The Talent & Culture Studio

Scott Belsky got his start in one of the most mundane, demanding, and soul-sucking jobs - investment banking. From there he founded Behance, a online platform for creatives to showcase and discover creative work, which he sold 10 years later to Adobe, where he’s now Chief Product Officer & EVP. We’ll chat about the approaches he used to building those teams, and most importantly, motivating them, and yourself, through the messy middle. Check out his book at www.themessymiddle.com.

The founding story of Thumbtack is unique for many reasons, not least of which is they’re a 10 year old consumer facing technology company built by 3 first time entrepreneurs, who set out to better the human condition through.. a services marketplace? Sander takes us through that story, and what it was like to build his first teams, how & why culture has become the guiding star for his current work, and why taking a hard look at yourself is the going to be most difficult part of your journey as a leader, with a framework for how to do it & survive (both at your company, and as a person). Survey for Sander: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdchsnIZhHp5swBZ9cVc27zkfCOWnEo62jV3FX5d3soj_gMnQ/viewform

Alvina has a pretty unique career path in the modern day - she spent nearly 17 years climbing the ranks from entry level to multiple director level positions at Dell, before moving into a role at Zuora as their CIO. There are a few things she credits for allowing her to quickly move vertically & laterally at Dell, as well as successfully transition to Zuora & make a big impact immediately: be a visionary, build incredible teams, and stay uncomfortable. Join us as we learn from Alvina about what it means, & how, to be a visionary, what it goes into building an incredible team, and a bit on how passionate & discomfort lead to growth.

We chat with Maria about her career, a couple great war-stories, and instructions on replicating the skill she credits most with her success: building relationships at every level of the organization. Here's a little hint: real connections can start with a simple discussion of why your favorite snack is the snack.

We cover how Craig got started at fair.com, dive into his approach to fundraising, spending & hiring that have made fair.com into a rocketship.

Keith's career is, in a couple words, successfully eclectic - he's been a therapist, GM of a bank, VP of client development, customer success, account management, and, currently, people at Outbrain. During our interview we talk about The critical lessons he learned as a therapist that apply to tech, and how mentorship enabled him to make so many "non-traditional entrances" in his career (as well as how we can do the same).

Brian's time as a VP of Marketing at Walmart, EZShield, Shutterfly, and Yelp, in concert with his natural curiosity, make him better equipped than most to teach us how to actually BE curious, which, of course, he does during our interview.