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In this insightful episode of Leading Beyond the Org Chart, hosts Kim Steppe and Marilyn Nagel sit down with Jonathan Meyrowitz, the head of people and special operations at UP Labs. With over 15 years of experience spanning from large enterprises like CAA to venture-funded startups, Jonathan shares his journey and the lessons learned along the way. He dives deep into the importance of agility in leadership, especially when transitioning from traditional corporate environments to innovative startup cultures.
Jonathan discusses the critical need for operational insight within HR functions and emphasizes the value of having a seat at the operational table. The conversation explores how effective planning, team dynamics, and diverse thought leadership can drastically enhance organizational outcomes. Jonathan also offers his perspective on the evolving role of AI in talent acquisition and operational efficiency, sharing key tools and strategies that can empower organizations to thrive in a rapidly changing business landscape.
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Welcome to the Leading Beyond the Org Chart Podcast by Rise Results, where we bring you real-world strategies to improve employee engagement, boost retention, and accelerate team development - all with a clear focus on driving measurable business outcomes.
Each episode features leaders who’ve successfully navigated these challenges, sharing actionable insights you can implement immediately.
We’ll explore how better people practices lead to better business performance - and how to turn strategic thinking into scalable growth.
00:00:01:03 - 00:00:24:10
Kim
Welcome to Leading Beyond the Org Chart, brought to you by Rise Results. This isn't just another leadership podcast. We're here to talk about real strategies that actually move the needle. Keeping your team engaged, retaining top talent, and building systems that scale. You'll hear from leaders who have been in the trenches sharing what worked, what didn't, and how you can apply those lessons today.
00:00:24:12 - 00:00:34:03
Kim
Because when you leave beyond the org chart, you don't just build teams, you build alignment, culture and results. Let's get to it.
00:00:34:05 - 00:01:08:01
Kim
Welcome. Today our guest is Jonathan Meyrowitz. Jonathan is a highly experienced professional in talent, people, finance and operations management. Over the past 15 years, Jonathan has held significant roles in well-known companies including Robert Half, Forever 21 and CAA. His successful career transition from large enterprise environments to venture funded startups, notably helping to launch and grow Med Men, a prominent cannabis brand.
00:01:08:07 - 00:01:29:22
Kim
Jonathan is currently with UP Labs as the head of people and Special Operations and Special Operations. It's a mobility venture studio that collaborates with large corporate partners to launch AI and SaaS companies, serving both niche enterprises and broader markets. So welcome, Jonathan. We're thrilled to have you.
00:01:30:03 - 00:01:32:15
Jonathan
Thanks for having me, Kim and Marilyn.
00:01:32:17 - 00:01:53:03
Kim
Great. So we'll just going to jump right into the question. So the first question, Jonathan, is you've had I mean, I just read your bio. You've had a lot of different worked with a lot of different companies. And your career journeys started with large enterprises to a VC studio environment is really interesting to to both Marilyn and I and our guests or listeners.
00:01:53:03 - 00:02:00:07
Kim
What motivated you to transition from a company like CAA to launching startups with up? Laughs?
00:02:00:09 - 00:02:33:21
Jonathan
Yeah, it's a it's a great question, Kim. No. I worked in some of the larger, most prominent enterprise companies in Los Angeles, and I noticed one thread throughout all of them is that they moved way too slow and they could not innovate. Right. I additionally pass into I started work at single entity startups, and I realized also, you want to be where the money comes from as opposed to where the money goes, right?
00:02:33:23 - 00:02:55:04
Jonathan
So as soon as I had a few public failings when it came to startups that I helped to build, unfortunately go the opposite direction from growth. I knew I wanted to be an adventure environment where not only could we innovate, but we could be in a stable environment to where we were the investors as opposed to the opposite.
00:02:55:04 - 00:03:14:16
Jonathan
So I've absolutely loved working in venture studio environments. This is my third venture studio coming from CPG and the health tech and health or online therapy spaces. So I've absolutely loved my last 5 or 6 years in this space and probably going to be here for the foreseeable future.
00:03:14:16 - 00:03:54:04
Marilyn
So you found your sweet spot. And in this space you manage so many different, oversee so many different functions, from talent to operations to AI initiatives. So the question we have for you, and I'm sure that our listeners are interested in understanding, is how do you balance it all when you know you have a crisis or a high demand in talent or AI competing for your time, how do you find a way to balance the responsibilities and what?
00:03:54:05 - 00:03:59:10
Marilyn
What's your secret sauce for managing the challenges?
00:03:59:12 - 00:04:28:19
Jonathan
Yeah. Thanks, Marilyn. You know, the first thing I'm going to do is give credit to my team, right? I'm an amazing head of people and amazing head of portfolio talent and amazing head of internal talent who supports me in execution. The execution sides of CEO recruiting, like sourcing and scheduling and on sites, etc. so the first thing I have to do is give credit to my team, which if you back up, goes back into who you hire, right?
00:04:28:20 - 00:04:50:18
Jonathan
Like the only way I can be multifaceted is making sure that I'm covering the gaps that I open up, because I have such a large, encompassing desk. Outside of that, though, it's it's prioritizing what's important to the business, right? I think every people and talent leader needs to have an operational seat at the table, because how can you sell a role?
00:04:50:18 - 00:05:17:13
Jonathan
How can you tell a candidate at any level this is your impact on the organization if you don't know what impacts the organization, right. So you know, going back, right, like understanding the priorities of the business helps me prioritize my desk to say, okay, this CEO search is more important today, or this AI initiative is very important today because it's going to save us time six months from now.
00:05:17:14 - 00:05:43:12
Jonathan
And, you know, leading into my next comment, right. Like, it is having the foresight of making sure you have a headcount plan done in November that everyone in finance and the other leadership team agrees with. It's making sure that you identify the AI initiatives. One of the best initiatives you need to implement with a knowledge base. It's going to take 4 to 6 months to have a real effect on the organization.
00:05:43:12 - 00:06:04:21
Jonathan
So it's pulling back the curtain from an operational perspective and working alongside all of your leadership team to say, what are the major operational business initiatives that are coming up in the next six, 12 months? What other headcount look like, what tooling is really going to affect this organization and then build them backwards from there?
00:06:04:22 - 00:06:25:02
Marilyn
And just as a follow up, are you finding that you're able to plan six months out? I know that for so many of the the clients that we work with, you know, we used to do five year plans and ten year plans, and then it became two year plans, and now it's six month plans. But things are changing so rapidly.
00:06:25:04 - 00:06:32:06
Marilyn
How do you juggle that given all of the things that you're overseeing?
00:06:32:08 - 00:06:54:02
Jonathan
Yeah. You know, at the end of the day, as we all know, these times timelines have shifted because these are all educational guesses based on the information we have today. And the best way of making sure that plan sticks is constantly updating it and iterating upon it. Right? We all know we have to do that, but we all have to be knowledgeable that, like this plan is going to need iteration.
00:06:54:02 - 00:07:26:00
Jonathan
But to have a baseline I think is a major first step of projecting the next six months to a year. And again, having that seat at the table with your operational leadership team to say, like, does this match on our side? Fortunately, you work on very long term contracts, usually 2 or 3 years. So for our side outside of attrition, you know, and now that I manage a lot of the business function, it's very easy for me to say, okay, like based on biz dev activity, operational activity, AI initiatives and potential attrition.
00:07:26:01 - 00:07:54:08
Jonathan
This is how we should plan out this organization. So going back to having an operational seat at the table, that's very helpful when it comes to planning because you know, you have your your finger in a little bit of everything, but, you know, going back to I know not all teams have that, but what I would urge every person listening to this is to get more of that seat at the table if you don't already have it, so that your planning sticks and you're seen as an operational leader within your function.
00:07:54:08 - 00:08:09:18
Marilyn
I think that's just absolutely a that is your secret sauce, having that operational seat at the table as you, as you say, really makes a huge difference for the other pieces of the work that you do. Great insights. Thank you.
00:08:09:19 - 00:08:28:05
Kim
All right. So I love that you mentioned that your team, how important your team is. I think that always makes a successful leader. And they recognize the the input of their team and the value of their team and I the next question is a little bit redundant based on your answer. I just want to see if there's anything else that you might want to add to this.
00:08:28:05 - 00:08:49:01
Kim
But even in our prep call, we talked about the importance of HR functioning as an operations team. Is there anything else that you want to share about the perspectives and the benefits to an HR, HR professionals in their organization as operating as a as an operations team? We're doing the quotes but you can't see it.
00:08:49:03 - 00:09:11:07
Jonathan
Yeah. Like I think you know, first of all you have to have the right talent in your HR people, operations management who wants to flex into these things. I think that's the most important thing, right? They need to have a business lens to their decision making process and not be so single funnel minded. Right. And that's a challenge to everyone listening.
00:09:11:07 - 00:09:37:23
Jonathan
It's if you are a people operations person and you're saying, well, I don't have the seat at the table and no one listens to me when I make planning inward, look and say like, am I actually adding business value when I speak to finance? Am I speaking their language of, hey, I'm going to save us money by doing that and the other and all I need is this are you speaking your marketing team of saying like, how can you augment your headcount so you're not spending time in less mission critical items?
00:09:38:00 - 00:10:01:16
Jonathan
Your full focus is on stuff that is going to bring in revenue to our business, right? You have to be a thought partner and ask the right questions, as well as provide the right value to each individual stakeholders, because value is different to each one of those people. So I really think that's what I really think. That's the way that, you know, executives at my seat need to go about it.
00:10:01:21 - 00:10:25:06
Jonathan
If they're not already, it's a reflection of how you can be valuable, as well as making sure that you're going into these meetings with that mindset, because otherwise, you know, you know, people, operations, talent. A lot of this function is seen as a cost center. And if you're not tying what you do to revenue operations or revenue growth, a lot of it can be lost in Asia.
00:10:25:06 - 00:10:59:00
Marilyn
So looking at your website, you seem to have a great deal of diversity, gender and otherwise in your leadership team. Did you do much to influence that? How did that come about? What strategies did you employ? Because it's really unusual and nice to see, especially at a venture firm, such great diversity in the leadership. And so tell us, share with us, if you will, a little bit of the strategies that you may have employed to help shepherd that diversity.
00:10:59:01 - 00:11:25:08
Jonathan
Yeah, yeah. So to back up, Marilyn, I think you really need a leadership team that cares, right? Like, we can employ every strategy in the book and do that in the other. If your leadership team doesn't care about it, you might as well do nothing. Right? To an extent, right? Of course not. Right. But you know, that said, how do you influence a leadership team to care?
00:11:25:10 - 00:11:51:20
Jonathan
Now, in my case, it was very simple, right? We ideate and innovate product for multiple customers. The only way to get true kind of circumference of the problem is to get as many individual types of can put, whether it's from our team, whether it's through advisors out through some of those advisory platforms. Right. Like to create great products.
00:11:51:20 - 00:12:16:09
Jonathan
We need as much diverse thought going into the ideation and solution as possible. So from our side, we knew right off the jump we needed a diverse slate of thinking within all of our teams, because otherwise we're not going to be able to create great products. You know, just from the multiple usage base that these products are going to have within giant enterprise organization.
00:12:16:11 - 00:12:53:17
Jonathan
So going back to my last statement, you have to tie in your initiatives on how it's going to affect the greater team, the greater product, the greater mission, OKRs, KPIs, etc. because in my experience, that's what leadership is going to listen to, right? They're not going to listen to we got to interview this type of people this many times, each funnel like, and those are our figures that again, you know, they they remove the operational process that most teams set forth when they're trying to achieve a goal.
00:12:53:18 - 00:13:13:06
Jonathan
Right. I think at the top, you have to have the leadership buy in to want to do this in a business reason into why, and a lot of everything else falls into place, especially because that leadership team going down is going to continuously preach that goal of, we need to do this because one, it's the right thing to do.
00:13:13:06 - 00:13:31:08
Jonathan
But two, we need diverse thought leadership. And that message gets spread down and down and down and down to where it's just the backbone of the entire organization. And that's how we've been effective here at UP Labs. And that's what I think attracts a lot of different types of people to come to.
00:13:31:10 - 00:14:00:23
Marilyn
And I want to really punctuate what you're saying because it's really our philosophy. Also, at Rise results, we would never recommend going for a certain type of person in terms of gender, race, ethnicity or anything like that. But we do absolutely focus on diversity of thought because it promotes innovation, and because you want the end user of whatever it is.
00:14:00:23 - 00:14:31:12
Marilyn
You're creating a service, a product, you know, a process, whatever it is to have multiple inputs. And our experiences are what create our thought process. And so you want people who come from different backgrounds, different experiences, different age groups, different walks of life to help create that experience and product that will be the most beneficial to to the end users.
00:14:31:13 - 00:15:14:10
Marilyn
So we do the same, essentially have the same conversations. In looking at what would add the greatest benefit to to the end users. And I think your approach again is the same. It's speaking the language of the person you're speaking to, building that rapport by understanding what is so what is important to each business leader, whether that's finance or sales or product or marketing, whatever it happens to be, understanding their needs and looking to fulfill their needs with talent or whatever it is.
00:15:14:11 - 00:15:19:20
Marilyn
So I think that that makes great sense. Thank you.
00:15:19:22 - 00:15:44:04
Jonathan
You also, I apologize at any answer the second half of your question, how how did we do this? Right? Well, like you can't put the cart before the horse. Right? The way we got a lot of these referrals was by hiring great, diverse talent and then referring great, diverse talent. Right. Like, that's a fantastic way of creating a pipeline is making sure you're hiring the right people.
00:15:44:06 - 00:16:07:19
Jonathan
And they're they shout it from the rooftops that this is a great place to work. And that's regardless of what you're trying to do with your employer brand, right? If you're not creating a great environment where people love to work, then your employment branding is going to suffer in every single aspect, right? But you know, one, yes, we utilize a referral based network.
00:16:07:19 - 00:16:36:03
Jonathan
We have great recruiters that are sourcing all sorts of talent from all over the country. But I think referral based network is important as well as utilizing some of these referral based networking slack groups. Right? There's so many amazing, you know, slack groups for diverse talent. And all of them are willing to put slack posts or job descriptions or all sorts of stuff together to get your jobs out there.
00:16:36:03 - 00:16:55:20
Jonathan
So it's taking up a spoke approach, but it's also, you know, at the top right, making sure that one, it's a major company initiative to do it. And that two, you're making sure that when you are able to execute, you are making the environment great and you're opening up a network of referrals through those people that you hire.
00:16:55:20 - 00:17:00:11
Marilyn
And then it becomes a recursive cycle. That's great. Yeah, yeah.
00:17:00:12 - 00:17:20:15
Kim
And I'll just add to I think when you there's such a stigma around diverse the what diverse talent means and diversity of thought. But I think to Marilyn's point, talking about the things that we've done over the years that we've always said, you hire the best person for the job, always. And but you have to open your network and look for those.
00:17:20:16 - 00:17:49:09
Kim
The referral pieces is huge. If you've got people that are really happy. Of course other people are going to want to come work there, but you really have to open up that pipeline to really look at different talent. So you actually do get the best people and not by not just based on gender or race. All right. That was a great segue into my next question, which is, we know that you have lots of experiences with different companies and your experience in placing multi accident CEOs.
00:17:49:09 - 00:18:00:10
Kim
So you've talked a little bit about those leadership qualities, but what what other qualities do you look for in leaders, particularly in the mobility and tech sectors.
00:18:00:12 - 00:18:26:17
Jonathan
Yeah, transparently. I don't think the intangibles really change regardless of the sector, potentially be dependent on the size of the company. Definitely some of those intangibles change, but I'm happy to share intangibles that, regardless of the company's size, regardless of the industry, never change. Right here in city. Right. They have to be curious, especially if they're learning a new industry.
00:18:26:17 - 00:18:52:09
Jonathan
They have to be okay walking into a room and maybe not having every answer or willing to have no shame and asking the stupid ones. Right. So I think curiosity is absolutely the number one thing I look for when I look at CEO talent. I also would say people that have a chip on their shoulder, right? And that's not because they didn't have the biggest exit in the world, or they had a giant exit and they wanted more, right?
00:18:52:10 - 00:19:24:11
Jonathan
Like, I've worked with CEOs who had giant exits, and they still have a chip on their shoulder and want to put their nose to the grindstone every single day. And I've worked with CEOs that have had a good exit, and they just want to be an employee moving forward. Right. And they don't honestly try as hard. Right. So I would say finding someone with some of the intangibles, like curiosity, a chip on your shoulder, regardless of how you define it, something that's going to make sure that, you know, they're seeing this as theirs, not that their employees.
00:19:24:17 - 00:19:59:17
Jonathan
Right. I think those are two major intangibles that do not change regardless of the size of the company, the type of product, whether it's hardware or software, the industry, etc. if I can add hard skill that I think is consistent throughout, again, company size, industry, etc. commercialization, they have to be able to sell. If they can't get to a room, you know, especially if their product they're selling is at a high numerical amount and it's at a B2B enterprise level.
00:19:59:17 - 00:20:20:06
Jonathan
If they can get into a room and address why they're in the room and why they need to buy this product, as well as like the flip side of that, from a customer success perspective, the ability to take the feedback you have and then sell back that product to those same customers for maybe hire our RR on that contract the following year.
00:20:20:06 - 00:20:49:01
Jonathan
Whatever. What we've seen across our cohorts is that if you can't provide great customer success and you can't bring on customer two, three, four or beyond, you kind of have a big struggle as a CEO. So realistically, the only hard skill that I've seen be consistent across everything, regardless of company size or vertical, is absolutely commercialization. And if there's one other thing to add, I'd say have a product vision, right?
00:20:49:02 - 00:21:19:18
Jonathan
In most cases, a lot of CEO or executive talent, they let their specific vision control and narrate what the product should be. But, you know, you really don't have a product until you have a couple customers on the platform, whether it's a hardware or software platform, and they dictate what the product market fit is, right? I see a lot of technical founders go down the rabbit hole of, well, if we just build, the customers will find us.
00:21:19:19 - 00:21:23:03
Jonathan
And then there's absolutely the wrong way of building a community.
00:21:23:05 - 00:21:28:21
Marilyn
Many a good idea has no have no audiences.
00:21:28:23 - 00:21:36:21
Jonathan
It's all about the execution at the end of the day, right? You can have the best idea in the world, but if you can't execute it, you know you're not going to go very far.
00:21:37:00 - 00:22:12:23
Marilyn
It's in some closet somewhere or virtual closet, whatever. Well, our next question is related to the most popular topic of the day, which is a as someone who is deeply involved in the use of AI. Where do you see the future of AI in the two areas that you oversee in, in large part, talent and operations. So how do you see that of all those evolving over the next few years?
00:22:13:00 - 00:22:14:19
Marilyn
Yeah. In terms of.
00:22:14:20 - 00:22:41:11
Jonathan
Yeah, it's it's it's a great question, Marilyn, because obviously everyone's going to fast forward to this point, right? Look, in areas where there's massive cash drivers, whether that's, you know, capital going out or capital coming in, that's absolutely where AI has been dictated. You look at all the talent solutions, all the biz dev solutions, you know, going to talent, right?
00:22:41:12 - 00:23:04:20
Jonathan
Whether it's Jem or Meadowview or of forget that that new company from those Stanford kids, I can't remember the name right now, but regardless, like there is initiatives going on there and I'm happy to kind of dictate in that funnel where I see things are moving two years from now. Same thing on the disc dev side, right? Clay and the growth machine.
00:23:04:20 - 00:23:29:05
Jonathan
And what HubSpot is trying to do in Salesforce is trying to do, like from their AI automation of being able to pull real life things that have happened in the real world into the copy of your outreach. Right? Like you're seeing a ton of innovation there already, just because that's what's either either driving capital into the organization or driving capital out of the organization from a no cost per hire perspective, right?
00:23:29:06 - 00:24:00:19
Jonathan
So, you know, there has been a lot of innovation on either side. You know, some of the innovations I've been utilizing most recently that I've been very impressed of, impressed with my apologies is net of you on the candidate sourcing side, actually taking real world conversations from your weeklies, from your candidate screens, pressing one button and say, hey, based on this candidate and your questions, here's 20 other candidates that you should take a look at immediately.
00:24:00:19 - 00:24:23:00
Jonathan
And I can add them directly into your ATS so that you can send us an outreach sequence to their email off of two clicks like that is major, major growth in the talent area. Where I see this being even more utilized in the future is silver medalist, right? I think companies, including my own, do a terrible job nurturing silver medalist.
00:24:23:00 - 00:24:46:14
Jonathan
What I define a silver medalist is candidates who have met a certain area of your funnel, whether it's, you know, three on sites or, you know, for recruiter screen or on site for panel screens, whatever the case, like making sure that you can rediscover those silver medalists for future roles is absolutely important for every single company, regardless of the size you are.
00:24:46:15 - 00:25:14:03
Jonathan
So I think there's going to be a lot more initiatives around silver medalists, as well as just kind of encompassing it all in. You're starting to see gem with collaborations with tofu, which is Fraud, and Meadowview. From the interview, recording, interview scorecard and candidate sourcing based off of that. Right. Like you're starting to see gem kind of pull it all into one system and consolidate.
00:25:14:04 - 00:25:39:23
Jonathan
And I think you're going to be seeing a lot of that right from the operation on the business scope. Right. You know, there are all the operational. I'm sorry. They're all the biz dev tooling that we all know about Play and Spot and Salesforce are trying to do to match Clay and all that stuff. So I think where that's going to go is much more personalization, obviously, is making sure that I don't need to put or do.
00:25:40:00 - 00:26:00:11
Jonathan
I don't need to do all this research to get what this person has been working on. I think the messaging is going to be much more personalized based off of web data of like, hey, I saw you on a podcast. That was super cool. Here's myself, right? Right. I think that will be much more generated as people start doing more outreach in the next 6 to 12 months.
00:26:00:13 - 00:26:25:23
Jonathan
But honestly, where we haven't seen a lot of innovation is operational a and how companies actually operate, because why there's not a lot of capital in capital out of that area. It's just how does your company run? And I don't think people have truly understood where there could be massive gains in personalization as well as just capacity in that function.
00:26:26:00 - 00:26:37:06
Jonathan
Right? So a couple things I've been playing with that I think is going to open up a lot of people's desks operationally is a true.
00:26:37:08 - 00:27:02:19
Jonathan
EA, right? I am working with a company called Howie who that is going to fully automate the EEC. They're already doing it for scheduling, whether it's recruiting screens over a full onsite panel, gathering everyone's availability or it's a big step call. And I say, hey, here's here's Howie. They're going to help us find some time, right? And believe it or not.
00:27:02:21 - 00:27:32:11
Jonathan
Most of the people who respond in thread don't even realize how he's a genitive. They respond to it and all dies to it and all sorts of stuff right there to realize that there's automation happening, right? There's another company called orca, right. And this is specific to venture capital firms, where a lot of times we're in the dark of like the financial performance and the marketing performance of like, impressions out in the world that our portfolio companies receive.
00:27:32:11 - 00:27:52:21
Jonathan
And how can we keep track of that to push them in certain ways. And so there's companies like orca that can take a dashboard of all your financial data across your portfolio companies, all of the real world impressions that they have and say, like, hey, this is where your company needs to perform better, or hey, let's really celebrate you and what you're doing.
00:27:52:21 - 00:28:10:09
Jonathan
Because look at this, right? So I think you're going to see a lot more operational GA dashboarding utilizing AI. But honestly, that's an area where I think not a lot of people are focusing just because there's not an influx of capital in and out like we discussed.
00:28:10:12 - 00:28:11:04
Kim
Well.
00:28:11:04 - 00:28:37:20
Marilyn
Certainly hope everybody's been taking lots of notes on all of these tools. And and by the time this airs will be 20 more tools to take notes on. But thank you for all of those good tips. And and I think you're absolutely spot on. Some areas are way ahead of others. Certainly talent, you know, screening. And those tools are out there much more so than some of these other tools that are lagging.
00:28:37:20 - 00:28:53:05
Marilyn
But they're going to catch up in the next six months to a year. We're going to see AI tools in every arena. Of of business. That's probably an AI kind of question.
00:28:53:07 - 00:29:03:02
Kim
Yeah. And I think that when you were talking about how we being able to schedule multiple people for panels and that's just brilliant because we all know how much time that takes.
00:29:03:02 - 00:29:33:12
Jonathan
And yeah, I was able to connect with their their team as being a customer advisory board member. Calmly. And I spoke to the team and some of the roadmap that they have. You know, some of the things I can't really talk about, truly, I'm sure you can think of what a lot of EA's do for executives, right? There are some very low hanging fruit with some very easy integrations that could really automate a lot of, I would say, 80% of what a lot of EA's do.
00:29:33:12 - 00:29:37:23
Jonathan
And it's coming. It's absolutely coming in the very near term future.
00:29:38:00 - 00:29:38:21
Marilyn
Fantastic.
00:29:38:22 - 00:30:03:17
Kim
Yeah. That's great. Okay. We have one last question for you, Jonathan. And it's been such a pleasure having this conversation. But we asked this question to all of our podcast guests or our recent podcast podcast guests to get your your insight. So we know that everybody in this, everybody is struggling with something. But what is the most pressing challenge that you wrestle with?
00:30:03:17 - 00:30:14:01
Kim
One that if you were able to solve it even with AI, possibly would mean meaningfully accelerate your impact?
00:30:14:03 - 00:30:45:13
Jonathan
Yeah, I think we'll utilize evergreen recruiting in the wrong way. Right. I'll give you all a perfect example. Right. I need to create a pipeline, an evergreen pipeline of CEO candidates. Right now we're going to launch 8 to 10 CEO 8 to 10 portfolio companies a year. And regardless, I could have a team of five more. It's not going to be able to fill 8 to 10 CEO roles and do it well in a year.
00:30:45:14 - 00:31:10:16
Jonathan
It's just not going to happen, right? Especially to do it well. So how can we hack evergreen recruiting to where there's more dating, right. And that like all people should look at that in general. Like how do we date candidates more in the areas where we're always staffing. So especially if it's let's call it, you know, nurse practitioner staffing that has a ton of turnover.
00:31:10:17 - 00:31:35:14
Jonathan
How do we date more and create an onboarding schedule to where they're not going to go anywhere? They're going to we're going to create some experiential relationship like marketing does to where they're along for the journey. They have every piece of information that they need. And mutually we have that. And through an evergreen process, we can make sure that we have a consistent pipeline as well as less attrition.
00:31:35:15 - 00:32:03:04
Jonathan
Right. As well as just just less onboarding in general. Right. So I urge people, right. We're building a rotation out for CEO recruiting or entrepreneurs and residents with really what we call it to where there's more data. There's a very tight timeline for where we're mutually dating. They're getting an idea, an idea of what our process is, as well as how the corporate partner they're about to work with interacts also.
00:32:03:04 - 00:32:27:09
Jonathan
So there's more there's less of an onboarding down the line too. Right. So I think for everyone to listen to this, it's figuring out how to do evergreen recruiting the right way because in my experience it's very broken. Right. Most people they have a recruiter who's hanging out and they're just recruiting this 24 hours a day. What they're not they're not really diagnosing the issue correctly.
00:32:27:10 - 00:32:50:02
Kim
That's interesting. I mean, we've heard over and over and over again, when you have recruiters that have, you know, one recruiter can have 150 open recs, and that doesn't provide a lot of extra time for dating or kind of that, you know, developing that relationship. So I think if you solve that, that would be every recruiter would. Thank you.
00:32:50:07 - 00:32:50:20
Kim
Yeah.
00:32:50:21 - 00:33:13:10
Jonathan
Well, especially because 150 Rex I'm willing to bet you, you know, they're all the same. Three Rex over and over again. Right? Like that's a systemic issue of saying, okay, why do we always have 150 of these same reps? Are we creating the right evergreen pipeline? Are we onboarding them correctly? I mean, there's 15 different questions you can ask yourself of.
00:33:13:11 - 00:33:33:23
Jonathan
How are we setting up an evergreen pipeline to where 150 Rex are really three Rex? Because we have that pipeline of talent. We know what's working. We know what is right. So I think a lot of the initiatives I've talked about on this call is inward reflection of what's working, what is it, and acting upon what's working and exploiting it.
00:33:34:00 - 00:33:53:10
Kim
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So with that, Jonathan, I want to say thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to spend an hour with us or a half an hour, well, really an hour because we talked beforehand, but and your input is so valuable, and I know our listeners will take a lot from this conversation.
00:33:53:10 - 00:33:55:19
Kim
So thank you so much for the work you do.
00:33:56:00 - 00:33:58:03
Jonathan
Thanks, Kim. Thanks, Marilyn. I appreciate you having.
00:33:58:03 - 00:33:59:04
Marilyn
Me on. Thank you.