The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR

Olivia Williams joined us on The Modern People Leader. 
We talked about how Vercel shortened its performance review cycle from 11 weeks to two weeks and how they built a 15-factor flight risk tool to retain top talent.
----  
Sponsor Links:
🔗 Request a demo of Shapes
MPL Links:
🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build.
----  
(12:25) Why Vercel Rethought Its Performance Review Cycle
(13:35) Realizing Vercel Was Spending Five Months a Year in Review Mode
(14:05) Why Most Employees Submitted Reviews on the Last Day Anyway
(14:40) Cutting the Review Cycle From 11 Weeks to Two Weeks
(17:35) Faster Feedback and More Relevant Review Conversations
(18:55) What the Two-Week Review Cycle Looks Like
(20:50) Treating the Review Cycle Like a Product for the Business
(22:10) PerfBot and Continuous Monthly Feedback
(22:35) Why Olivia Wants to “Kill Culture Amp”
(24:05) Monthly Slack Check-Ins With Three Simple Questions
(26:00) Hiring an HR Technologist Inside the People Org
(27:15) Stephen’s Rant: Why Traditional SaaS Tools Are Cooked
(29:45) The Importance of Play, Curiosity and Building
(30:20) Why People Teams Need AI Muscle and HR Technologists
(32:30) Olivia Demos PerfBot in Slack
(37:40) Vercel’s Employee Health Score and Attrition Risk Tool
(40:40) Using Claude to Analyze 15 Employee Risk Factors
(43:20) Thinking of HR as a Product for Employees
(46:45) Advice for People Teams With Head Trash Around AI
(49:00) Why Companies Should Bake in Time to Build
---- 
📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps
💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn
😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn
😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn
---- 
Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.

Conor Sweeney joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about what it's looked like to scale culture while doubling in size every year for three years straight.
----  
Sponsor Links:
🔗 Schedule a consultation with Manifest
🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/mpl
🔗 Explore the 2026 ​Deloitte Human Capital Trends Report
MPL Links:
🔗Go sign up for MPL Build.
----  
(12:05) Lessons From Jessica Swank and Tiffany Stevenson
(12:40) Learning Patience, Empathy and Flexibility as a Leader
(18:25) What Form Health Does in Plain English
(21:30) Scaling Culture While Form Health Doubles in Size
(23:25) The Fork in the Road: What to Keep and What to Let Go
(25:05) Why Consensus-Driven Decision-Making Stops Scaling
(28:00) Trust as the Foundation for Faster Decision-Making
(31:15) How to Scale Trust Day to Day
(32:35) Why Nailing the Fundamentals Still Matters
(33:25) Hiring for Both the What and the How
(35:40) “Don’t Crush the Butterfly” and What Form Health Must Protect
(36:30) Form Health’s First Butterfly: Clinical Care Quality
(38:45) Form Health’s Second Butterfly: Partnership
(43:20) Build With, Not Build For, as a People Leader
(45:30) Project Compass and Form Health’s Job Architecture Upgrade
(48:00) Building Consistency Around Levels, Competencies and Compensation
(49:15) Building Job Architecture for the Next Phase of Growth
(51:10) Why People Leaders Can’t Only Rely on Old Benchmarking Tools
(53:00) The Rise of the High-Impact Individual Contributor
(56:00) The Player-Coach Model of Modern Management
---- 
📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps
💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn
😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn
😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn
---- 
Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.

Alexis Fink joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about how AI is changing work, why org design needs to move beyond boxes and lines, and how curiosity, influence, courage, and better systems thinking can help people leaders design for the future.
----  
Sponsor Links:
🔗 Schedule a consultation with Manifest
🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/mpl
🔗 Learn more about SixFifty
MPL Links:
🔗Go sign up for MPL Build.
----  
(14:10) The One-Way Door of AI and Work
(17:15) Why AI Transformation Will Take Longer Than 18 Months
(19:05) What Org Design Means in the AI Era
(20:30) Work Organization, Decision Rights and the Role of Machines
(22:15) Why the Org Chart Is the Wrong Question
(23:05) Inverted Pyramids, Hourglass Models and Different Assumptions About Talent
(25:00) The IKEA Example: Turning Automation Into New Human Work
(28:05) Why AI Should Free Capacity, Not Just Eliminate Jobs
(31:40) How to Reframe the Headcount Reduction Conversation
(33:25) Breaking Through Constraints, Vendor Issues and Learned Helplessness
(36:45) Budget Constraints and the Problem With Legacy Decision Rights
(40:20) Lessons From Past Transformations at Microsoft
(43:00) Creating a Hard Gate for Vice President Promotions
(44:10) Creating a Real Individual Contributor Career Path
(47:30) What Has Changed About Change Management
(49:05) Multiple Layers of Change and the Need for a Clear North Star
(50:25) Avoiding Shiny Object Syndrome and Finishing the Last Mile
(53:10) The Difference Between Influence and Convincing
(55:45) Creating Gravitational Pull Instead of Pushing
---- 
📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps
💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn
😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn
😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn
---- 
Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.

Dean Carter (Best-Selling Author, 4x CHRO, & CEO of Instill)  joined us on The Modern People Leader. 
We talked about the career pivots that shaped his life, what Patagonia taught him about purpose and play, and why trusting your gut, taking big swings, and doing the right thing can lead you somewhere better than the plan you originally had.
----  
Sponsor Links:
🔗 Explore the 2026 ​Deloitte Human Capital Trends Report
🔗 Learn more about SixFifty
MPL Links:
🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build.
----  
(12:30) Dean’s Career Story Through Life Pivots
(23:20) The Moment Dean Decided to Work in HR
(28:45) Choosing His Daughter Over Career and Leaving Fossil
(33:40) Choosing Patagonia Over Bigger Career Moves
(37:50) Work as Play
(39:00) Humility, Simplicity and Living the Patagonia Way
(41:40) Dean’s Advice for People Considering a Major Career Pivot
(43:20) Showing Up Fully After You Make the Choice
(46:30) Making the Best of Any Choice You Make
(48:40) Why Big Misses Mean You Are Swinging Hard Enough
(50:00) Career Emergence and How the Path Reveals Itself
(56:10) Building AI That Saves Jobs Instead of Taking Them
(58:25) Career Advice: Think Two Jobs Up, Not One Job Up
---- 
📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps
💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn
😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn
😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn
---- 
Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.

D.V. Williams, Chief People Officer from Match Group joined us on The Modern People Leader.
We talked about why Match is betting on Gen Z talent, how skills are replacing titles as the new currency of work, and how Match is thinking about flexible mentorship and early-career programs.
----  
Sponsor Links:
🔗 Learn more about Beqom at beqom.com/mpl
🔗 Learn more about Tilt at hellotilt.com/mpl
MPL Links:
🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build.
----  
(10:45) Why Match Is Betting on Gen Z Talent
(12:00) Why Product and People Strategy Need to Align
(15:20) How Gen Z Thinks About Work Differently
(17:00) How Tinder Improved Engagement and Shifted the Internal Culture
(18:20) Becoming Product-Led and Consumer-Focused
(19:00) Flattening the Org and Getting Doers Closer to Decisions
(23:45) Why Tenure and Title Are Outdated Proxies for Value
(24:20) Skills as the New Currency of Work
(24:45) Rebuilding Mentorship Around Skill Acquisition
(25:20) Flexible Mentorship and the “Tinder for Skill Acquisition” Idea
(30:15) How Match Is Approaching AI Internally
(31:00) Equipping Employees With AI Without Framing It as Headcount Reduction
(31:20) Match’s AI Day and Employee-Led Experimentation
(34:00) How Dating Apps Are Evolving With AI and IRL Experiences
(35:00) Using AI to Help People Show Up More Authentically on Dating Apps
(40:15) Match’s Cross-Functional Rotational Program
(41:30) Match’s Internship Program: 20,000 Applicants for 26 Roles
(43:35) How the 2026 Rotational Program Is Different From Traditional Programs
(45:35) Why Curiosity Beyond the Job Description Matters
(48:05) Focusing Development on Skill Acquisition, Not the Next Title
---- 
📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps
💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn
😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn
😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn
---- 
Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.