So where I am today is the VP of people at Coca Labs. And part of that it was the VP, a talented toast. And part of that ran, uh, h r for another company called Shift Analytics. So where I've been is e started out predominantly in talent acquisition after graduating college. Uh, by mistake, actually, you know, got into talent acquisition, didn't No one ever says they wanna join the t A function, for the most part. But what I found was that it was a great way Thio get to know people and have always been somebody that is attracted thio helping and helping others. And so that was my foray into the people functions for from there, uh, ended up having a kind of ancillary responsibilities and other things outside of town acquisition things like on boarding things like, um, uh, coaching and mentoring. You know, executives and team members on Ben, you know, from there it really started to get into more off the learning and development, you know, space. So I was really spending more time, you know, thinking about what are some of the gaps in the organization based on some of my findings. And how do we help plug those gaps through training and learning that, you know, helps then, you know, propelled the organization forward. And so that's been been really the big focus of mine. And so really, since, um, I joined a start up called Acquia on from there, you know, really have, you know, just progressed forward in the HR space. I think a lot of a lot of where my focus has been is around storytelling on branding, making sure that might not only the company that I work for has a great, you know, brand both employer and then, you know, corporate. But then also, um, you know, looking at, you know, the the personal brand as well. So I'm making sure that, you know, my brand, you know, is is, you know, being strengthened at the same time on DWhite. I've focused, You know, much of my attention on part of this was by accident. Um, you know, it wasn't intentional at the time. I didn't realize I was so passionate. Are had kind of just such a desire to be part of, But I loved the startup space on DFO me. Tech startups have been just a great great kind of engaging, uh, you know, kind of industry to be part of. And so I found myself, um, you know, part of Tokyo. As you know, under 100 people and growing into about 750 people and about three years And then, you know, from there I went to toast, and we more than doubled toast and, you know, 18 months and then got acquired by metadata, which was really exciting. And then from there went to toast and post from, you know, thousands of 3000. And, you know, and I'm now a kogo, you know, helping Thio, you know, grow internally as well as our incubator of companies. So it's for me. I'm always been looking for opportunities that, you know, have you know, some level of team building some growth. Um, you know, I love the mission. You know, any sort of mission that I can hang my hat on, especially organizations where you know, it shows up. You know, being fairly people first, um, is, you know, kind of what gets me excited. And so for me, Kerr path wise, I've I've really just tried to focus on two things. One on one is, you know, what are the skills that are gonna continue to help me achieve my goal, which is to be the big chief people officer one day or the big C H r o one day, um, and then to how do I continue Thio? Have fun while I'm doing it because you can't. You can't just, you know, it can't be all all this all the time. And so how are there? Ways are what are the ways that you can incorporate fun into the work and on get passionate about it and make it, you know, feel feel less like work have been I think a lot of the focuses for me in my career path.

Yeah, so? So we've we've rebranded the company from advert Plex, Tioga Labs. Um, eso no longer ever. Plus, but kogo is the new the new one. Um, in terms of my responsibilities and some of the decisions that that I'm responsible for eso I own all of the what would be known as the HR, you know, functions that kogo labs on, then also a mentor, Coach Andi, sometimes therapist to our to our vertical or our portfolio of companies. And so what does that mean? It means that I spend a lot of time thinking about how do we align business realities into, uh, you know, corporate HR essentially is is kind of where I'm thinking about. So what does that mean? It means, you know, how do we ensure that we are developing our people the best? How do we ensure that you know we're reducing retention and, you know, increasing? Um, you know, the the overall experience of what it is to be, you know, at KOGO Lab on DSO. Sometimes that's, you know, with my HR hat on and thinking about people strategy and engagement and performance and impact. Other times, it's thinking about telling acquisition. How do we bring in the great people that that, you know, are at the company? And other times it's it's thinking about, uh, you know, kind of the learning development elements of the organization. So how can we, you know, through training, strengthen specific, you know, elements of the company on, you know, around either particular project management methodology or manager training or, you know, other specific, you know, on the job type training that the organization could benefit from eso. Those were kind of the areas where I tend to be making a lot of responsibilities. I also handle a lot of our employees employee relations issues. So any of the the you know, the times where are, you know, we have, you know, employee issues that pop up. You know, people are people. It happens. Um, that's another area. And then, you know, quick, I guess, finally, are diversity equity, including your efforts, um meant much of that work comes from my team or is brought to life by my team on dso we interact with our G i counsel, uh, to ensure that, you know, we're well informed that we have the right policy in place and that we're executing to make change. Um, so in terms of my top three priorities right now, um, really, it is Thio grow a world class HR team, Really making sure that we build out the right HR team to it is Thio and heard that Kogo Labs can hit their growth goals. We have some pretty significant goals over the next 5 to 6 years where we're trying Thio, increase the number of companies that are in our portfolio and so that you know, there's all sorts of initiatives that need to happen in terms of that. And then finally, you know, my final you know, priority is to ensure that, um, kogo is a welcoming environment that you know, um really celebrates, seeks and celebrates, you know, diversity and diversity of thought. And so that has become a really top priority for me. A swell of the organization in terms of the hours weekly hours that I work are I tend toe work. Um, you know, has an executive way tend toe work a bit s Oh, You know, I usually start my day around 7. 30 in the morning. Since you know, pretty much a students are. Nanny gets to our house because we're working remotely because of code right now. Um, and then I and then I will work right up till about 5. 30 when I need to relieve our nanny on. Then I tend to log it back in after I get our kids to bed and we'll get some email management or do a little writing. Um, so, you know, 50 plus hours a week, probably. Plus, you know, always on always thinking about work I was thinking about, you know, how can we, you know, the, you know, do something better different on October. Optimize something. Um, Bond, Then you know, there's always this thing the phone, right, that keeps us, uh, connected as well. So, um, always working.

so we have our own kind of HR stack. Um, HR tech stack that we have we've assembled. Um, right now we use, namely as our hrs we use greenhouse as our A t. S. Um uh, on Then, um, we used office vibe as our engagement tool. And then outside of that ah, lot of what we do is, um, is homegrown way as an organization have a central database where essentially any sort of software as a service or data sources are loaded. So we open. Try to open all of our A P s and the organization toe, load the data into the central data warehouse or into the central database. And then from there, we have all sorts of, you know, queries running on the data toe Get better insight into, you know, either our biases hiring, hiring and funnel issues, um, demographic data for d I purposes and things like that. So, um, those were the primary tools. We use a lot of excel. Um, and, uh and then you would prefer certain tools. Yes, I I love greenhouse. Greenhouse is a fantastic tool for an applicant tracking system into super powerful has lots and lots of capabilities. Um, and they and I think one of the best parts, which to some, is tricky because, uh, you know, it's hard. It's sometimes hard to work with, right in the in the applicant on the application itself. But the data that you can you can clean out of greenhouse is really powerful.