individual clients and corporate teams. Fortune 500 HR departments now hire me to train their teams or coach individuals, and I have a robust keynote schedule. I was named one the Top Speakers to Watch in 2022 in USA Today. I've been featured as a career expert on NPR, NewsNation, Good Morning America and several other prominent media outlets, and I'm regularly quoted in articles for top tier publications like The Wall Street Journal . Beyond the metrics, the impact shows up in the messages I receive from people around the world who tell me my advice directly helped them land their dream job, navigate a difficult career challenge, or finally break through to a long-sought promotion—proof that the mission behind The Job Doctor is reaching the people it was built for.