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
Jack Coleman
Co-Founder of Double Yolk
Jack is the Co-founder of Double Yolk, a New Zealand startup that helps businesses scale by connecting them with top offshore talent. After growing the company into one of New Zealand’s fastest-growing startups, recognised on the Deloitte Fast 50 — Double Yolk was acquired by global firm Outsourced in 2024. With a background in both entrepreneurship and corporate leadership, Jack brings practical insight into the highs and lows of startup life, building strong teams, and navigating business acquisition. He’s passionate about founder resilience, hiring with intention, and learning through the journey.
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.
Jeanelle Ooi
Principal Talent & People Experience Partner at Auror
Jeanelle brings over a decade of experience in talent and hiring at Auror. She joined shortly after its Series B to help grow and scale the team globally. Since then, Auror has expanded to more than 250 people across four markets. As Principal Talent & People Experience Partner, Jeanelle’s role spans the entire people experience: from attracting and hiring great talent, to supporting performance, learning and development. She’s deeply passionate about DEIB and creating inclusive, high-performing environments where everyone feels a true sense of belonging.
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.
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.