Menaka C.

Partner with early to mid-stage companies in laying a solid foundation to execute their People objectives to put them ahead. This includes creating a culture, systems, and tools to attract, develop, and retain talent while remaining focused on business objectives. Clients: Coursera, Cube Software, Instrumental, Mudflap, Newfront, See’s Candies, Storyblocks, and more

• Create and Implement a People Strategy: Track record of assessing needs and implementing people goals in collaboration with the CEO to improve company outcomes (i.e., recruiting, onboarding, total rewards, internal comms, manager development, people programs, culture, HR technology, policies, and more)
• Improve Leadership Capabilities: Coach and advise executives and managers to improve their abilities and future outcomes through a process of reflection, guidance, and accountability
• Facilitate Culture Change: Partner with executives to redefine internal operations with tracking mechanisms leading to a cultural shift emphasizing high performance and trust in leadership (per employee feedback surveys)
• Recruit and Mentor People Teams: Lead hiring efforts and mentor People team members to maximize their results for the organization
• Design and/or Enhance People Programs: Past projects include structured hiring, onboarding, cultural values, compensation strategy, performance reviews, career pathing, engagement surveys (and more)
• Big picture strategy to in the weeds: Focus on what’s both urgent and important to the business

Led the People function for Viz.ai, an AI-powered patient care coordination platform that reduces time to treatment and improves access to care, to drive their global people strategy, enhance organizational performance and culture

• Improved Talent Acquisition Team Outcomes: Optimized the existing TA team by building capacity planning, hiring RPO, leveraging analytics, and creating a structured hiring guide to increase hiring effectiveness and improve the candidate experience
• Revamped Total Rewards: Developed equitable compensation and equity philosophy and employee leveling to increase efficiencies in hiring and retaining talent
• Designed People Programs: Constructed and reinvented People experiences (i.e., talent practices, manager effectiveness, engagement surveys, retention, culture, onboarding, etc.) across the employee journey to increase organizational efficiencies, transparency, engagement, and self-service
• Enhanced Internal Communications: Improved information sharing by refining all-hands meetings (the content, speakers, cadence) and other comms across the org
• Coached Executives and Managers: Assisted all levels of managers in navigating the complexities of leading teams (i.e., high-performance culture, career development, total rewards, employee relations, etc.) and provided conflict resolution strategies
• Scaled People Team and People Systems: Hired additional People team members; Upgraded and automated People team workflows and processes to improve the team’s effectiveness and scalability

Partner, advisor, and influencer to global technology teams at Coursera, an online learning platform that offers access to courses and degrees from leading universities and companies to help drive their people strategy, improve organizational performance, and uplift team culture

• Enhanced Organizational Design: Optimized technology teams org design to support future scale and led all change management efforts
• mproved Team Effectiveness: Enhanced Product leadership team (Product Management, Design, Data Science, and Corporate Strategy) effectiveness by 14% with individual coaching and team facilitation to better communicate, collaborate and drive accountability of business results
• Shifted to Distributed Workforce: Led efforts to move from an in-office organization to a distributed workforce by creating guidelines, FAQs, compensation zones, and a communication plan in partnership with the People Leadership Team
• Built Equitable Programs: Built an apprenticeship program creating job opportunities for diverse entry-level talent, optimized the annual review by simplifying the process, mitigating bias, and reducing the overall length by 33%, and enhanced the internal mobility program to increase career opportunities within Coursera by 4.5%
• Influenced with Data: Developed solutions to improve team dynamics, engagement, and retention using data, including span of control, turnover, employee relations themes, onboarding integration, manager effectiveness, and workload
• Coached Executives and Managers: Supported all levels of managers in navigating the complexities of leading teams on topics including developing a high-performance culture, leading a distributed team, total rewards, career development, employee relations, and provided conflict resolution strategies

Led the People function for CB Insights, a tech market intelligence platform, from 20 employees to 300+ employees, enabling 50% headcount growth YoY

• Led the People Team: Built a high-performing team of 12 in Talent Acquisition, People Ops, and People Development
• Consulted Executive Team: Strategic partner and connector to the executive team of 9 on all things people, including org design, team efficiency, effectiveness, and communication to support business results
• Promoted Culture: Infused company values into talent acquisition, employer branding, onboarding, employee recognition, performance management, 360 feedback, and team-building events
• Established Fair People Programs: Created equitable programs and playbooks across the employee life cycle that scaled with the organization (i.e., talent practices, onboarding, performance management, recognition, engagement surveys, promotions, career development & mobility, etc.) to increase employee engagement, self-service, and retention
• Developed L&D Programs: Introduced workshops and coaching (in-house and with external vendors) for all levels of the organization to improve individual, team, and manager effectiveness, which increased team alignment by 12%
• Attracted Top Talent: Targeted branding efforts led to increased brand awareness, reduced speed of hire by 10 days, and multiple awards, including #9 on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work in 2018, #26 on Crain’s Best Places to Work in NYC in 2018, and #7 on BuiltIn NYC’s Best Places to Work in 2019
• Increased Diversity: Launched the company’s diversity & inclusion recruiting initiative to increase candidate pool diversity, which led to a 6% increase in diverse hires
• uilt Highly Engaged Employee Experiences (virtual/in-person): Led the People Team to deliver cost-efficient company-wide experiences with high participation rates (i.e., all hands, offsites, awards, team building, onboarding) to maintain transparency, team connection, and motivation of company mission
• Implemented Total Rewards: Established and reviewed total rewards yearly to meet financial objectives, support talent acquisition, and retention efforts
• Scaled People Systems: Optimized and automated HR workflows, processes, and procedures to better leverage the lean People team’s bandwidth and increase organizational efficiencies