Experience — Ula Iwanska

Experiences

Avea Life, (Health and Wellbeing), (2024 - current):
- Developed People Roadmap, to align strategy with business goals.
- Piloted, launched, and iteratively improved Performance Management process (continuous feedback, AI enhanced process).
- Used AI analytics dashboards to surface engagement patterns and translate survey results into measurable actions.
- Implemented Salary Review and Promotion process.
- Designed structured interview process and automated hiring stages on Greenhouse (self scheduling, Google calendar integrations, transitions stages).
- Conducting research on integrated HRIS, performance, and engagement ecosystems, leveraging AI to enhance productivity, reduce manual workflows, and improve organizational agility.
- Responsible for day-to-day People Operations (Payroll Onboarding, EORs)
- Distributed teams EMEA/APAC.
Katanox (HotelTech, SaaS) -> Streamlined hiring process (structured interviewing), Hands on hiring for Engineering and Product. Distributed teams in EMEA (2023-2024)
Tools: AI, Slack, G Suite, Confluence, Notion, Airtable, Miro, Asana, Greenhouse, HR Bamboo, 15five, ChatGTP, Gemini.

Redesiend cultural value (remote-first and async culture)
Delivered against hiring of critical roles: software developers, CISO, Compliance.
Provided both strategic input and hands-on support to reach company OKRs (Hiring process and pipeline building, ESOP plan implementation, Performance Coaching).
Stand-alone role, seed stage (pre-series A). Distributed Teams.
Tools: Slack, G Suite, Confluence, Airtable, Miro.
Reason to leave: lack of sufficient funding.

Company Description

Healthtech

Built People Function and contributed to increase of engagement and eNPS from 6 to 45; (geo: Spain, UK, Italy, Russia, US).
Designed and implemented people strategies: 1.Growth: Career Path, Leadership, Internal mobility. 2. Infrastructure for scale: Compensation framework, Onboarding 3. Performance culture: Agile Performance Management (continuous feedback).
Talent Acquisition: delivered against growth from 70 to 180 people.
Hired on a stand-alone role and built the team from scratch (team of 5 direct reports).
Tools: Slack, G Suite, Factorial, Lattice, Trello, Recruitee, Culture Amp.
Post-series A, reported to CEO
Reason to leave: Change in company strategy.

Detailed Description

Built Talent and People function: People Operations, L&D, Talent Management and Talent Acquisition.
Created and implemented a career growth framework enabling vertical (leveling up) and horizontal (lateral moves) development for both individual contributor and People Manager track.
Designed Agile Performance Management framework and implemented Lattice (performance management platform) to enable continuous performance conversations and performance tracking.
Created compensation philosophy and structure (levels), enabling growth of the organization (hiring) and more transparency in promotions and salary reviews (including fixed salary, variable and equity).
Designed and launched Leadership Development program under principle that leadership is part of every role and every level.
Talent Acquisition (growth up to 180 people). Created Headcount planning and hiring strategy to deliver on the roles. Directly recruited for 30% of the roles.
Led benefits implementation including trust-based expenses management framework (tech platform: Pleo).
Ensured day to day compliance at payroll and labour laws across Spain, UK, Italy and US .
Led ER cases.
Ensured smooth operational management of cultural onboarding and offboarding.

Company Description

RetailTech

Led People & TA function for Spain, nurturing culture and building day to day people processes while supporting company growth to 160 ppl.
Tools: Greenhouse, Slack, G Suite, Workday
Reported to MD
Reason to leave: Closing of Deliveroo business in Spain.

Detailed Description

Managed Headcount and hiring processes for Spain.
Led restructuring of Customer Service business unit (50% of the company HC).
Run annual performance management system.
Educated Leadership team about People and Culture agenda and how it impacts business.
Executed against Payroll and building admin processes locally.
Asissted with Workday implementation for Spain.

Enabled change in the company culture and ensured that we hire the best talent for the agency. Implemented: OKRs, Real Time Feedback, passive Talent Pool.
Reason to leave: Going back to tech sector.

Detailed Description

Implemented OKRs system in order to align organisation against common goals.
Implemented real-time feedback and performance management system (Impraise) to ensure employees continuous.development
Led strategic talent acquisition: implemented structured hiring process and ensured hiring for business growth.
Provided ongoing leadership guidance and coaching.
Executed against HRBP functions for 55 people when it comes to employee relations, holidays policies and benefits (e.g introduced flexible holidays scheme and tax exempt benefits).

Company Description

Creative agency

Created Talent Acquisition Strategy plan aligned with Medallia needs and business vision. Contributed to growth of business up to 120 people.
Reason to leave: Personal (moved back to Spain).
Tools: Greenhouse, Workday

Detailed Description

My role was to build Talent Strategy aligned with business needs. I partnered with BUs as a strategic and subject matter expert for talent acquisition while handling hands-on full cycle recruitment and sourcing.
My stakeholders were EMEA Management Board, ANZ Country Manager, BUs Leaders (APAC & EMEA), and my team consisted of a full-time coordinator and a sourcer (since 2016).
Talent Strategy: I created structured hiring approach starting from building competitive value proposition through designing of the optimal recruitment process, identifying addressable talent pools and defining outreach strategy.
Enabling business: I organised workshops with management team to identify and articulate what is Talent Profile for Medallia and ensured its alignment with functional performance indicators.
I created and facilitated recruitment training, during which I coached hiring managers on hiring and best practices within people development.
Hiring to time and deadline: 15 Hires Q3/16; 24 hires in 2015 with no support org [proactive search] and with utmost care for candidate experience.
I co-led initiative on Quality of Hire, which consisted of building framework for 90 day's followup on performance.
Ops: Contracting, on-boarding, immigration.
Organised quarterly branding events “Women in Tech” through creating partnerships with external organisation.
Side projects: Part of Core team to build EMEA vision, spearheaded organisation of EMEA All-Hands for Medallia EMEA business to foster culture and engagement.

Company Description

Medallia is SaaS Customer Experience Management company

Managed full-cycle recruitment process, continuously overachieved on hiring goals (110% of target). Note: Employed with Google on 2x contracts (2010/2011-2012/2013).
Reason to leave: Professional growth in start-up company.

Detailed Description

Managed end-to-end recruitment projects for Online Media Sales, Enterprise Sales, Business Operations and Channel Sales positions [regions: DACH, Southern and Eastern Europe, South Africa, Israel].
Owned recruitment process within allocated teams and decided on strategy and channels to attract candidates [direct sourcing, job boards, referrals].
Achieved 110% of hiring target for each quarter consecutively [average 10hires/Qtr].
Developed strategies for ethnic and gender diversity in hiring, organised first of series of Inspiring Black Talent Events [May 2013].
Participated in project on organisational effectiveness [mapping level of experience to internal levels at Google].
Multiple times awarded peer bonuses by internal clients for exceptional performance.
*Please note, within this period, I was employed with Google on 2x contracts with few months break in between. I was in Dublin 2010-2011, London 2012-2013. I run 2 months project with Vodafone in between my employment with Google.

Company Description

Google works to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Managed hiring (engineers) and day to day HR Ops.
Reason to leave: Redundancy due to 2008 crisis.

Detailed Description

Managed recruitment process and training for Geci Ing.
Build up pipeline of suitable candidates (aeronautical, mechanical, design engineers) within aeronautical sector, using job boards, referrals and direct sourcing methods.
Conducted annual employee reviews and managed payrolls, contracts, labor unions.

Company Description

Geci is an engineering consulting company

Managed clients and run international recruitment projects.
Reson to leave: Professional growth (international).

Detailed Description

I established and maintained customer relationship with ADMB and Randstad, and was responsible for recruitment projects for Belgium and Netherland Markets (high–volume recruitment of blue-collar profiles).

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Ula Iwanska

Head of People & Talent

Fractional Head of People & Talent

Head of Talent

Head of People & Culture

Head of People & TA - Spain

Head of People and Culture

Senior Talent Manager EMEA, APAC

Staffing Partner EMEA Dublin, London

HR Responsible

Recruitment Consultant