HRTech Interview with Darcie Henry, Chief People Officer at StackAdapt

Darcie, we’re thrilled to have you with us. Could you please share your professional journey that led you to your current role as Chief People Officer at StackAdapt?
I have been fortunate to have an amazing career with some great companies. My 23 year journey with Amazon afforded me opportunities to learn every day from some incredible minds and also to challenge myself with new opportunities, to build businesses and to invent for our employees and customers. I knew my next journey would take me to smaller companies with big opportunities. As Chief People Officer, Snapchat and Flexport were perfect in that way, with clear cultures to build on. StackAdapt combined my desire to be part of a fast growing business while also working with a leadership team that is equally humble, intelligent and passionate about our employees. The culture here is strong and embedded in how our people work.

Coming from companies like Amazon, Snapchat, and Flexport, known for their innovative cultures, what unique approaches do you plan to bring to StackAdapt to build and strengthen its people teams and attract top talent?
StackAdapt is already innovating in so many ways and right now, I’m taking time to embrace the culture here, understand the opportunities we have and identify our priorities. Innovation comes when you are solving something for your unique setting and isn’t something to necessarily bring from other companies. I’m confident that the team we have is excited to continue finding these opportunities and innovating when the time is right. In the meantime, we are focused on keeping it simple and shoring up our foundation to make room for delivering for our employees and customers.

StackAdapt operates in a remote setting. How do you envision improving talent management strategies and enhancing the employee experience in a distributed workforce environment?
I’m impressed with how StackAdapt has managed their remote workforce to date and I have a lot to learn about what has made them so successful first before creating any new ideas. For sure we will need to understand what works and not lose that.

StackAdapt is undergoing rapid innovation. How do you plan to maintain and enhance the company culture amidst these dynamic changes?
There are two key areas that impact this a great deal and that is hiring and embedding our values and leadership principles into the processes we operate with today – whether that is the interview process, performance reviews, promotion discussions, operating plans. Companies will evolve as they grow but I really hope to learn from those who helped build this culture and ensure we are respecting that and infusing that magic into what we create for the future.

Given your background, how will your experiences at Amazon, Snapchat, and Flexport contribute to your goal of building a world-class people organization at StackAdapt?
I really enjoy building high functioning people teams that unleash our talent to achieve more than they ever thought capable. It’s early days, but we will start with the business goals and work backwards from that to build our strategy, structure our talented team and organize ourselves with a clear vision and purpose. I’m excited to see how that evolves here at StackAdapt.

What personal strategies or principles guide your approach to fostering a positive and productive workplace culture?
I think that what has served me most is to consider all voices at the table. If you are on the team or in the discussion, your voice is important. It’s ideal to have a variety of views too. For instance, where we are making a decision that impacts teams globally, I try to ensure someone from my international team is helping us look around the corners for the populations they support. Another key is to remove silos from teams. I see that StackAdapt already does this very well. There is not a culture of “it’s not my job” here but it naturally happens at times and it’s important to bridge those immediately.

Based on your extensive career in HR and people management, what advice would you give to HR professionals looking to elevate their organizations’ talent strategies?

The stage of a company’s development matters a lot here but one thing I believe holds true regardless. Identify the actual challenge you are facing and want to solve and build solutions for that. Too many times HR teams try to bring too big or complex solutions to the issue and it’s too heavy and even costly. Keep it simple and right sized for your population.

What are some of the biggest challenges you foresee in managing a remote workforce, and how do you plan to address them?
Staying connected is critical. I have led remote teams most of my career and I’ve also spent close to seven years working remotely in Europe. I take those lessons with me as a leader and try to help ensure collaboration and trust between colleagues.

Can you share some innovative methods or practices you’ve implemented in the past to successfully attract and retain top talent?
Recruiting is where it all starts – hiring the very best people for the job and for the culture of the company. I’m most proud of working for companies where we’ve been able to experiment, test and focus on the hiring process end-to-end and by identifying the right questions and skills to interview for while also ensuring the candidate has a great experience. The innovation comes from this focus and also matching each company’s values and culture to the experience and ultimately the hires. I started my career in executive recruiting and have held this space near and dear to my heart throughout every job and geography I’ve worked in.

In closing, what final thoughts or key messages would you like to leave our audience with regarding the future of HR and building successful people organizations?
Understand your business, find ways to unleash and develop talent to deliver for the business and achieve results they didn’t believe possible, embed the culture into the processes that drive the company, have a voice and be willing to debate with leaders to achieve the best outcome, embrace curiosity and keep evolving.