Building a Strong CPO-CEO Relationship with Ethena’s Melanie Naranjo

Melanie Naranjo:

The things that I care about. Are deeply important to our business strategy, which means that my c e o deeply cares about the same things that I care about. And so I do think that gives us and me, a critical advantage. What I have noticed in terms of my relationship with my CEO is, we really do have a relationship that's based on, uh, mutual respect. But I think more than that, it's one that's based on curiosity and ambition.

Katelin Holloway:

One thing I can't get enough of as a people leader is feedback. Do you love feedback as much as I do? If so, please consider writing a review of All Hands and rate us wherever you listen.

You are listening to All Hands, a podcast brought to you by Lattice, where people strategy is business strategy. I'm your host, Katelin Holloway. Let's review the challenges HR has risen to face over the last few years. We've had a global pandemic, social justice crises, the great resignation, economic uncertainty, non-human bodies found in UFOs. The list goes on, but my point is that the people team function has ethically shifted from being seen as an administrative function to a strategic partnership with executive leadership. Yet even though we know people, leaders are trusted strategists, the executive team and CEOs may not always see us that way.

How can people leaders build a partnership with leaders across the organization, especially our CEO? Well, Melanie Naranjo is the vice president of people at Ethena, a modern platform for her harassment prevention, DEI, and other trainings needed for a modern inclusive workplace. She has written about this topic of relationship building on her popular How to People newsletter. I know you'll love hearing her tangible advice for navigating this critical task as much as I have. Relationships really do matter. Melanie, welcome to All Hands.

Melanie Naranjo:

Thank you. Super, super excited to be here with you chatting today.

Katelin Holloway:

I am so excited for this conversation for so many different reasons. I'm such a fan of your work, the content that you put out into our space, how you share with our community, and I'm also a massive fan of your product. And I think I need to give a small disclaimer up top here. I'm actually an angel investor in Ethena. So all of that said, I am so excited to have this chat with you.

Melanie Naranjo:

Thank you. Thank you. I am equally obsessed with Ethena and what we're doing. It's amazing. It's the whole reason I joined. So super, super excited that we have that connection.

Katelin Holloway:

I love it. So the topic, Du jour, for us is really talking about people leadership as a strategic function and how those relationships play out within the greater organization, and more specifically, our relationship with our senior leaders. So before we dive deeply into the importance of the CEO and CPO relationship specifically, I'd love to start with how you approach your relationship with your CEO at Ethena. How would you describe your relationship? Talk to us about it, what works well, all of those beautiful things.

Melanie Naranjo:

It's such a great question in particular because I have spent a lot of time myself thinking about this because it just feels so different from my past experiences. And I'll throw out the disclaimer that I think in part, this is due to the fact that I am an HR person who works for an HR tech company, right?

Katelin Holloway:

Yep.

Melanie Naranjo:

And so the things that I care about are deeply important to our business strategy, which means that my CEO deeply cares about the same things that I care about. And so, I do think that gives us and me a critical advantage that I just want to acknowledge for people who are not in this position, they might have a slightly trickier situation, but what I have noticed in terms of my relationship with my CEO is we really do have a relationship that's based on mutual respect. But I think more than that, it's one that's based on curiosity and ambition.

And what's really cool about Roxanne Petraeus is my CEO, and I, is she and I are both, both big fans of just taking risks, experimenting, trying new things. We dive headfirst into things that are scary. But I think in general, what works really well for us is we genuinely care about each other's opinion. And so, when I'm proposing something, she has really thoughtful questions, "Why do you think we should do this? What happens if we don't do this?" And same to her. And just as importantly, when she disagrees with me, she's very clear on the why. It's not just no and now it's a wall. It's, "Hey, here's why I don't think that's the best idea." And then we can have a discussion about it. And maybe I'll be able to win her over, maybe I won't. But at the end of the day, I understand her thought process and she understands mine. We've had a very clear conversation with transparency, communication. We've both heard each other. And so I think when I really think about our relationship, it's one of trust, transparency, really listening and caring about each other's opinions.

Katelin Holloway:

Gosh, that sounds like a dream gig, a dream relationship.

Melanie Naranjo:

It's amazing.

Katelin Holloway:

I want to point out being an HR practitioner within an HR tech company. That hits different.

Melanie Naranjo:

It does.

Katelin Holloway:

Just straight up. And I say this as a prolific HR tech investor and enthusiast, big fan of HR tech. I have experienced some founders building in our space that maybe don't have that alignment, or maybe they've never actually worked in a healthy functioning organization. And so they don't know any better. I think that as much as there's a benefit to being an HR operator working within an HR tech company with a very values aligned and philosophically aligned partnership with your CEO, the inverse can be said as well. It can be a really tricky place to be. And I think another thing that I have witnessed out in the dynamic that looks like this is oftentimes when working at an HR tech company, everyone thinks that they're an HR professional.

Melanie Naranjo:

You know what? It's actually funny that you say that, because... And I'm not saying anything that Roxanne hasn't already publicly put out there herself. When she was first interviewing me for the role, she did have a more traditional perspective on what a head of HR was. She was thinking that I would come in and own peril and benefits and that I would own tough employee relations issues. And it wasn't until we were working with each other for several months that she realized like, "Oh, hey, Melanie packs a punch. She can bring in all these other things. She can help in all these other areas."

But here's the thing, that only happened because Roxanne leads with curiosity. When you have a CEO who thinks they know everything or who isn't open to adjusting their perspective, that can be quite a challenge. And I think that plays into some of what you're talking about where everyone's the HR expert, they don't need to hear from everyone else. And so I do think it's really, really important that everyone, whether you're a CEO, an HR professional, neither of them, that you really do approach with humbleness and humility and curiosity.

Katelin Holloway:

Right. And what a benefit to the organization in that you are the buyer, you were the user. And so, you get to put on your product hat I would imagine as well. Sit in, do some user research, talk about go to market and pricing and all of those other fun parts of the business where you can really lend a very important perspective.

Melanie Naranjo:

Well, it's really funny that you say that because to be honest, and I think anyone listening in who's been in an HR role before will probably relate, I think oftentimes HR professionals, they're not asked for their opinions when it comes to more business strategy related discussions. And so, that actually took me a while when I joined Ethena. I would see things and I would have opinions, and I would think, "Ooh, I don't think that would be appealing to me." But I didn't say anything because I sort of thought, "Well, that's not my place. I'm in HR. I'm not in the business side."

Katelin Holloway:

Right.

Melanie Naranjo:

And so it actually took relationship building, psychological safety building, conversations, Roxanne asking me proactively for my opinion, "Hey, what would you think of this if you were the buyer?" For me to start to really embrace that and for myself to realize, "Oh, hey, I can bring even more to the table than this internal HR perspective. I can help contribute to our product."

Katelin Holloway:

Yes, yes, yes. All of these things, people strategy is business strategy. Regardless of if you're building an HR tech or not, we sit in one of the few roles that has as much access to information and has as much purview into the entire organization as the CEO, right? We actually are the only ones sitting next to them with that 360 degree view of every moving functional part of this business. And this is exactly why the conversation we're going to have today around this relationship is so important, because as you grow into these roles and as you find your footing as an HR leader who maybe is moving out of a more traditional organization where you are asked to stay in your swim lane, to then be invited in or to ask to be invited in to the broader conversation, because the old adage goes, the two loneliest roles in an organization are the CEO and your head of people.

Melanie Naranjo:

I believe that.

Katelin Holloway:

I would say, do you feel that?

Melanie Naranjo:

I feel it. I feel it. Yeah. Which for the record is why it's so important for people professionals to build a network and build communities outside of their companies. But yes, absolutely. It's very lonely.

Katelin Holloway:

This is actually how I found you, was through your engagement with our community. You wrote a fantastic newsletter article about the CEO and head of people relationship. One thing that I loved that you pointed out was that you said very specifically, "While CEOs and heads of people ultimately have the same end goal, they don't necessarily approach that goal in the same way. For the record, that's a good thing." Tell me why you think that's a good thing. Why is it important for the CPO to challenge the CEO?

Melanie Naranjo:

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I look at this from all perspectives. I think anyone who was around in the HR world around the pandemic probably felt this significantly. So pre-pandemic, I think people were very business-focused. HR was seen as purely administrative. There wasn't really a need for HR to "step out" of their swim lane, right? And then immediately post pandemic, all these needs came up for more strategic support. How do we switch to hybrid? How do we go to remote? How do we deal with social uprising, so on and so forth? And then as the employee market got really good, how do we sell to our employees? How do we attract top candidates, right? And so, all these things became really important and valued within the HR role.

One thing that I do think happened is we sort of swung too much in the other direction.

Katelin Holloway:

Right.

Melanie Naranjo:

Yeah. And so what I mean by that for anyone who maybe isn't following along here is that at the end of the day, and we saw this with a huge wave of layoffs unfortunately that are currently and were happening for a long time, you can't just focus on one area of the business. You can't invest all of your funds into employees. You can't invest all of your funds into marketing. You can't invest all of your funds into sales. You can't. You have to spread it across the company. You have to really think about the company holistically.

And so coming back full circle to your question, I think it's great that people are bringing different perspectives to the table and challenging each other because all areas of the business need to be accounted for in order for a company to be successful. And so, that means on both sides where I need to challenge the CEO. If the CEO is not thinking about the ramifications of a decision on employees and turnover, we might lose our top talent that's going to let us hit our ARR goals. The flip side is, if Roxanne lets me go rogue and I give all of our employees all of the benefits and all of the perks, we'll go out of business and there will be no employees to keep happy.

Katelin Holloway:

Right. Exactly, yes.

Melanie Naranjo:

And so I think it's very, very important that we always maintain this balancing act, and that's why we have executives of different areas, right? The idea is you focus and then bring your perspective to the table when we are having these big discussions.

Katelin Holloway:

I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times, I am an executive that happens to have an area of expertise in people. And that is how I show up in the boardroom, that is how I show up in my executive rooms. We have to be business leaders first, the collective, right? And to that end, I can think of a dozen different instances where CPOs or heads of people need to leverage their influence in order to push through a strategic initiative or to help people understand the importance or significance of initiative X, Y, or Z. But from your perspective, what makes the CPO or head of people and CEO relationships so unique as it relates to influence?

Melanie Naranjo:

Ooh, I have so many thoughts on this. I'm probably going to answer this in a roundabout way, but this is the order of the thoughts that come to my head. So first and foremost, I think that we can't overlook the dynamics at play, including gender dynamics and power dynamics. So if we look at the makeup of the HR industry, the reality is that the majority of people who work in the HR industry identify as women. A good chunk of those identify as women of color. If you look at the CEO makeup, it tends to be people who identify as men, people who identify as white men. And already there are dynamics at play there, but from the gender perspective, from the racial perspective.

On top of that, you are my boss. You are my manager. You are responsible for my growth, for my salary, for my continued employment at the company. And so while I'm trying to persuade you to see my perspective, at the end of the day, you are also my manager and I have that in the back of my mind, right? And so I think there's already all of these challenges at play. There's not this sort of protected neutral third party if you are working with your CEO, who is also your manager.

The other thing that I'm think makes it unique is we're not, technically speaking, on the same, if you want to call it, department. We're on the same team, the whole executive team is on the same team, but we're not technically speaking the same department, right? Whereas normally, a person and their manager, they're on the same department, and so they have the same department goals. That's not the case within head of HR and a CEO. The is thinking about ARR understandably. And the head of HR is thinking about ARR as well, but from the perspective of employees. And so it really, really means that it's so easy. It's so easy for miscommunication to happen, for people to not see each other's perspectives, to jump to conclusions, to dismiss things that the other person is saying, to make assumptions of bad intent. And so all of these things I think really come together to make for what can be a tricky situation or a tricky relationship if you're not being incredibly thoughtful and intentional about how you approach it.

Katelin Holloway:

All of that makes sense. I don't think that was roundabout at all. So you're going to bat every day thinking about total rewards and comp for your team. But the second your own comp comes up, all of those things pour in and you're like, "Oh, I don't want to seem like I'm the one that provided the benchmarks." And that's just one small example of the multitude of hats that we get to wear in this role and with this dynamic. And then to your point, adding in all of those layers of your uniqueness, how you show up in this world and how that may be the same or different than your manager, than your CEO. And so yeah, this is why we do the work that we do, right? It is not for lack of complexity.

Melanie Naranjo:

Oh, yeah, yeah. But when it works, it's just so beautiful. So the more we can help people really bridge those gaps and develop stronger relationships with their CEOs, the better.

Katelin Holloway:

I think so too. I want to talk about perception of strategy. So we've talked a little bit about how when things are going really right, you are invited in as a strategic partner. Now maybe when things are not going as well as you would hope dynamically, we can oftentimes be relegated to that back room of just making sure that Ts are crossed and Is are dotted and there aren't any fires burning. CPOs generally see themselves as a strategic partner, or at least I hope that our audience sees themselves and views themselves as a strategic partner. Do you think CEOs generally see CPOs as a strategic function? If not, how can we maybe help to change that perception or demonstrate our value when maybe those things are not in alignment?

Melanie Naranjo:

It's such a powerful question because I think that this is on many people's minds. The short answer, if I'm being completely blunt, is no, I don't think that most CEOs see the CHRO or CPO function as strategic. Now, I want to have empathy because I think it's important to understand the history and the context around this. For a long time, heads of CEO were simply tasked with more administrative tasks. Now, am I saying that was right? No. But I'm saying that in practice, many heads of HR were focusing on more administrative tasks and weren't really brought into the fold. And now that it has become even more critically important than ever before for HR to be really leaned on as a strategic partner. Now it's starting to change, but I think that it takes time for people to catch up.

The other thing I'll say is I want to have empathy to the heads of HR here too, because what goes through my mind is I don't think that for a long time for the past, since the history of HR, I don't think people have really invested in the growth and development of their heads of HR the same way that they have, for example, the heads of sales. For example, a CRO for most companies is in the CEO's best interest that they develop their CRO. It is in their best interest that their CRO is successful because they're bringing the money and it is directly revenue producing. Whereas HR teams are typically seen as not revenue producing. Of course, we bring money to the company in different ways, but it's harder for the CEO to connect those dots.

And so, the reason I say that it's important to have empathy for heads of HR is, and I'm going to say the statement again with complete empathy because I include myself in this, I would say most heads of HR have never been trained on how to build a compelling case argument to your CEO to put on the business hat when you're making arguments rather than putting on the, "Because it's the right thing to do" hat, right? That is not going to build a compelling argument to your CEO. And no, I don't think that most CEOs see heads of HR as a strategic function. And I think that the only way to change that is for CEOs to invest in their HR partners, for heads of HR to partner together as communities.

The way that I'm really seeing happen, and I'm so happy to see this happen more and more since we've gone virtual, connecting with each other, learning from each other's experiences, rather than being in this siloed community. We're a team of one sometimes at an entire company, and we have no one to lean on for support to guide us and mentor us. And so, I think lots of changes would have to happen for that to really change across the entire industry.

Katelin Holloway:

I think you make such a salient point. And as I look back on my own career, a pivotal moment for me was I was being layered. This was the first time I was being layered as an HR executive, and I was pissed. I was raging mad, and I was being moved to a new hire executive hire as the COO. And like I said, in hindsight, this was an incredibly pivotal moment in my career because this COO taught me how to be a business leader, not an HR leader.

Melanie Naranjo:

I love that.

Katelin Holloway:

And I will forever credit him, his name is Emil Michael, with that developmental opportunity if that learning and development opportunity is presented to you or if you can present it and make a compelling case to say, "Hey, this is how I'd like to show up. These are the areas in which I would like to develop so that I can have a better, more strategic conversation when we come together as a leadership team."

Melanie Naranjo:

I think that's exactly right. It's really interesting to me the way that you described it. Same thing is happening to me or has happened to me at Ethena, where again, because in this unique set of circumstances, it is in my CEO's best interest to develop me as a professional in HR. I am getting this and realizing, "Oh, wow, I never had this before. Had I, how much further would I be in my career?" I want to have empathy for anyone listening in who's thinking, "Oh my gosh, I've never had that either. I didn't know I needed this."

Katelin Holloway:

Yeah, totally.

Melanie Naranjo:

If you have a CEO who's not doing this proactively for you, to your point, you can solicit it. You can say to your CEO, "Hey, it doesn't seem like I've been having much success in convincing you on my initiatives. What would a more compelling argument look like? What are you optimizing for? When it's a no for you, why is it a no? What would turn that into a yes? What would make me a more persuasive business partner to you?" Just ask the questions and you'll soon find the answers.

Katelin Holloway:

I hope you are writing this down, dear listeners. That is the question to ask. Write it down in your next one-on-one document, because I think it's so easy to just accept a no and not be curious. And that is something that you have said several times already on the show, is really leading with curiosity and encouraging our partners, our CEO partners, to show up with curiosity as well.

I really want to double click on the word partner. This is a shared responsibility between the CPO or the head of people and the CEO. And so in your opinion, what does that partnership truly look like when it's effective?

Melanie Naranjo:

I think you touched on this already, but I think it bears repeating. Both parties have to come to the table with curiosity always. And I really mean that. I'm not just saying, "Oh, the CEO needs to be more open to HR's perspective." I think HR needs to be more open to the CEO's perspective as well. I think we really need to understand, "Oh, when I look at the numbers, it makes sense that we really can't afford to move forward with this benefit." Or, "Oh, we really can't afford to roll out" whatever new initiative it is that you want to do. On the flip side, the CEO really does need to be open to, "Oh, this is the negative impact if we don't do this thing that you are advising that I do."

The other thing that I think is really important is having self-awareness and making time for self-reflection, because the reality is both of you will make mistakes. Both of you will make calls that in hindsight, were not the right calls. And having the self-awareness and the humility to call it out and dissect it, do a postmortem, "Why didn't this work? Oh, I should have listened to you. Oh, I didn't push hard enough for my initiative. I got pushback and I said, 'Well, you're the CEO, so I guess I'm just going to let it go'." Right? And so I think when it's working well, there's open communication, there's trust, there's curiosity, and there's a lot of humility and self-awareness.

Katelin Holloway:

You're so right. I remember early in, I think, my HR career I used to keep an "I told you so" folder. This is not a recommendation. I'm telling you what not to do right now. I kept an "I told you so" folder because I was so frustrated that I was coming to the table saying, "I don't think we should do that. I don't think we should do that" and I wasn't being listened to or I felt like I wasn't influencing decisions in the way that I thought was best for the organization.

And to our earlier conversation, maybe it's because I wasn't presenting it in the right way. Maybe it was because I was showing up as a union leader instead of a business leader that deeply cared about people. And there's a difference between those two roles once you learn the skills in order to show up in that way. And when the same COO found out about my "I told you so" folder, he was not pleased and he was like, "That implies that we are not on the same team." And so what he did with me at that stage of my career was he taught me how to have trade-off conversations, like, "Why was it a no? Or what is in the balance here? If we're saying yes to this, what are we also saying no to?" And really understanding more holistically how those decision points might impact the organization and then how those decisions might impact employees.

Melanie Naranjo:

You know what's interesting to me about what you say is... First of all, I agree with everything and I think you worded it so articulately. The thing that I would add there is I think a lot of people listening in are probably going to be able to identify with that sense of frustration. "I told you so. I gave you all these things. You didn't listen to me." When I hear stuff like that, really what it makes me think is, does the CEO actually know what your job is?

Katelin Holloway:

Right.

Melanie Naranjo:

Right? And I really mean that. I'm not even trying to be...

Katelin Holloway:

Truly.

Melanie Naranjo:

Truly. Are you all on the same page about what your role is at the company and what value you bring to the company and how you two should be partnering together? Because oftentimes it comes to, in my opinion, when these challenges are happening, it comes down to misalignment and it comes down to the CEO genuinely not knowing that this is your job. It is your job to challenge them. It's your job to be the perspective and the voice of the employee. It is your job to really think about things, not just from a "ARR perspective," even though of course it all feeds into it, right? But to think about it more long-term.

And so, sometimes I think it's really helpful just to say, "Hey, I want to make sure we're on the same page here. How do you define my role? How do you define success in my role? And in your opinion, what would be the most effective way for me to partner with you?" And I think the answers to those questions can be very insightful. Either you will find that you're not aligned, in which case you need to have a conversation. Or you will find that you are aligned, in which case it's a good opportunity for you to remind your CEO in those moments of pushback, "Hey, ultimately it's your company. If you're going to say no, you're going to say no. But I want to remind you that the reason that I am bringing this argument to the table is because you hired me. You hired me to bring the voice of the employee and you hired me to think about the impact to our employees. And so that is the perspective that I'm bringing."

Because otherwise, I think unfortunately, when arguments happen, it can tend to feel quite contentious. It can feel personal. But of course it's not, right? You're literally doing the job that you were hired to do.

Katelin Holloway:

Exactly. And just for as much as every other executive was hired to bring their perspective for their functional area of expertise, that is our job. And something that I have found to be very disarming when I get in those moments where things start to either feel personal or as if it's my personal opinion, which of course everything is colored with our own perspective and our own lived experiences, you don't want to show up strictly as that union leader, but to say like, "I am thinking about our whole environment. I'm thinking about our whole ecosystem." Just calling it out and asking like, "Are we on the same page here? We're on the same team, gang. It's not personal. I'll tell you when it's personal."

Melanie Naranjo:

Love that. I love knowing where I stand with someone, you know?

Katelin Holloway:

Exactly. I want to talk a little bit more about some common pitfalls that folks in these CPO or heads of people roles have when they're trying to communicate with their CEO. Maybe said another way is like, who are other stakeholders that CPOs might not realize they need to leverage influence over? So again, thinking about that whole ecosystem, how do and when might a CPO fall into that trap of getting stuck in maybe a dead end conversation?

Melanie Naranjo:

So I think a couple of thoughts. First is, I think that CPOs can often forget their audience. The things that you are optimizing for, the things that are of highest priority to you might not necessarily be the highest priority to your CEO at any given point. That doesn't mean you all don't have the same goal. At the end of the day, you're all trying to create a successful business, but you're coming at it from different approaches with different priorities.

The second, to your point, talking about leveraging other people across the company, I do think that sometimes CPOs can overlook the opportunity that exists in building allies across the company. And I don't mean that in a political way. I mean that from the perspective of, there are other people on this team. It's not just you and the CEO, right? The CEO's job is to ideally think about everyone's perspective, understand all the information, and then make a decision. It's okay to go to, for example, the CRO and say, "Hey, you were able to do a really effective job of convincing the CEO to invest in this initiative. I'd love to just chat with you about how you did that. What was your approach? What were you thinking about when you did that?"

There are two benefits to doing something like that. One is you genuinely might learn something from them. And I think it's important because there's probably something that they're doing that you're not, that is working for them that could help you. The other thing is you will build an ally, right? You will start to build a stronger relationship, so that the next time you're pushing for an initiative, maybe you talk to them first, "Hey, I want to throw this out to the CEO, but I'm nervous about pushback. How would you frame this? How would you sell it if you were me?" And then when you do present it to the CEO in a room full of executives, you now have people who will support this, who will help speak up for you and help push it forward because they were part of that process and they believe in it and you have a good relationship with them.

And so I think, yeah, it's important to think about not just your relationship with the CEO, but also your relationship with others. I want to acknowledge that that can be really hard because when you are a CPO, you have this dual role where your peers are also the people that you are an HR business partner for. And so, it can be hard to remember that they are a peer and someone that you can leverage for support as well. It doesn't just have to be one directional. And so I just want to remind everyone, your peers, they can help you too. You don't just have to be the only one helping others.

Katelin Holloway:

I love that so much. Getting that buy-in as well as coaching, right? That can be a twofer. No problem. Easy. And I would imagine that this is the advice that we are giving some of our employees as we are coaching them through relationships with their peers or their managers. And so, being able to take our own advice I think is really, really helpful here.

You touch on an important part of relationship building, which is motivation. So both your own, but also the motivation of those around you, so your peers and your allies. How do we turn folks into our allies to be able to show up and have that additional voice saying, "You know what? I also deeply care about diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiative. Here's my perspective," or, "Oh yeah, Mel and I talked about that last week and here's my 2 cents"? How do you learn what really motivates somebody? How are you able to optimize for that motivation?

Melanie Naranjo:

Funnily enough, I don't really have a profound tip on this. I really think people just need to be direct. What motivates you? What is the thing that drives you every day? What is the thing that makes you want to move forward with an initiative? What is the thing that makes you say, "Hell yes, let's do that"? I think we should just ask each other because I think that people are much more open than we would think to just sharing that really transparently.

Katelin Holloway:

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And some things you do not need to be nuanced about. And frankly, most people actually enjoy being asked that question, I have found, where it's like, "Yeah, I actually really care. I know that my role isn't maybe in HR, but I do really care about pay equity" or whatever. Fill in the blank thing that maybe they have witnessed or seen your CEO not show up as curious or has shot down a few different times. Ask them. And if they're in, absolutely link arms. This is what we are here for, and people like being asked about their opinion and what they stand for, what they care about. So I love that. Be direct.

Melanie Naranjo:

Yeah.

Katelin Holloway:

Melanie, I feel like we could talk about this for so many hours. And I really feel like our audience is going to get a lot from this. There were so many tactical examples that you have shared from your blueprint that I really, really appreciate. So thank you for that. But it is now time, my friend, to jump into rapid fire. Are you ready?

Melanie Naranjo:

I'm ready. Hit me with it.

Katelin Holloway:

Okay. Shifting gears, put on your fast hat. Quick question. Did HR find you or did you find HR?

Melanie Naranjo:

HR found me.

Katelin Holloway:

That usually happens that way.

Melanie Naranjo:

Yep.

Katelin Holloway:

What's your favorite way to unwind after work?

Melanie Naranjo:

Ooh, okay. I got to be honest. I just plop on the couch with all three of my cats and it's amazing.

Katelin Holloway:

Sometimes the best thing after a hard day are snuggles. I get it.

Melanie Naranjo:

I love it. Yeah.

Katelin Holloway:

I get it. When was the last time you were deeply proud of something you've accomplished?

Melanie Naranjo:

Ooh, I love that question because it's happening now. So one of the great things about being an HR tech is that I get to contribute to the actual product. And my favorite thing in the HR space is learning and development. It's part of why I was so attracted to Ethena. We've just rolled out a management training and I helped create it. I wrote some of the modules for it. I acted in it. And I personally reviewed all of the content for the training. It's just wildly amazing and inspiring and motivational for me to realize, "Oh, wow, I was a part of this thing that is directly revenue producing, that is creating content that we are putting out to employees out there." And it builds on this thing that is so deeply important to me, which is learning and development. So it's just amazing.

Katelin Holloway:

Well, we are proud of you too. I can't wait to see it. Like I said, I'm a big fan and I'm so excited for you all to get that in the hands of managers that so desperately need it.

Melanie Naranjo:

Thank you.

Katelin Holloway:

That makes my heart very happy. Congratulations.

Melanie Naranjo:

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Katelin Holloway:

Well, Melanie, I just want to say thank you so very much for joining us on All Hands. And I will ask the same of you that I've asked with every other guest, and that is, please, please keep leading authentically.

Melanie Naranjo:

I will do my utmost.

Katelin Holloway:

I know you will.

Thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of All Hands. I am so sad to report that this is actually our last episode of the season. Please remember to follow All Hands wherever you get your podcasts so that when we're back, our new episodes will automatically appear wherever you listen. And make sure to check out our previously aired episodes on topics like Paid Family leave, mental health, and so much more.

All Hands is produced by Lattice in partnership with Pod People. Special thanks to our production team, Christine Swore, Annette Cardwell, Rachael King, Aimee Machado, Hannah Patterson, Danielle Roth, David Swick, Shai Wottitz, and Carter Wogahn. I'll see you next time on All Hands. Until then, my friends, please keep leading authentically.