Experience — Ula Iwanska

EXPERIENCE

As a Fractional Consultant, I am embedded within the team and operate in the capacity of Head of People.

AVEA Life (Health & Wellbeing), May 2024 - Present
- Reports to COO and collaborates closely with CEO.
- Build the function from the ground up
- Developed a People roadmap aligned with business goals.
- Launched a continuous Performance Management framework, improving visibility into performance, promotion readiness and development needs.
- Delivered targeted engagement actions, driving +1.2 engagement and +18 eNPS.
- Implemented salary review, job leveling, and progression processes to support growth, fair pay and budget planning.
- Coached managers on feedback and performance conversations.
- Designed a structured interview process.
- People Operations for distributed teams across EMEA and APAC.
- Standalone People role in a 40-person startup.
Katanox (HotelTech SaaS), (March 2023 to Feb 2024) ->
- Partnered with Product and Engineering team to streamline hiring process.
- Recruited for engineering and product.
- Distributed teams in EMEA
Tools: AI, Slack, Google Workspace, Notion, Miro, Asana, Greenhouse, BambooHR, 15Five, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude Cowork, EOR platforms.

Led redesign of cultural values (remote-first, flat and async culture)
Delivered hiring for critical roles: Software developers, CISO, Compliance.
Performance coaching and team training for Engineering and Operations.
Standalone role, seed stage (pre-series A). Distributed Teams.
Reason to leave: lack of sufficient funding.
Tools: Slack, G Suite, Confluence, Airtable, Miro.

Company Description

Healthtech

Built the People function from the ground up. Multi-country scope: Spain, UK, Italy, Russia.
Designed and implemented end-to-end people strategies across three pillars: (1) Growth: career paths, leadership development, and internal mobility; (2) Infrastructure for scale: compensation frameworks and onboarding; and (3) Performance culture: agile performance management with continuous feedback.
Led Talent Acquisition efforts enabling company growth from 70 to 180 employees.
Hired on a stand-alone role, have built the team from scratch (team: 5 reports).
Post-series A, reported to CEO
Reason to leave: Change in company strategy.
Tools: Slack, G Suite, Factorial, Lattice, Trello, Recruitee, Culture Amp.

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 (lattice), 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, software fro stock optimization.

Led the People & TA function for Spain, managing two direct reports and supporting company growth to 160 employees through strong culture and people processes.
Tools: Greenhouse, Slack, G Suite, Workday
Reason for leaving: Closure of the Spain business.
Tools: Greenhouse, Slack, G Suite, Workday

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 process.
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.
Reason 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

People & Talent

People & Talent Consultant (remote)

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