October 7, 2025 • 20 mins
In this episode, Bill Banham sits down with Q Hamirani, Chief People Officer at HighLevel, one of the fastest-growing remote-first SaaS platforms serving agencies and consultants worldwide.
With 1,600+ employees spread across the globe and 1,000 new hires added in a single year, HighLevel’s meteoric rise demands a People strategy that can scale without losing its soul. As the company’s cultural architect, Q is at the helm of building a durable, people-first operating system that keeps teams aligned, inspired, and moving fast—no matter the time zone.
A trusted advisor to founders, boards, and accelerator programs like Techstars, Q blends startup grit with global operational experience and deep HR expertise. His leadership journey spans hypergrowth environments at Airbnb, Paper, and now HighLevel—giving him a front-row seat to how People leadership is evolving in the age of AI and distributed teams.
Inside this episode:
- Scaling Culture Like an Operating System: How HighLevel structures communication, decision-making, and goal-setting to keep 1,600+ employees rowing in the same direction.
- Remote Leadership Rituals: From all-hands forums to the monthly Founder’s Corner, Q shares the leadership touchpoints that anchor strategy across borders.
- Evolving the CPO Role: Why today’s Chief People Officer must blend innovation, business acumen, and cultural fluency to thrive in distributed, AI-enabled workplaces.
- Hiring for Mission Alignment: How values-based interviews and compelling onboarding narratives—like HighLevel’s “skateboard-to-Ferrari” story—help transmit founder intent to every new joiner.
- The Human Side of Hypergrowth: How creativity, music, and transcendental meditation help Q lead with empathy and resilience, and how parenthood shaped his leadership lens.
Whether you’re scaling a remote startup or professionalizing a late-stage rocket ship, this conversation is packed with tactical frameworks, cultural insights, and hard-won wisdom to help People leaders build lasting alignment at speed.
Connect with Q Hamirani on LinkedIn.
If you find this episode valuable, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review.
Feature Your Brand on the HRchat Podcast
The HRchat show has had 100,000s of downloads and is frequently listed as one of the most popular global podcasts for HR pros, Talent execs and leaders. It is ranked in the top ten in the world based on traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness. The podcast is also ranked as the Best Canadian HR Podcast by FeedSpot and one of the top 10% most popular shows by Listen Score.
Want to share the story of how your business is helping to shape the world of work? We offer sponsored episodes, audio adverts, email campaigns, and a host of other options. Check out packages here.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:03):
Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's
most downloaded and sharedpodcasts designed for HR pros,
talent execs, tech enthusiasts,and business leaders.
For hundreds more episodes andwhat's new in the world of work,
subscribe to the show, follow uson social media, and visit
hrgazette.com.
SPEAKER_01 (00:25):
Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show.
Hello, listeners.
This is your host, today, BillBannon.
And in this episode, we're goingto dive into the evolving world
of people leadership with AQ atHigh Level.
Hugh has been on my list ofpeople to interview for a very,
very long time.
So I'm very excited about this.
High Level is one of the fastestgrowing remote first advanced
(00:49):
platforms serving APCs andconsultants globally.
And he's a trusted advisor, thefounders, boards, and
accelerated programs like XRs.
And Q brings a unique mix of XRWGlobal Operational Expertise and
EHR technology.
Hey Q, welcome to the showtoday.
How are you doing?
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
Yes, it's been it's been a few years.
So we got there.
And uh a big shout out to JeffWold, our mutual friend, who
helped make this happen.
Q, beyond my weird production amoment ago, why don't you take a
minute or two and introduceyourself to our listeners?
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Uh so my name is Q.
I'm the chief people officer ofhigh level, as as Bill
mentioned.
Uh we are a very rapidly growingum SaaS uh tech company uh with
a global presence in almost 10countries.
Uh we are we are almost, I wouldsay it changes every day because
we're growing so quickly.
A little over 1700 employees and100% remote uh environment.
(01:47):
So definitely trying to makesure we um enable the
productivity through thatjourney.
Uh prior to that, I was at I wasa chief people officer of a net
tech company called Paper.
And prior to that, I was atAirbnb for five years, where I
was thankful and grateful forhaving the opportunity to work
through a lot of unique moments,such as hypergrowth, um, the
unfortunate downturn of thepandemic on the travel industry,
(02:09):
um, and lead us through the IPOprocess and then the remote work
program as well that came to beknown as the Live and Work
Anyway program.
So kind of, you know, and andoutside of that, just to wrap up
a little bit of myself in theintro, I studied electrical
engineering.
I worked in finance and businessstrategy and all the first seven
years of my career, then ran afew of my own companies and
then, you know, turned to HR 15years ago and no turning back.
(02:33):
So really love what I do becauseI think people are the most
complex engineering problem, andI'm always trying to figure out
mines, which is a never-endingrabbit hole in some ways, but
rewarding as well.
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
I like that.
People are the most complexengineering problem.
I like that.
That's good.
That's good.
With no static variablesbuilding on that before we talk
a bit more about your currentrole and your perspective on uh
people leadership, let's talk abit about you and your interests
outside of uh so from globaltravel.
(03:04):
So running a record label.
Uh these are these areincredibly diverse activities
that you've been up to over theyears.
Uh, how do these personalpassions influence your
leadership style or approach toculture building?
SPEAKER_00 (03:15):
Yeah, so there's a, you know, I think there's a
variety of things in lifeoutside of work that I truly
truly believe um help you shapewho you are, and who you are in
turn shapes how you work in yourmindset and leadership style in
that context as well.
For me, I think a couple thingsuh throughout my journey have
always been kind of needed forpurposes of being sane, but also
(03:37):
for purposes of being a goodleader, which is creativity or
some outlet where I am gettingthat decompression, but also
that recharge at the same time,so I can think through what's
happening.
So for me, travel has alwaysbeen a key part since growing
up.
Um, still continue to travel.
Um, and then music has alwaysbeen kind of at the epicenter of
(03:58):
everything that I do.
Um, in good times, it's beenwith me, and in tough times,
it's a way for me to get throughit.
So um, you know, I think umdoing things outside work, even
now, you know, there was, andthere are there are moments of
ebbs and flows where there'll beyears I won't do something
deeply and then I'll go backinto it.
So, for example, I'm trying toget back into music production
and mixing, which I've not donefor a while, um, and hope to get
(04:21):
that outlet done.
So for me, I think it'severything that you do outside
work, uh, everything you do inlife for the most part involves
working with people, whetheryou're trying to build a music
track or you're trying to traveland you go and meet a host in a
different country or do anexperience and meet people and
kind of get culturallyintoxicated.
Um, it's all about meetingpeople and understanding
(04:43):
perspectives.
And the more you understand thatin your role as a people leader,
especially, it only empowers youeven more to understand uh
different perspectives whenyou're working in a global
environment.
So for me, it's it's all relatedto who I am.
Um, you know, you may not see meuh doing you know music stuff at
work, but the decompression andthe creativity that's come from
those 20-minute sessions that Imight do, um, including another
(05:06):
practice that I've been doingfor a while now, is
transcendental meditation.
And that helps me uh just bemore balanced and approach
things with a more empatheticperspective at work.
So I think it just comes down toyour whole self.
Whatever you do outside shouldcomplement what you do inside.
And at the end of the day, aprofession like a people leader,
(05:27):
you're not just looking at acode base, right?
You're looking at people, you'reempowering people to work
better, to be um better leaders.
Um, and to our opening line, youknow, they're the most complex
engineering problems.
So any variable you can injectthat would spark um the overall
productivity and just uh uh anengagement.
(05:48):
Because at the end of the day,we want people engaged.
And you don't just, you know, weare way past where you check
into work and you leave at 5p.m.
and you check out and you haveyour personal life.
It's pretty much allintertwined, especially in a
remote work environment.
So, how do you how do youoverlap them uh in a way that
complements each other?
So, yeah, I do a lot of stuffoutside work from music to
(06:10):
independent film production, um,whatever I can do to just have
fun with people and learn andgrow.
Because a lot of theseopportunities outside work are
for me to stretch myself in inareas that I would not um in a
work setting.
And I just learn and grow fromeverything um from that process.
So, yeah, definitely a key partof my life.
And I and I believe everyone hasit in them to do or wants to do
(06:33):
things.
It's just a matter of, you know,can can different things take
priority?
And for me, I have a son who'salmost four years old.
So the last four years has beena wild ride of uh being humbled,
learning patience, uh, learningmore uh of dealing with
ambiguity, because being afirst-time parent, every time I
thought I figured something out,I am clearly humbled that I have
(06:56):
no idea what I'm doing.
Um, so yeah, I mean, you know,it's it's music, it's
creativity, being a father,whatever it is.
I think all of these need tocome together for an individual
to just be empowered, um, to betheir best self, and then they
can do whatever they're doingbest.
For in my case, empower otherindividuals, understand their
perspective.
For an engineer, it might be,you know, coding or whatever,
(07:18):
whatever it is.
I think it's just critical thatwe um do that.
And I will say, from myperspective, I've I've learned
and grown a lot in the last 15,20 years, because there were
moments in my life where I justworked 20 hours a day for years.
And I still work a lot.
I'm by no means my days are youknow um less packed, but I've
learned that if I don't do it,I'll eventually burn out.
(07:40):
And I need this makes it moresustainable from that.
So yeah, I try to do um as muchas I can.
Again, it's ebbs and flows.
For example, the last 10 monthsI've joined high level in
hypergrowth.
I've pretty much done nothing.
Um, but that's okay.
I'm trying to do a little bit ofmusic at home and keep myself
entertained and um in due time,you know, you ebbs and flows, as
long as you're balanced and you,you know, when you feel the
(08:02):
imbalance, you need to augmentwith stuff.
Um, that's what matters.
SPEAKER_01 (08:06):
Just going back to the music piece, I'm just
interested.
Uh what when when you need toget into a happy zone,
decompress, whatever it is, whatwhat what is your go-to band or
singer?
SPEAKER_00 (08:17):
Yeah, so for me, um most of my uh music, my go-to
happy place is house music, um,progressive house music.
And um, a lot of my uhfollowings are folks I follow on
SoundCloud.
So they're not necessarily likefamous DJs.
Obviously, there's a there's alot of them that are good as
well.
Um, but for me, it's likefinding the unknown artist is
(08:38):
part of my joy.
So I actually go and just, youknow, if you know, thankfully
for the world we live in todaywhere it recommends stuff for
you based on what you like, it'sthat's I guess I'm a prime
candidate for that.
So it's really the undergroundartist um that have not yet made
it.
Um, you know, one of them umthat has made it now pretty big.
His name is Fred again.
But you know, when when he wasjust doing YouTube videos, I was
(09:01):
watching it too.
And then so any it's mostly DJs,is is what I'm saying.
And a lot of them are reallygood.
Um, and they may not be famous.
And I look for those um and thenI try to follow them along their
journey as well.
SPEAKER_02 (09:14):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat
Podcast.
If you enjoy the audio contentwe produce, you'll love our
articles on the HR Gazette.
Learn more at hrgazette.com.
And now back to the show.
SPEAKER_01 (09:30):
Let's talk about company growth and people
strategy.
You've led people functions atsome of the fastest scale
leading companies.
You mentioned some of thoseearlier, Airbnb, for example.
What are the unique peoplechallenges of managing hyper
growth in a remote first?
Because you know, you you guysall like remote first where you
are now, uh, in a remote firstglobal SaaS environment.
SPEAKER_00 (09:48):
Yeah, I think the when you're in hypergrowth um
and you're remote, um, andtrying to trying to do a lot of
things to essentially take takea take over a market in a domain
that you're you're seeingproduct market fit on clearly.
I think one of the biggestchallenges from the people
perspective is how do you umbalance growth and maturity
(10:13):
through coaching and learningand giving that space to
individuals that we've all hadall have needed in our career,
including myself, whilebalancing you know 20-hour days
and the work that's on theplate, right?
And you know, I think um it's acontinuous challenge um even
till today, but I think you workthrough it in a few ways.
(10:34):
One is what is the what I referto as the operating system of
the organization, right?
For me, culture is not thisnebulous world word that you
know just means something youknow that we can't quantify.
To me, culture is a byproduct ofthe ways of working and enhanced
through your operating system.
What is an operating system?
It's like, do you haveinformation flowing in the
(10:56):
organization?
Are you including the rightpeople in decision making so
that they feel empowered to dothings in a better way?
These things are easier saidthan done than in a remote
world, it's actually prettyhard.
And it's easy at the same time.
So it's hard because you have tomake sure it's cascade, it's
it's the the whole story is istold in the right setting, but
(11:16):
it's easy too because you canslack 50 people in in one
channel and you know the messageis out there.
So you have to balance how youuh empower people through
information sharing, and that'salways a challenge because you
know, at some point in a in anorganization's growth, be it
Airbnb, you know, whichever umcompany you are at, at some
point the organization turns toyou know looking at itself at
(11:38):
being a billion dollar pluscompany um in terms of revenue
or whichever financial metricyou want to look at.
And the challenge ends upbecoming how do you infuse the
right level of external talentto empower the internal talent
that's been there?
And you kind of almost have amix of uh of folks, right, um,
with different mindsets, andthat can be a transition as
(12:00):
well.
So, for example, I mostly joinlate-stage private companies,
right?
So you're talking about series,you know, D-ish or whatever,
thousand people or more andabove.
And often I'm the first chiefpeople officer they've had,
right?
So I've been brought in kind offrom an external perspective to
help scale and take theorganization to future
(12:21):
hypergrowth and beyond.
But that itself is an example ofhow you're infusing external
talent with internal and themesh and kind of how that works
through.
So I think in general, it's it'sdefinitely a challenge, but you
know, it's something that'sworkable.
Um, and it's something, youknow, that ruthless kind of
prioritization needs to be doneto figure out uh where the
(12:42):
organization wants to doubledown on, and that can be
cascaded through whatever youwant to call it, goals or KRs.
But the idea here is is theoperating, is everyone rowing in
the same direction, right?
Because that gets really hard asyou grow.
Um, there are multiple teams,and this happens at every
organization, that are rowingreally, really hard, but they're
not all rowing in the samedirection because each team is
(13:04):
trying to make sure they keep upwith what they need to do.
So, really that building thatfabric becomes challenging.
Um, it's all solvable and ittakes time.
It's not overnight as well.
Um, it takes time and overallorganizational maturity.
But yeah, that's uh I think youknow that's been the journey and
that's the joy of it, right?
Um, you get through some of thepain, but then you see the
(13:26):
rewards on the other side.
I remember when I joined Airbnb,we were about 3,000 people, and
in the first year, we were atlike over 7,000 people, right?
And you look around and highlevels the same same way.
So we, I think out of the 1700people, about maybe almost 1,000
people have joined in the lastyear.
(13:47):
So at some point you look backas you're growing and you're
like, oh my God, like you know,majority of the people have been
here less than a year.
How do you bring them along withthe folks that have been here
for long, right?
And how do you build thatcadence of um working together,
collaborating?
Because there's different views,right?
Folks that have seen one way.
(14:07):
You always have this with everyorganization where you can bring
in a leader, you can bring in amanager from another
organization that has the bestskills on paper, but they're
trying to implement a playbookthat does not work.
Because playbooks are startinginspiration points if at best to
me, right?
You have to figure out whatworks best well for that
organization because it's alwaysunique in some form.
(14:29):
So you have these likecalibration moments that take
time for ways of thinking, forways of working to all kind of
mesh.
Um, and yeah, before you knowit, then you know you look fast
forward three or four years andit's kind of blended into um you
know a different stage and ofmaturity um to do bigger, better
things in that front.
SPEAKER_01 (14:49):
So quick follow-up to what you mentioned there.
How does someone in your roletry and uh keep all of these new
folks who are coming, cominginto the organization, keep keep
them aligned with the initialvision of the founders of a
company?
That must be the one of thebiggest challenges.
SPEAKER_00 (15:05):
Yeah, so yeah, it's definitely a challenge,
especially as you scale and growto thousands of people, right?
Because when you're when you'rea hundred people or less, like
the founder knows everyone,everyone has access.
And as you scale broadly, umthat needs to be kind of
cascaded or replicated.
There's a couple ways.
I would say there's probably twomoments um in the employee
journey that I think are mostcritical for this.
(15:27):
One is in the hiring process,right?
So are you looking for folksthat understand our mission?
Are coming.
I keep telling folks like, don'tjoin for the money.
The money is great if that's abyproduct, but join it because
you want to uh drive impact andit excites you in that industry,
right?
Like I may, you know, I may geta job at in an industry that
(15:48):
just does not excite me.
You know, it's it's hard to youknow continue to be tied to the
mission if you don't get excitedto what the organization is
doing.
So in the hiring process, yougot to make sure that matches
there.
The the second one, which isvery critical as well, is in the
onboarding process, right?
So day one, when they join theorganization, how do you make
(16:08):
sure that they understand whatthe vision is through the
founder's lens?
And this does not mean thefounders have to attend
orientation like they used to dowhen you were 50 people.
There's ways you can havevideos, you can have messages
from the founders, you can youcan still relay the mission,
like at Airbnb when we had ouronboarding, the and and so so at
high level, same at high level,you know, we talk about the
(16:29):
journey of how we got here andhow the founders started, right?
And what what what it's evolvedinto because that helps people
understand.
So at high level, for example,um, we have our skateboard
model, which is you know, youdon't overnight go to you know
from a from a from riding askateboard to driving a Ferrari,
you go from a skateboard to ascooter to a bike to a car.
(16:52):
So let's let's build and iterateand evolve into you know bigger
things because then we can setthe expectations right.
So we talk about that inonboarding, right?
So onboarding is a criticalpoint where you and hiring,
hiring is like propagating whatthe founders really obsess over
and like so that you can getthat culture right off the
(17:13):
start.
Um, at Airbnb, it's a goodexample.
So the founders used tointerview everyone till I think
we were almost thousand people.
And the only way they let go ofletting the recruiting team do
it was they implemented thisamazing program called Core
Value Interviewers.
And these are volunteers fromthe organization uh that
essentially every singlecandidate that goes through the
(17:35):
recruiting process has to gothrough two core value
interviews.
And these are interviews done bypeople that are not in your
function.
So you really can't talk aboutwork.
Like I had in I had a paymentsengineer doing mine, and I
forget the other one becauseit's been so long.
So you're not talking about HR,you're talking about they're
talking to you about their corevalues, and their whole job is
to assess do you align with thecore values of Airbnb?
(17:57):
And if you do not pass both ofthose at Airbnb, you're not
getting in the dough.
That's that's what they made asthe goal.
So there are ways where you caninstill these moments in hiring,
in onboarding.
We at a high level, um, youknow, now that we've gotten
pretty big and we're in 10countries, so it's hard to do,
you know, regular, we do allhands, but it's hard to do it
weekly, for example, becauseyou're in 10 time zones.
Who, you know, which one are yougonna pick that someone's not in
(18:19):
the middle of the day?
So we do do our all hands, butwe launch something called the
monthly newsletter we, you know,uh uh internally to the
organization.
And that has a founder's corner.
It opens up with founders'thoughts, right?
So again, this goes back to myinitial point of what is your
operating system of connectingwith people, both for them to be
tied to the mission, but thenalso to understand the ways of
(18:41):
working, what our prioritiesare, what's top of mind for the
founders, so we can try our bestto row in the same direction.
So that's what I would say.
It's it's hard, but there areways to do it.
And hiring and onboarding aretwo examples, including regular
communications, that you cankind of build that connection to
the mission and the founders' umlatest thoughts or what's top of
(19:05):
mind, um, so that they can hearfrom them as well in some form
or the other.
SPEAKER_01 (19:10):
Very good.
I had so many more questions foryou, but we are almost out of
time.
So uh chase you for a few moreyears until you come back on
again.
Okay.
But before we finish for today,uh, how can our listeners
connect with you?
Is that LinkedIn, Instagram,whatever you want to share
there?
Yeah.
Uh and of course, how could howcould they learn more about the
quick?
SPEAKER_00 (19:29):
Yeah, so uh you the easiest way to connect with me
is on LinkedIn.
My website, uh hamirani.com,which is my last name.com, is
also uh connected to LinkedIn.
Um and you can you know connectwith me there and learn more
about us at gohilevel.com.
And we are hiring, so please uhdo reach out, all remote jobs
and uh continuing to growrapidly.
So please do connect out.
SPEAKER_01 (19:50):
Very good.
Q Hamirani, thank you very muchfor your time today.
I appreciate it.
And I will be bothering you foranother conversation very soon.
But for today's thank you, thankyou.
SPEAKER_00 (19:59):
All right, take care and congrats on being a dad as
well.
SPEAKER_01 (20:01):
All right, take care.
You don't take care.
Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_03 (20:07):
Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show.
If you enjoyed this episode, whynot subscribe and listen to some
of the hundreds of episodespublished by HR Gazette?
And remember, for what's new inthe world of work, subscribe to
the show, follow us on socialmedia, and visit hrgazette.com.
Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's
most downloaded and sharedpodcasts designed for HR pros,
talent execs, tech enthusiasts,and business leaders.
For hundreds more episodes andwhat's new in the world of work,
subscribe to the show, follow uson social media, and visit
hrgazette.com.
SPEAKER_01 (00:25):
Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show.
Hello, listeners.
This is your host, today, BillBannon.
And in this episode, we're goingto dive into the evolving world
of people leadership with AQ atHigh Level.
Hugh has been on my list ofpeople to interview for a very,
very long time.
So I'm very excited about this.
High Level is one of the fastestgrowing remote first advanced
(00:49):
platforms serving APCs andconsultants globally.
And he's a trusted advisor, thefounders, boards, and
accelerated programs like XRs.
And Q brings a unique mix of XRWGlobal Operational Expertise and
EHR technology.
Hey Q, welcome to the showtoday.
How are you doing?
SPEAKER_00 (01:07):
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (01:10):
Yes, it's been it's been a few years.
So we got there.
And uh a big shout out to JeffWold, our mutual friend, who
helped make this happen.
Q, beyond my weird production amoment ago, why don't you take a
minute or two and introduceyourself to our listeners?
SPEAKER_00 (01:24):
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Uh so my name is Q.
I'm the chief people officer ofhigh level, as as Bill
mentioned.
Uh we are a very rapidly growingum SaaS uh tech company uh with
a global presence in almost 10countries.
Uh we are we are almost, I wouldsay it changes every day because
we're growing so quickly.
A little over 1700 employees and100% remote uh environment.
(01:47):
So definitely trying to makesure we um enable the
productivity through thatjourney.
Uh prior to that, I was at I wasa chief people officer of a net
tech company called Paper.
And prior to that, I was atAirbnb for five years, where I
was thankful and grateful forhaving the opportunity to work
through a lot of unique moments,such as hypergrowth, um, the
unfortunate downturn of thepandemic on the travel industry,
(02:09):
um, and lead us through the IPOprocess and then the remote work
program as well that came to beknown as the Live and Work
Anyway program.
So kind of, you know, and andoutside of that, just to wrap up
a little bit of myself in theintro, I studied electrical
engineering.
I worked in finance and businessstrategy and all the first seven
years of my career, then ran afew of my own companies and
then, you know, turned to HR 15years ago and no turning back.
(02:33):
So really love what I do becauseI think people are the most
complex engineering problem, andI'm always trying to figure out
mines, which is a never-endingrabbit hole in some ways, but
rewarding as well.
SPEAKER_01 (02:43):
I like that.
People are the most complexengineering problem.
I like that.
That's good.
That's good.
With no static variablesbuilding on that before we talk
a bit more about your currentrole and your perspective on uh
people leadership, let's talk abit about you and your interests
outside of uh so from globaltravel.
(03:04):
So running a record label.
Uh these are these areincredibly diverse activities
that you've been up to over theyears.
Uh, how do these personalpassions influence your
leadership style or approach toculture building?
SPEAKER_00 (03:15):
Yeah, so there's a, you know, I think there's a
variety of things in lifeoutside of work that I truly
truly believe um help you shapewho you are, and who you are in
turn shapes how you work in yourmindset and leadership style in
that context as well.
For me, I think a couple thingsuh throughout my journey have
always been kind of needed forpurposes of being sane, but also
(03:37):
for purposes of being a goodleader, which is creativity or
some outlet where I am gettingthat decompression, but also
that recharge at the same time,so I can think through what's
happening.
So for me, travel has alwaysbeen a key part since growing
up.
Um, still continue to travel.
Um, and then music has alwaysbeen kind of at the epicenter of
(03:58):
everything that I do.
Um, in good times, it's beenwith me, and in tough times,
it's a way for me to get throughit.
So um, you know, I think umdoing things outside work, even
now, you know, there was, andthere are there are moments of
ebbs and flows where there'll beyears I won't do something
deeply and then I'll go backinto it.
So, for example, I'm trying toget back into music production
and mixing, which I've not donefor a while, um, and hope to get
(04:21):
that outlet done.
So for me, I think it'severything that you do outside
work, uh, everything you do inlife for the most part involves
working with people, whetheryou're trying to build a music
track or you're trying to traveland you go and meet a host in a
different country or do anexperience and meet people and
kind of get culturallyintoxicated.
Um, it's all about meetingpeople and understanding
(04:43):
perspectives.
And the more you understand thatin your role as a people leader,
especially, it only empowers youeven more to understand uh
different perspectives whenyou're working in a global
environment.
So for me, it's it's all relatedto who I am.
Um, you know, you may not see meuh doing you know music stuff at
work, but the decompression andthe creativity that's come from
those 20-minute sessions that Imight do, um, including another
(05:06):
practice that I've been doingfor a while now, is
transcendental meditation.
And that helps me uh just bemore balanced and approach
things with a more empatheticperspective at work.
So I think it just comes down toyour whole self.
Whatever you do outside shouldcomplement what you do inside.
And at the end of the day, aprofession like a people leader,
(05:27):
you're not just looking at acode base, right?
You're looking at people, you'reempowering people to work
better, to be um better leaders.
Um, and to our opening line, youknow, they're the most complex
engineering problems.
So any variable you can injectthat would spark um the overall
productivity and just uh uh anengagement.
(05:48):
Because at the end of the day,we want people engaged.
And you don't just, you know, weare way past where you check
into work and you leave at 5p.m.
and you check out and you haveyour personal life.
It's pretty much allintertwined, especially in a
remote work environment.
So, how do you how do youoverlap them uh in a way that
complements each other?
So, yeah, I do a lot of stuffoutside work from music to
(06:10):
independent film production, um,whatever I can do to just have
fun with people and learn andgrow.
Because a lot of theseopportunities outside work are
for me to stretch myself in inareas that I would not um in a
work setting.
And I just learn and grow fromeverything um from that process.
So, yeah, definitely a key partof my life.
And I and I believe everyone hasit in them to do or wants to do
(06:33):
things.
It's just a matter of, you know,can can different things take
priority?
And for me, I have a son who'salmost four years old.
So the last four years has beena wild ride of uh being humbled,
learning patience, uh, learningmore uh of dealing with
ambiguity, because being afirst-time parent, every time I
thought I figured something out,I am clearly humbled that I have
(06:56):
no idea what I'm doing.
Um, so yeah, I mean, you know,it's it's music, it's
creativity, being a father,whatever it is.
I think all of these need tocome together for an individual
to just be empowered, um, to betheir best self, and then they
can do whatever they're doingbest.
For in my case, empower otherindividuals, understand their
perspective.
For an engineer, it might be,you know, coding or whatever,
(07:18):
whatever it is.
I think it's just critical thatwe um do that.
And I will say, from myperspective, I've I've learned
and grown a lot in the last 15,20 years, because there were
moments in my life where I justworked 20 hours a day for years.
And I still work a lot.
I'm by no means my days are youknow um less packed, but I've
learned that if I don't do it,I'll eventually burn out.
(07:40):
And I need this makes it moresustainable from that.
So yeah, I try to do um as muchas I can.
Again, it's ebbs and flows.
For example, the last 10 monthsI've joined high level in
hypergrowth.
I've pretty much done nothing.
Um, but that's okay.
I'm trying to do a little bit ofmusic at home and keep myself
entertained and um in due time,you know, you ebbs and flows, as
long as you're balanced and you,you know, when you feel the
(08:02):
imbalance, you need to augmentwith stuff.
Um, that's what matters.
SPEAKER_01 (08:06):
Just going back to the music piece, I'm just
interested.
Uh what when when you need toget into a happy zone,
decompress, whatever it is, whatwhat what is your go-to band or
singer?
SPEAKER_00 (08:17):
Yeah, so for me, um most of my uh music, my go-to
happy place is house music, um,progressive house music.
And um, a lot of my uhfollowings are folks I follow on
SoundCloud.
So they're not necessarily likefamous DJs.
Obviously, there's a there's alot of them that are good as
well.
Um, but for me, it's likefinding the unknown artist is
(08:38):
part of my joy.
So I actually go and just, youknow, if you know, thankfully
for the world we live in todaywhere it recommends stuff for
you based on what you like, it'sthat's I guess I'm a prime
candidate for that.
So it's really the undergroundartist um that have not yet made
it.
Um, you know, one of them umthat has made it now pretty big.
His name is Fred again.
But you know, when when he wasjust doing YouTube videos, I was
(09:01):
watching it too.
And then so any it's mostly DJs,is is what I'm saying.
And a lot of them are reallygood.
Um, and they may not be famous.
And I look for those um and thenI try to follow them along their
journey as well.
SPEAKER_02 (09:14):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat
Podcast.
If you enjoy the audio contentwe produce, you'll love our
articles on the HR Gazette.
Learn more at hrgazette.com.
And now back to the show.
SPEAKER_01 (09:30):
Let's talk about company growth and people
strategy.
You've led people functions atsome of the fastest scale
leading companies.
You mentioned some of thoseearlier, Airbnb, for example.
What are the unique peoplechallenges of managing hyper
growth in a remote first?
Because you know, you you guysall like remote first where you
are now, uh, in a remote firstglobal SaaS environment.
SPEAKER_00 (09:48):
Yeah, I think the when you're in hypergrowth um
and you're remote, um, andtrying to trying to do a lot of
things to essentially take takea take over a market in a domain
that you're you're seeingproduct market fit on clearly.
I think one of the biggestchallenges from the people
perspective is how do you umbalance growth and maturity
(10:13):
through coaching and learningand giving that space to
individuals that we've all hadall have needed in our career,
including myself, whilebalancing you know 20-hour days
and the work that's on theplate, right?
And you know, I think um it's acontinuous challenge um even
till today, but I think you workthrough it in a few ways.
(10:34):
One is what is the what I referto as the operating system of
the organization, right?
For me, culture is not thisnebulous world word that you
know just means something youknow that we can't quantify.
To me, culture is a byproduct ofthe ways of working and enhanced
through your operating system.
What is an operating system?
It's like, do you haveinformation flowing in the
(10:56):
organization?
Are you including the rightpeople in decision making so
that they feel empowered to dothings in a better way?
These things are easier saidthan done than in a remote
world, it's actually prettyhard.
And it's easy at the same time.
So it's hard because you have tomake sure it's cascade, it's
it's the the whole story is istold in the right setting, but
(11:16):
it's easy too because you canslack 50 people in in one
channel and you know the messageis out there.
So you have to balance how youuh empower people through
information sharing, and that'salways a challenge because you
know, at some point in a in anorganization's growth, be it
Airbnb, you know, whichever umcompany you are at, at some
point the organization turns toyou know looking at itself at
(11:38):
being a billion dollar pluscompany um in terms of revenue
or whichever financial metricyou want to look at.
And the challenge ends upbecoming how do you infuse the
right level of external talentto empower the internal talent
that's been there?
And you kind of almost have amix of uh of folks, right, um,
with different mindsets, andthat can be a transition as
(12:00):
well.
So, for example, I mostly joinlate-stage private companies,
right?
So you're talking about series,you know, D-ish or whatever,
thousand people or more andabove.
And often I'm the first chiefpeople officer they've had,
right?
So I've been brought in kind offrom an external perspective to
help scale and take theorganization to future
(12:21):
hypergrowth and beyond.
But that itself is an example ofhow you're infusing external
talent with internal and themesh and kind of how that works
through.
So I think in general, it's it'sdefinitely a challenge, but you
know, it's something that'sworkable.
Um, and it's something, youknow, that ruthless kind of
prioritization needs to be doneto figure out uh where the
(12:42):
organization wants to doubledown on, and that can be
cascaded through whatever youwant to call it, goals or KRs.
But the idea here is is theoperating, is everyone rowing in
the same direction, right?
Because that gets really hard asyou grow.
Um, there are multiple teams,and this happens at every
organization, that are rowingreally, really hard, but they're
not all rowing in the samedirection because each team is
(13:04):
trying to make sure they keep upwith what they need to do.
So, really that building thatfabric becomes challenging.
Um, it's all solvable and ittakes time.
It's not overnight as well.
Um, it takes time and overallorganizational maturity.
But yeah, that's uh I think youknow that's been the journey and
that's the joy of it, right?
Um, you get through some of thepain, but then you see the
(13:26):
rewards on the other side.
I remember when I joined Airbnb,we were about 3,000 people, and
in the first year, we were atlike over 7,000 people, right?
And you look around and highlevels the same same way.
So we, I think out of the 1700people, about maybe almost 1,000
people have joined in the lastyear.
(13:47):
So at some point you look backas you're growing and you're
like, oh my God, like you know,majority of the people have been
here less than a year.
How do you bring them along withthe folks that have been here
for long, right?
And how do you build thatcadence of um working together,
collaborating?
Because there's different views,right?
Folks that have seen one way.
(14:07):
You always have this with everyorganization where you can bring
in a leader, you can bring in amanager from another
organization that has the bestskills on paper, but they're
trying to implement a playbookthat does not work.
Because playbooks are startinginspiration points if at best to
me, right?
You have to figure out whatworks best well for that
organization because it's alwaysunique in some form.
(14:29):
So you have these likecalibration moments that take
time for ways of thinking, forways of working to all kind of
mesh.
Um, and yeah, before you knowit, then you know you look fast
forward three or four years andit's kind of blended into um you
know a different stage and ofmaturity um to do bigger, better
things in that front.
SPEAKER_01 (14:49):
So quick follow-up to what you mentioned there.
How does someone in your roletry and uh keep all of these new
folks who are coming, cominginto the organization, keep keep
them aligned with the initialvision of the founders of a
company?
That must be the one of thebiggest challenges.
SPEAKER_00 (15:05):
Yeah, so yeah, it's definitely a challenge,
especially as you scale and growto thousands of people, right?
Because when you're when you'rea hundred people or less, like
the founder knows everyone,everyone has access.
And as you scale broadly, umthat needs to be kind of
cascaded or replicated.
There's a couple ways.
I would say there's probably twomoments um in the employee
journey that I think are mostcritical for this.
(15:27):
One is in the hiring process,right?
So are you looking for folksthat understand our mission?
Are coming.
I keep telling folks like, don'tjoin for the money.
The money is great if that's abyproduct, but join it because
you want to uh drive impact andit excites you in that industry,
right?
Like I may, you know, I may geta job at in an industry that
(15:48):
just does not excite me.
You know, it's it's hard to youknow continue to be tied to the
mission if you don't get excitedto what the organization is
doing.
So in the hiring process, yougot to make sure that matches
there.
The the second one, which isvery critical as well, is in the
onboarding process, right?
So day one, when they join theorganization, how do you make
(16:08):
sure that they understand whatthe vision is through the
founder's lens?
And this does not mean thefounders have to attend
orientation like they used to dowhen you were 50 people.
There's ways you can havevideos, you can have messages
from the founders, you can youcan still relay the mission,
like at Airbnb when we had ouronboarding, the and and so so at
high level, same at high level,you know, we talk about the
(16:29):
journey of how we got here andhow the founders started, right?
And what what what it's evolvedinto because that helps people
understand.
So at high level, for example,um, we have our skateboard
model, which is you know, youdon't overnight go to you know
from a from a from riding askateboard to driving a Ferrari,
you go from a skateboard to ascooter to a bike to a car.
(16:52):
So let's let's build and iterateand evolve into you know bigger
things because then we can setthe expectations right.
So we talk about that inonboarding, right?
So onboarding is a criticalpoint where you and hiring,
hiring is like propagating whatthe founders really obsess over
and like so that you can getthat culture right off the
(17:13):
start.
Um, at Airbnb, it's a goodexample.
So the founders used tointerview everyone till I think
we were almost thousand people.
And the only way they let go ofletting the recruiting team do
it was they implemented thisamazing program called Core
Value Interviewers.
And these are volunteers fromthe organization uh that
essentially every singlecandidate that goes through the
(17:35):
recruiting process has to gothrough two core value
interviews.
And these are interviews done bypeople that are not in your
function.
So you really can't talk aboutwork.
Like I had in I had a paymentsengineer doing mine, and I
forget the other one becauseit's been so long.
So you're not talking about HR,you're talking about they're
talking to you about their corevalues, and their whole job is
to assess do you align with thecore values of Airbnb?
(17:57):
And if you do not pass both ofthose at Airbnb, you're not
getting in the dough.
That's that's what they made asthe goal.
So there are ways where you caninstill these moments in hiring,
in onboarding.
We at a high level, um, youknow, now that we've gotten
pretty big and we're in 10countries, so it's hard to do,
you know, regular, we do allhands, but it's hard to do it
weekly, for example, becauseyou're in 10 time zones.
Who, you know, which one are yougonna pick that someone's not in
(18:19):
the middle of the day?
So we do do our all hands, butwe launch something called the
monthly newsletter we, you know,uh uh internally to the
organization.
And that has a founder's corner.
It opens up with founders'thoughts, right?
So again, this goes back to myinitial point of what is your
operating system of connectingwith people, both for them to be
tied to the mission, but thenalso to understand the ways of
(18:41):
working, what our prioritiesare, what's top of mind for the
founders, so we can try our bestto row in the same direction.
So that's what I would say.
It's it's hard, but there areways to do it.
And hiring and onboarding aretwo examples, including regular
communications, that you cankind of build that connection to
the mission and the founders' umlatest thoughts or what's top of
(19:05):
mind, um, so that they can hearfrom them as well in some form
or the other.
SPEAKER_01 (19:10):
Very good.
I had so many more questions foryou, but we are almost out of
time.
So uh chase you for a few moreyears until you come back on
again.
Okay.
But before we finish for today,uh, how can our listeners
connect with you?
Is that LinkedIn, Instagram,whatever you want to share
there?
Yeah.
Uh and of course, how could howcould they learn more about the
quick?
SPEAKER_00 (19:29):
Yeah, so uh you the easiest way to connect with me
is on LinkedIn.
My website, uh hamirani.com,which is my last name.com, is
also uh connected to LinkedIn.
Um and you can you know connectwith me there and learn more
about us at gohilevel.com.
And we are hiring, so please uhdo reach out, all remote jobs
and uh continuing to growrapidly.
So please do connect out.
SPEAKER_01 (19:50):
Very good.
Q Hamirani, thank you very muchfor your time today.
I appreciate it.
And I will be bothering you foranother conversation very soon.
But for today's thank you, thankyou.
SPEAKER_00 (19:59):
All right, take care and congrats on being a dad as
well.
SPEAKER_01 (20:01):
All right, take care.
You don't take care.
Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_03 (20:07):
Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show.
If you enjoyed this episode, whynot subscribe and listen to some
of the hundreds of episodespublished by HR Gazette?
And remember, for what's new inthe world of work, subscribe to
the show, follow us on socialmedia, and visit hrgazette.com.
Popular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com