Exclusive Interview with Marty Reaume, Chief People Officer, Sequoia

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As Chief People Officer of Sequoia, Marty Reaume is responsible for leading and supporting the people's journey, from talent acquisition through to the growth and development of each of the company’s team members. A key initiative for Marty will be a continued focus on fostering the unique Sequoia culture and experience as the company accelerates its growth journey. In an exclusive interview with HR.com, Marty shares her HR journey with readers, along with her learnings, challenges and what according to her awaits HR in future, among others.

 

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: What has your HR journey been like and what influenced you the most to have a positive impact on your career?

Marty: My HR journey has been fairly direct since my undergrad. I have had a fascination with the interactions of people and the psychology of an organization from an early age.  I also had the pleasure and privilege of working with and watching some incredible talent across the different roles and companies I worked with throughout my career.  
 

Learning from strong capable leaders, watching high-performing teams, and learning from more dysfunctional situations has been my area of “study” for many years.  The most positive impact on my career was being part of a strong team, culture, level of execution and a caring, thoughtful approach to colleagues that highlighted to me what was required for a team to function like this on a consistent basis. It is amazing what is possible when all these pieces come together.

Q: What were your challenges during the early days of your career? What are those today? 

Marty: Challenges in the early days fell into two areas for me:

A lack of representation in leadership of women and definitely a lack of diverse representation overall.  It was always discouraging to me to be part of an HR team of predominantly women, except for the most senior leaders on the team, who were invariably men.

In the early days of my career, HR did equal recruiting, maybe some transactional training and employee relations.  This eventually broadened out with the advance of technology designed for the HR space, a focus on investing in the development of colleagues and even on the recruiting side – focusing less on “recruiting” on more on partnering with business unit leaders to build their teams.

Today I think the world is open and inviting to really strong, capable HR practitioners and offerings – the challenge is now finding this talent in what has become an incredibly high-demand field.

Q: How do you see workplace culture changing over the years?

Marty: I think we will all be working through the workplace of the future for a while.  Truly understanding your employee demographics, what they value and being attentive to input and feedback will be even more critical in the coming years.  Providing a workplace where people can genuinely feel and experience a balance between their home lives and contributing at an exceptional level and that they are valued for their contributions is table stakes.  Having an HR team dedicated to these outcomes and really focused on every aspect of their colleagues’ wellbeing is critical.

Q: Can you share the top three learnings from the challenges you faced?

Marty: In nearly every adversarial or seemingly impossible challenge, I have learned over and over that virtually nothing is impossible if you have an incredible team to work with and rely on. Together, you “chunk things out” in manageable pieces and pretty soon, you have successfully climbed what originally felt like an impossible hill.  

Approaching most every situation with the fundamental belief that each party is operating from a position of positive intent as a starting-point results in a higher ratio of successful outcomes.  This approach is also just so much healthier for relationships, interactions, and the path to agreement.

Trust and hard work can take everyone much further than they anticipated.  The absence of trust is crippling and remarkably hard to fix.  

Q: Where do you draw inspiration from? What do you have to say to those who are still struggling to find a place in the boardroom?

Marty: I draw inspiration from incredible colleagues and leaders that I have had the opportunity to work with and still have the opportunity to work with.  They inspire me to continue to show up and put in the work.  I also draw inspiration from my daughter – watching her maneuver in this early phase of her career and wanting to help set an example for how rewarding a career can be if you surround yourself with a strong, trusted, and capable team.

Q: Where do you draw the line when it comes to work-life balance?

Marty: I work on ensuring that my colleagues know they can rely and depend on me to come through for them. Once that groundwork is laid, we are all able to balance our commitments, our sources of enjoyment and where we want to spend and give time.

Q: What fundamental change(s) (in terms of culture) do you plan to bring into your company?

Marty: I am currently very new in my role, joining a company where the culture comes first.  It is strong, constantly reinforced and definitely a differentiator.  My goal is to support and strengthen this culture as the company continues to grow and to ensure that we know and understand our team members along the way.

Q: What are some major changes you see affecting HR within the next few years?

Marty: I think the HR world will continue to evolve in terms of the expectations of the ability to inform the business with relevant and timely data, to the extent that our data is truly predictive.

I also think that HR teams will be charged with working with leaders across the business to understand how to best engage and provide a motivating environment for their talent, while simultaneously making a connection to the purpose of the organization and the communities they serve.