Heart of the Brand

Thomas Kohler , founder and CEO of pplwise , turned a moment of professional crisis into a data-driven recruiting business that now runs 45 specialized recruiters, generates €5M in revenue with €900K EBITDA, and is targeting €100M in the next 15 years. At 25, he was fired from a startup where he'd helped grow the talent function from 5 to 150 people — and within months, that same founder called hi...

When HomeToGo finalized its acquisition of Interhome, the company didn't just double its headcount from 750 to 1,500 overnight — it inherited a workforce carved out of a large corporate parent, operating across multiple countries with fragmented HR systems, no unified performance framework, and deeply ingrained expectations around structure that HomeToGo itself was still building. Stephanie Frenze...

In this episode of Heart of The Brand, host Roman Kirsch interviews Oana Breen , Director of People Operations and Culture at Interactive Strength . Interactive Strength scaled from 15 to 100 employees in four years while navigating the unique challenge of building culture across two distinct workforces: corporate teams and customer-facing personal trainers. Oana's approach centers on a counterint...

Jackie Shaw is building OneSkin 's people infrastructure from the ground up as their first in-house people leader, navigating the unique challenge of scaling culture across a 40-person remote-first team where 85-90% work remotely while their R&D scientists operate in San Francisco labs. In a longevity skincare company founded by four PhD scientists, Jackie bridges the gap between highly techni...

Stephanie Cleverly operates as a one-person people team at Because, a 30-person remote e-commerce startup selling bladder incontinence products to older adults. The unique challenge: building a passionate, engaged culture when your entire workforce is decades younger than your customer base. As the company's first formal HR hire, Stephanie has navigated everything from processing 14,000 applicatio...

In this episode of Heart of the Brand, host Sam interviews Alexandra Bodnar , Chief Legal and People Officer at ThirdLove . ThirdLove demonstrates how combining legal and people functions creates a proactive cultural framework that prevents problems before they escalate. As an employment lawyer who transitioned into dual leadership, Alexandra has built a system where legal risk mitigation and peop...

Taylor Roa, Head of People & Talent at January, shares how a nine-year-old Series B company achieved something virtually unheard of in startup culture: zero layoffs through every market cycle while maintaining sustainable growth. As January approaches their hockey stick growth moment after years of disciplined scaling, Taylor reveals how they're reinventing their hiring approach to double thei...

In this episode of Heart of the Brand, host Diana Alexandrovna interviews Anjuli Mauer, CEO & Founder at People Pace. Anjuli reveals how scaling companies unknowingly destroy their culture through inconsistent compensation decisions and misaligned performance systems - and how to fix it before it's too late. After building HR departments at multiple Berlin startups including Flaconi, she disco...

Charlotte Theiß, People Lead at Hive, has built a dual-world people strategy that successfully manages both warehouse operations teams and distributed tech talent across seven European locations. As Hive scaled from 30 to 450+ employees, Charlotte developed specialized people teams and frameworks that acknowledge the fundamentally different needs of fulfillment associates and office workers while...

In this episode of Heart of the Brand, host Roman Kirsch interviews Valerie Mann, Chief People Officer at Elder. Elder is disrupting elderly care by connecting families with carers through their marketplace platform, and Valerie has developed a unique approach to building mission-driven culture without sacrificing performance. As Elder scaled their team while maintaining their social impact focus,...

Michael Jones, VP of People at aware®, has mastered the art of scaling dual cultures within a single organization. As aware® grew from 10 to 30 employees while launching physical blood-testing locations across Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands, Michael discovered that building one unified culture across both digital headquarters teams and on-the-ground medical operations was not only impossibl...