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Profile
Ellen Raim is the Vice President of People and Culture. Ellen has deep experience and knowledge in the field of human capital management having held senior positions at a number of corporations and having earned advanced degrees in organizational design and behavioral science.Prior to joining Invoca in early 2019, Ellen held a number of notable positions such as Vice President of Human Resources and Compliance at Cascade Microtech and Director for Worldwide Talent Acquisition for Intel.
Ellen earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Brown University, a J.D. from University of Miami, a Master’s degree in organizational design from Seattle University and a Master’s degree in behavioral sciences from The London School of Economics.
Ellen brings a completely fresh, thoughtful and amazingly smart approach to thinking through how a company’s people, and culture, drive the company’s success and growth. Working with her I was blown away by how she leveraged her substantial education in behavioral science to present analysis and recommendations on how to make a real business impact and scale up teams. I’ve truly never met anyone like her. She finds a perfect balance of theory and ‘been there, here’s how I’ve done that’ with empathetic understanding of each unique situation at hand to come up with expert solutions to company challenges. Specifically under her leadership, she rolled out the following with much success: -an overhaul of compensation strategy, to more effectively and fairly align compensation with standardized roles and contributions, in a manner that could scale -launched a diversity & inclusion team that drove high engagement and satisfaction with employees -launched new performance review processes across all departments with clear paths for career progression -all of the above resulted in an employee retention rate of 95%+ (which is extremely high in SaaS) and a company NPS of ~80 (again, very high in SaaS)
Ellen joined Invoca only 9 months ago as the Head of People & Culture and she’s already had an incredible impact on the organization already. She’s been driving efficiency, eg in the area of recruiting by bringing recruiting efforts in house, cutting the time required to fill position by more than 50%. She’s been driving standards, e.g. moving from yearly performance reviews to quarterly coaching sessions for all employees. She’s up-leveled standards, e.g. by revamping the Invoca employer brand and values. Ellen’s also added people to her team who positively impacted Invoca’s culture and operations from day one. I’d say her biggest strength is not only her ability to deliver game changing approaches and results – but she’s done so with a constant objective of driving towards and maintaining parity. Salary, benefits and promotional conversations all happen under the aspect of parity and fairness, which has greatly reduced, if not eliminated, the aspect of organizational silos and personal bias. I’ve never worked with a more efficient, people oriented and approachable head of HR in my career before.
I joined Invoca because of Ellen Raim. I left a role at a thriving startup for the opportunity to work with her again. Ellen’s integrity, intelligence and passion for people are off the charts high. Before making any decision, she always asks herself and her team “What is the right thing to do?” That is the foundation for every solution she works through. She is deeply committed to using HR tools to make companies a better and healthier place to work. In the eight months that she’s been with Invoca she has implemented a fair, equitable, competitive pay structure, a new employee review process that gives team members and managers the opportunity to have their voices heard, revamped our bonus plan to make it fair and rewarding and brought in training to strengthen our culture. As one of her direct reports, I can say that she empowers me to implement new processes that make life better for the people we serve. Every time she holds a meeting, team members say “We’re so glad you’re here!”
Incredibly diverse background and experience pertaining to the problems of growing organizations. Specifically her experience dealing behavioral psychology and applying it to teams at companies in a pragmatic way. Ellen has a great deal of insight in how to seed and capitalize on strong cultures within teams. Successfully navigating the obstacle course of culture growth at a company is no easy feat but she has it down to a science, or at least puts the science into practice! Her personality makes her incredibly easy to work with to the point where I find opportunities to collaborate just to have a chance at discussing and learning something new from her. Very humble and incredibly smart in a way where you can tell she is listening intently and engaged in conversations.
Ellen has had a tremendous impact on Invoca since joining the company as VP, People & Culture, in December 2018. She has fundamentally changed the pace of our hiring, having brought recruiting in-house and as a result reduced the number of open requisitions from over 40 when she joined to hiring all roles but a few in the target quarter in 2019. She also led a comprehensive pay equity review within months of arriving at Invoca – helping to create a more fair, data-driven compensation system that provides fair compensation for all Invocans. Finally, she has improved our company culture through focused training for front-line managers, championing and then hiring a learning / development specialist, and spearheading a cross functional effort to redefine our core company values.
I have reported to Ellen for just under two months. To say that she has had an impact on me is an understatement. Ellen works harder, and gives more of herself to her company and employees than anyone I have ever had the opportunity to work with. Ellen is a natural leader, continually looking for ways to bring value to the employees and the work they do. She is also an incredible teacher who brings deep experience to her role. One of the qualities I appreciate most about Ellen, even as a Vice President of the organization, she is never too busy for a question, never too busy to lend a hand and always makes anyone she is speaking to believe that in that moment they are her only priority. I can’t wait to see how I change and grow BECAUSE I am working for Ellen.
Ellen’s number one strength as a leader in People and Culture (a function commonly called HR at other companies) is a mind open to new ideas. She views the opinions and needs of each individual employee as an opportunity to provide a better employee experience. From pioneering the first-ever diversity and inclusion committee to spearheading new employer branding that resonates with our growing company — Ellen owns the challenges of creating a healthy and inviting company culture at a startup. She is approachable, takes feedback well, and is always ready to implement new ideas. Under her leadership, Invoca has already grown its employee count by over 20%. She has implemented new onboarding, company events, employee career coaching, and recruiting techniques.
Ellen heads Invoca’s People and Culture department. Under her leadership we’ve won more than one “Best Places to Work” awards from Inc. Magazine and others. That’s because of her focus on employee growth in support of company growth. Ellen has benchmarked Invoca with highly-functioning companies that have grown through our size (just over 200 employees currently) and has put all of their best practices in place. For example, employee NPS is measured bi-weekly and managers and executives track both the scores and also the qualitative comments come through that channel. Attracting the best employees–and helping them grow–is central to Invoca’s success and Ellen deserves the credit for leading that.
a distinguished leader in our company and excellent Public speaker. – the strongest and most knowledgable HR executive I have ever worked with. – an amazing culture fit for our company and glue person across departments. – Ellen Has helped me in very tactical people management Needs along with high level strategy for team growth and planning. – Ellen is an excellent coach on career advice and people skills. – she is truly a pleasure to work with, a Great person and she cares about all of the employees at our company.
Ellen’s ability to adapt her large enterprise HR experience to the startup culture of Invoca has been very impressive. She has brought process and rigor where necessary, but, otherwise kept her team agile and flexible. Her background as a lawyer combined with her psychology education give her an incredible ability to zoom in to tactical details and out to company strategy. She is the first HR professional that I have truly felt I am partnering with for success, rather than struggling to contain their bureaucratic drag.
Ellen is an incredibly driven and hard-working individual. More importantly, she is kind, empathetic and someone who always has your back, even when she challenges you. I am her direct report and can tell you that she is one of the best leaders I’ve ever worked for. She has so much passion for the work that she does. She is so focused on building an incredible culture at our company and that continues to be her number one priority. She is a strong woman leader who challenges those around her, and I really look up to her.
Ellen serves as Invoca’s VP of People & Culture. In her role, she’s transforming processes for the better and introducing things we’ve previously never had. Through her tenure, just to name a few, she’s introduced focus on Diversity & Inclusion, has standardized levels and compensation for all departments, and works diligently with managers to foster continuous improvement for the entire company. Ellen excels in people and it shows in everything she does.
Ellen is approachable and also very direct with her style. She builds trust through her follow through style and honesty. She is passionate about Invoca’s culture and wanting to drive the organization to the next level. She is a large reason why I joined the company and believe she will be one of the reasons the company continues to grow quickly and maintain its innovative culture.
She makes time to help whenever needed and ensures that you feel confident to move forward, checking in later to make sure you’re still on the same page and to see if you need further support. She genuinely cares about all of the employees at the company and wants to make Invoca the most supportive, successful, and best place to work.
Ellen does an excellent job of driving action and output across the teams. She listens to the needs of all employees and encourages collaborative solutions that empower team members at all levels.
Dedicated to the entire team – Forward-thinking – always seeks first to understand – Drives initiatives – Inclusive leader