HR Credibility Isn't Handed Out: Deliver Solutions, Show Founders Your Impact

Welcome to the Built by People podcast, where we share the stories and insights of the world's top HR leaders. Join us as we dive deep into the minds of HR executives, uncovering their strategies, challenges, and triumphs in shaping today's workforce. I'm excited to welcome Jomana to the Built by People podcast. Jomana, thank you so much for joining us today. And as a starting question, I always love to ask if you could share a little bit more about your career journey.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I've been a longtime fan of the podcast, so getting the chance to be here is really fun. I'm Jomana Alwani. I've had a fairly traditional HR journey in the sense that I graduated with a business degree majoring in HR and went straight into the field after university, but the path I took from there was anything but traditional. Right out of university, I landed my first large-scale HR role within my 3 years as an HR assistant, but when I started my role, my manager left within a few weeks of me starting alongside a team of 5. I was brand new, still learning the ropes, and suddenly without a leader, instead of learning through someone else, I had to build from instinct. Within a year, I was promoted to lead the same team I had just joined. And that shift, going from peer to coach overnight, taught me one of the most important lessons of my career that really stuck with me, which is credibility isn't really handed to you with a title. From there, I was brought in by a private equity firm to oversee a portfolio of brands, each in a different stage of growth. One was restructuring and another was preparing for hypergrowth. I became the first HR hire at what would grow into a Fortune 50 fitness company. And over 6 years, we scaled from a small footprint to over 115 locations nationwide. I built the entire people function from the ground up, from workforce planning, leadership development, to talent acquisition. And that work led to me being named one of Canada's most promising HR leaders. Not just for the results we achieved, but for how we elevated the role of HR in the business. After that, I had gone on to join a global SaaS company during a major shift in the tech industry, moving away from scale at all costs towards an operational discipline and sustainable growth. I stepped in to lead their people operations across 10 countries to support them through that transition, which leads me to today where I serve as the VP of People and Culture at a wellness investment studio. We operate two fast-growing brands in the fitness and recovery space, and we're scaling nationally with over 130 locations in development. And I was brought in to design the entire people infrastructure to support that kind of growth from the ground up. So, looking back, I've definitely found myself consistently brought in during critical points for our organizations, whether it's preparing for hypergrowth, navigating, uh, mergers and acquisitions, or laying the groundwork for a future IPO. And while, you know, my entry into HR might have been traditional in the sense that I've definitely held HR roles and worked my way up, it has been far from traditional in the sense that I've always worked directly with founders and executive teams. So I unfortunately never had the privilege of reporting into and learning from the HR leader directly, which I can't say was an easy ride, but it shaped me very early. So yeah, that's my journey.

Giovanna, tell us about a time when you had to establish credibility as the first HR leader working directly with founders. What approaches worked and what didn't?

I have to say, every time you step into a new role, or every time I've stepped into a new role, I've had to establish credibility over and over again very quickly. And that's just part of the work, especially in a founder-led environment, which I'm used to, when you're often the first senior HR leader, or you're stepping into a space where HR has historically been seen as administrative at best. It comes with the territory. And in HR, you don't inherit trust, you need to earn it every time. And what's worked for me is coming to the table with actionable solutions, not just pointing out problems, but saying, here's what's not working, here's why, and here's what I recommend we do about it. Founders want partners who think like operators, people who can remove friction, help the business move faster. And when they see you're solving business problems, not just managing people, That's when the trust starts to build. I've stepped into more than one organization where HR wasn't just under-resourced, but it actually wasn't fully understood. And if you don't pick up on that early, it starts to become a problem. You start to see the signs where they question where your time is going, they don't see the value in what you're building, or they expect you to focus on surface-level things that don't actually match the actual needs of the business. They may think it does, but it actually doesn't. And those red flags, if you don't address them really quickly, you risk losing their trust before you even have the chance to prove your value. And when I spot that kind of disconnect, which is normal to happen, it's happened over and over, I usually reach out to the founders or executives and I say, hey, I noticed there's some disconnect or misalignment around the scope of my role, where I'm focused right now. Can we connect to get on the same page? And this is really important, but on the flip side of that, I've also had to catch myself. I've learned that I have to be very intentional about visibility. I tend to go heads down, build, whether it's an HRIS implementation, ATS rollout, all very critical, but largely invisible once they're working. And that's the trap. When things run smoothly, it looks effortless to the rest of the team. And if you don't bring people along during the build, they're really going to miss the lift, and most importantly, the impact of your role. So, now I really make it a point to connect the dots in real time to the founders and executives I'm working with. Tie every system or structure back to what's enabling your business. Because if anything I've learned is that credibility doesn't come from a title, as I've mentioned earlier, it really comes from how you show up, how you think, and how you contribute to things moving forward.

How does your approach to scaling up HR operations change when working directly with executives versus having other HR leadership above you?

Yeah, this is a good question. And when you report into an HR leader, especially in a startup, the experience can vary depending on obviously the maturity of the company. In some cases, there's a solid roadmap. Your role is to optimize, execute, and build within a framework that's already in motion. But in earlier startups, even when you report into another HR leader, the structure may still be evolving. You might be still building from scratch, but with more checkpoints, alignment loops, and less direct access to founders. That's very different when you're working directly with a founder or CEO as the HR lead. In those environments, you're not stepping into a function, you are the function. And those inherited systems, predefined priorities, those don't exist. You're working with white space, you're studying the blueprint. You're not just driving HR, but you're really shaping the business alongside the leadership team. So, you need to be both strategic and scrappy. You're building the infrastructure. Our favorite saying is you're building the plane while flying it, moving in real time to the business, reacting to growth, shifts in funding, whether it's a product pivot, you really need to foresee and see around the corner and design the systems for the business that the founders don't know they need yet. And everything I build is tied to what the business actually needs in the moment and what it's going to look like in 6 months. When you're working directly with founders, the feedback loop is faster, the stakes are higher, and the alignment has to be sharper. That's really important. You don't have time to overexplain or overdesign. You have to lead with clarity, make smart decisions quickly, and build the systems that are strong enough to scale, but also flexible enough to evolve with the business as you go.

Shimana, when was the time you had to navigate a challenging situation with a founder or executive And what did that experience teach you about being an effective HR leader?

Oh, so many instances. It doesn't, it doesn't get easy, but I would say one of the most challenging moments I've had in my career was stepping into a company during a major market shift where the tone at the top had to change really quick. The business was in full hypergrowth mode. They were hiring rapidly, compensating in the 90th percentile, offering world-class benefits, and operating on our favorite scale-at-all-costs mentality. But when the market crashed, everything flipped and we had to shift from expansion to efficiency and essentially from growth to survival. And that pivot wasn't operational, it was deeply emotional for a lot of the founders and executives that I worked with. And at the time I was working directly with the founder and executive team and I really could feel the resistance. They were leaders who had built momentum fast on their team. They were celebrated for their achievements for scaling, adding headcount, launching product features, and really essentially just moving at lightning speed. But now suddenly we had to make cuts, slow down, restructure, and it was really personal for a lot of them. And I realized in that moment, my role wasn't really just to implement change, it was really to anchor the team through it. I had to really become the steady hand in the room, the calm voice for everyone, the one person who wasn't reacting emotionally, but creating space for others to process what was happening to help them move forward. And what was really important in that experience was that I had to really reframe the conversation and shift the language we were using. So instead of talking about cuts and losses, we were talking about clarity and focus. And I helped leadership understand that protecting culture doesn't mean avoiding hard conversations. It really means making them with integrity, transparency, and alignment. So I brought data to the table, but I also listened. I was a sounding board for them. Who were the founders and executives who were grappling with more than just budget cuts, but rather identity shifts as leaders. And I reminded them that discipline doesn't really dilute culture, it protects it. And that leadership isn't about momentum, but it's really about staying grounded when that momentum disappears to your team. And I can't say it was easy. I definitely carried a lot during that time. And when I eventually made the decision to move on from the organization, you know, I was personally founded by personally acknowledged by the founder for the grace that I continuously brought during those tough moments. And that's when it really hit me that presence had made an impact to them. And it taught me that being an effective HR leader isn't really just about policies and plans or even strategy. Yes, those are very important, but it's about who you are when things get hard. And it's really easy to lead when things are going well, but the real HR leadership shows up when everything's on the line. The room needs someone to really steady the ground.

Giovanna, could you share a story about implementing a significant HR initiative while working directly with a founder or executive? How did you gain buy-in and drive results?

In, uh, one of my roles, I was brought in to build out the people function while working directly with the founders who were scaling quite aggressively. And from day one, the message from them was very clear: focus on the front end, get people hired, build the culture, and keep things moving. We've all heard it before, it's our favorite line, but it became quickly obvious that we were trying to grow on a shaky foundation, which is fair. In high-growth environments, hiring and culture are the visible priorities, but within months, it was really obvious that the lack of infrastructure was the real bottleneck to our growth. There were no scalable systems in place, no job architecture, no policies, Payroll and benefits were keeping the lights on for the most part. Recruiting was already backing up because roles weren't clearly defined, and onboarding was just being held by duct tape. And this is where the tension came in. The founders didn't really understand that the, you know, unsexy backend work that HR spends their time working on was actually the enabler for everything they wanted on the frontend. So, instead of me coming in and pushing HR jargon or compliance checklists, I changed my framing to approach the founders in a way that would get their buy-in. So, I treated infrastructure as like a business insurance. So, I asked them, how are we going to hire quickly if job titles and pay ranges and responsibilities aren't defined? How do we stay compliant across higher states if we don't have formal policies in place? How are we going to retain staff if we actually don't have onboarding in place, no training, and no clarity on progression yet? So, essentially, I can do what you want me to do and focus on that front-end work of hiring all day, but without the structure in place to retain them, this is just going to be a revolving door. And those questions really started to get traction and get them thinking because it really exposed the risks linked directly to the growth and outcomes that they were looking for. And from there, I was able to roll out a few things in phases. So, one, centralizing our HR operations by implementing an HRIS to just automate our onboarding, our payroll, our benefits that allowed us to scale seamlessly, an ATS system that allowed us to streamline high-volume recruiting with obviously consistency and speed, created the compliance handbooks for obviously every jurisdiction, and then built a scalable onboarding plan and workforce planning tool that allowed us to directly link it to growth timelines and headcount projections. And the real value wasn't just really in launching those systems, but educating the executive team along the way and translating every HR move into a business advantage that they would understand. So, I would say if you're an HR leader, it's really important to tie infrastructure to business velocity and speak the language of scale that your founders and executives will understand. And if you're a founder or an exec, don't underestimate the back office because the backend is the engine that you're looking for.

Jomana, what parting advice would you like to share with our community?

I would say, Get aligned early, be very clear about your role, what success looks like and how you'll measure it. Because if you don't have that conversation upfront, if you're working with founders and executives for the first time, you're going to spend the rest of your time trying to course correct and get them to understand your side. And in founder-led environments, most of the early work that we need to do is foundational and often invisible. So over, overcommunicating your impact isn't optional. It's essential to your success. But here's the part that we don't talk about often, and that's sometimes even when you do everything right, the alignment is still not there. The founder might not be ready to see HR as strategic. They might not trust the function, or they might unintentionally undermine the role constantly. And the truth is, you can't build in an environment where your work is under— isn't understood or respected. And it's important to know that's not failure to recognize when things aren't aligned, it's clarity. And you can't create a real partnership as an HR leader with founders and executives without that mutual trust and respect. So staying in a seat where your value isn't seen, it's going to slowly chip away at one, your energy, and two, your impact. And if you're in a room that doesn't see that, it's okay to step away and find one that does.

Germanna, thank you so much for joining us today on the Built by People podcast. It was a pleasure to have you involved.

Thank you so much. Excited to be here.