Scaling Startups: People Before Product
22 October 2025
- Starting Out
Talent is a startup’s greatest asset, but also its biggest challenge. This session explores the art and process of recruiting, onboarding, and rewarding team members, especially as startups scale into international markets.
Hear from startup leaders who’ve navigated the complexities of international hiring, remote team building, and culture scaling. We’ll explore practical tactics for recruiting top talent, onboarding across time zones, fostering inclusive cultures, and creating reward systems that attract and retain world-class people.
Whether you’re expanding offshore, managing hybrid teams, or simply planning your next hire, this session offers invaluable insight into how to build teams that scale with your vision.
Free
This is a free event — get tickets below
Speakers
Charlie Nowaczek
CEO at BoardPro
Charlie has over three decades of experience as an operating executive, management advisor, entrepreneur, and consultant, focused on the dynamic "teenager" stage of business: small- to mid-caps on the verge of significant growth. His work has spanned a diverse set of sectors, including SaaS, digital media, financial services, travel technology, and physical infrastructure development. He is currently the CEO of BoardPro, a governance platform solution for SMEs and not-for-profits.
Dale Clareburt
Co-Founder and Partner at OnsideNZ and Weirdly Ltd
Dale experienced all the ups and downs of the startup rollercoaster as CEO and co-founder of Kiwi startup, Weirdly. Now, as the leader of a brand-new recruitment offering, Onside NZ, Dale's helping other scaling business owners build the teams that'll see them through their own ambitious journey.
Laura Warden
Head of Operations at Folklore Ventures
Laura is Head of Operations at Folklore Ventures, a leading Australian early stage venture capital firm investing in the most ambitious Aussie and Kiwi software founders. She has a long standing career in recruitment, people and operations, starting her career working for a globally leading recruitment firm, Hays, followed by working in people and recruitment operations at Google. Laura then moved to Folklore in a People role and now heads up Operations for the firm. Having worked closely with startups through the gritty realities of pre-seed to the complexities of scaling, exits, and beyond, Laura is deeply passionate about helping founders navigate challenges and unlock their team and companies’ full potential.
Lauren Peate
Founder and CEO at Multitudes
Lauren Peate is the CEO and founder of Multitudes, which measures the impact of AI on engineering delivery. She’s focused her career on using data to support people, including as the founder of Ally Skills NZ, a consultancy helping global tech companies improve team performance, and as a consultant for Bain & Co in San Francisco, translating numbers into insights for Fortune 500 tech companies.
MC
Keren Phillips
Startup Aotearoa Coach and former Co-Founder of Weirdly
Keren Phillips is the ecosystem coordinator and lead advisor for Startup Aotearoa's Auckland branch. She also works within the Auckland Council team designing support programmes and initiatives for the startup community. Previously, she was the co-founder and VP Marketing of HRTech software, Weirdly. Her experience spanning SME and startup leadership, brand, and business strategy development across a range of industry sectors helps inform her coaching work with NZ's most exciting cohort of emerging founders.
Venue
GridAKL / John Lysaght
101 Pakenham Street West, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland 1010
GridAKL / John Lysaght is more than just a workspace — it's a thriving community of visionaries, innovators and change-makers. GridAKL is home to a diverse mix of startups and small businesses working together to create solutions that make a difference.