HOST

Matt Poepsel, PhD

Vice President & Godfather of Talent Optimization

GUEST

Amber Bardon

Founder & CEO, Parasol Alliance

Top 3 Takeaways

  1. Make remote work work. Despite being 100% remote, Parasol Alliance has built a strong culture through intentional practices like daily team calls, mandatory camera-on meetings, and structured Slack policies.
  2. Think different. Coming from an anthropology background, Amber’s disruptor mindset helped her innovate in the senior living technology space. Her experiences facing workplace flexibility challenges as a woman and mother inspired her to create a company culture that prioritizes work-life balance.
  3. Talk it out. Regular transparent communication, including twice-yearly town halls and CEO welcome meetings with every new hire have been crucial to maintaining culture during rapid growth.

From the Source

“My goal has always been to create the happiest I.T. Company in the world.”

“I think the biggest mistake companies can make with remote work is to treat it like you’re working in an office, but you’re working from home because that’s not what it is. You do have to be intentional and come up with different strategies and policies and processes for that.”

“I see myself as a disruptor and I think that has been a big part of our success as a company is because I problem solve from a completely different perspective coming from that disruptor and non-traditional mindset.”

“The longer someone is in the wrong role, the bigger impact and problems that you’re going to have from that… Our people are our products.”

“One toxic person or one person who’s causing problems within your culture and refusing to participate can bring so many other people down… You will build the culture and you will start to attract the talent that you want when you are intentional about that.”

Connect with Amber

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amberbardon