Lioness Conversations with Sarah Greenwell: Empowering Women in Leadership Roles
Jen Porter (00:00)
Hey, Lioness, welcome to the show, Lioness Conversations, where we help women be brave, to lead with confidence and joy, and to find your path to the most meaningful work of your life. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach for ambitious and heart-centered women. Today, we have a very special guest, Sarah Greenwell. Sarah is the founder of Growth Mode Talent Partners.
a boutique recruiting and consulting firm dedicated to helping startups scale through diverse and impactful hires. Sarah, welcome to the show.
Sarah Greenwell (00:39)
Thank you, Jen! It's wonderful to be here.
Jen Porter (00:42)
I'm so glad to be having this conversation with you. I love what you do and I can't wait for people to hear about it. Sarah and I, so you and I met through a growth group, through a mastermind. So you and I have a lot in common. We're all about growth for ourselves and helping other people scale and grow and have big impact in this world. We both have a recruiting background and so we had a lot to connect about over that. So tell us a little bit about
Sarah Greenwell (00:53)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Porter (01:12)
growth mode, talent partners, like what are you doing currently and what are you really focused on?
Sarah Greenwell (01:18)
Yeah, absolutely. So we work with growing tech companies that need to scale their teams. So this can come in really any flavor of pre-IPO company, typically venture capital backed, some private equity backed, where I really shine is working with founders on some of those early hires. So companies that have...
30 to 50 people and maybe they're just branching out and starting to bring in their first product leader, their first marketing leader. So it's super exciting and being able to get in that early and help them to add more women to their leadership team, to add leaders that bring perspective from growing up in an underrepresented group.
I know this has a trickle down effect on the products we're using every day in our businesses and in our lives.
Jen Porter (02:17)
I can definitely see that. And to be in on the ground floor must be really exciting. How did you get into this?
Sarah Greenwell (02:24)
Yeah,
so my, I feel like my path has been windy as many of ours have. So I will start way back when I started, okay, I'll go even further back. So I was a musical theater major in school and realized that I probably would not be able to make a living doing that. So I switched to being an English major.
I clearly had no guidance for anyone in these decisions. And so when I graduated college, I moved to New York City. said, okay, I'm gonna try being an actor. Ended up being a temp, ended up moving back home with my parents. I heard from a boy I was dating at the time about this new thing that had just come out called monster.com. So monster.
anyone remembers this was kind of the pioneer in being able to connect candidates with companies. So I put my resume up and I got a call for an insurance sales agent job at the Hartford. I knew nothing about insurance. All I knew was I needed a job. So I interviewed for some reason, they hired me for some reason I ended up being really good at.
Jen Porter (03:34)
Okay.
Sarah Greenwell (03:47)
So I was selling auto insurance to AARP members and my manager came to me one day and said, would you go to this job fair that they're holding tomorrow to try to help them hire more salespeople? And I said, sure. And I went and it was...
the most fun I'd ever had at work. I was loving talking to people and telling them why the Hartford was so great. And the women I was with, I said, is this your job? Is this what you do? They're like, well, we're not at job fairs every day. Yeah, but we're recruiters. And I said, I want to be a recruiter. So I started going down to the HR office during my lunch breaks and before my work shift began after
and just interned in the HR office until a recruiting role opened up and then I switched over in that. So that was how I landed in it. Throughout my career, I have mostly been a recruiter at a number of different companies. So I went to a startup from the Hartford. So I went from 40,000 people down to a 200 person startup called Redbox.
and then was recruited away from there by Saks Fifth Avenue. So I ran recruiting for all their central region stores. Then I went to Rockwell Automation, which again, giant global industrial automation company. And then ended my last stint leading global teleacquisition for a software company. So really all of that combined is how I...
got the passion for everything that my business really is, which is recruiting, technology, startups, and I didn't leave this in, but specifically women in tech and helping to elevate women as I'm recruiting.
Jen Porter (05:46)
Yeah.
It's interesting to hear you talk about how you fell into recruiting. Most people do fall into it. Uh, for me, was a little similar. I'm remembering when I was graduating college, I went to the career services and they would help us get interviews with companies. And I remember interviewing with a woman who was representing a bank. And I, she, I remember at some point in the conversation, she asked me what I wanted to do. And I was like, I kind of want to do what you're doing. There was something it just like, I never thought about it before, but
Sarah Greenwell (05:53)
Yes.
Yes.
Haha!
Jen Porter (06:19)
to interview people, thought would be so fun. And I did start out in banking and sales, but then quickly like you moved into recruiting. And that was my first career and I really loved it. And the other thing that I got was a lot of exposure to so many different kinds of industries, so many different types of companies. It sounds like you had a similar experience, which probably helps you connect with a lot of different people.
Sarah Greenwell (06:45)
Yes, absolutely. I think being in different industries and then the different functions needed to power those different companies. And they all, it's funny, and I see this now that I'm on the outside and working with a number of partners at the same time. Everyone feels what they're doing is so unique. And it certainly is. The product offering is unique. Agriculture is unique. But there is so much more that everyone shares.
that I think they even realize. And that's one of the things I love to do if I'm working with, a consumer tech company and, you know, they want someone from Meta, they want someone from Google. I will say, you know,
I know this amazing leader from this SaaS company. All they've done is B2B, but you're talking about a subscription in your product. That's what SaaS companies are. They know this inside and out. And so being able to help to bridge that gap of what we're doing, we're the only ones that know how to do this is something I've definitely been through all.
Jen Porter (07:48)
Yeah.
Well, yeah,
because recruiting is matchmaking. When you, so think back to when you were, let's say in your twenties or even maybe early thirties, do you recall what your career aspirations were at that point? Did you have clear direction about where you wanted to take your career?
Sarah Greenwell (07:54)
Exactly, yeah.
I just wanted to keep growing. was it. I went.
Jen Porter (08:13)
and
Sarah Greenwell (08:16)
When I was at the Hartford, they did tuition reimbursement, which is amazing. So I went back and I got my master's in organizational leadership. And it's a lot really, I mean, studied Robert Greenleaf and servant leadership and got just so fascinated with leaders and how impactful leaders specifically within companies are on the lives of people in the companies. And so really had aspirations of
not only being a leader, but being a great leader. And so what can I do? I don't think I was ever like, you I need to be a VP in five years, but it was I want to lead from where I stand. I want to lead within my function. I want to be a leader that helps other people to enjoy work and feel fulfilled by it.
Jen Porter (09:10)
Well, I know one of your areas of passion is the intersection between health and career fulfillment.
Sarah Greenwell (09:16)
Yes, yes. So I said my career is mostly in recruiting. So I took a little departure. It was when I was working at Saks and I had got six different stores. I was flying every week. I was on the road. I got...
It was probably one of the early days email marketing campaigns from Institute for Integrative Nutrition. And it was something like, remember when you were a kid and your parents would call you in for dinner and you just wanted to keep playing.
Like imagine if you had that as an adult. And that really resonated with me. And so I'm like, you know, I have all this time on a plane. Why don't I just take these extra courses? And so I started taking the IA and health coach courses and during it decided I may want to do this for my job. So I was getting really passionate about health coaching. My
husband, boyfriend at the time, and I started making these changes in our lives. But then he started getting really down. And I said, what is going on? He was a regional sales director, also for the Hartford. That's where we had met. He had all of Chicagoland for retirement plans, super successful. And he said, you're so excited about what you're doing.
I hate what I do. It is just not fulfilling. And I said, well, if you could do anything in the world, what would you do? And he just said, I'd open a coffee shop. And I said, okay, well, can you do that? And he said, I don't know. And then literally the next day came back to me with all these spreadsheets and ideas and said, okay, here's what we can do.
We'll open a coffee shop. It'll be focused on health and wellness. It'll be organic. You'll have a complimentary health coaching practice. And we dreamt up this whole thing and decided to do it. We left the corporate world. We built a coffee shop, built a health coaching practice next door, and ran that for a couple of years until we both decided we were better as corporate people and went back to our previous lives.
Jen Porter (11:47)
And what happened from there for him? Because that was a big risk that you both took. I know where you've ended up, but what did he do next?
Sarah Greenwell (11:52)
that was.
So he, how we ended up leaving, he got a call from his old manager and they were just, you know, how's everything going? And he's like, you know, we lived above the coffee shop. And he said, you know, we never leave, we can't ever leave. We're waking up at 5am every day to bake muffins. You know, people are not nice.
Jen Porter (12:08)
Wow.
Sarah Greenwell (12:20)
starting to not like people as anyone who's been in the service industry could probably relate. And his boss said, well, I've got Wisconsin open. I'd love to have you back. And so he asked me and I said, sure, let's do it. So that's how I ended up at Rockwell in Milwaukee. We moved to Wisconsin and he went back in the field.
Jen Porter (12:24)
Yeah.
tonight.
You both were all in. I mean, you were living above the coffee shop.
Sarah Greenwell (12:48)
Yes, yes, it was a lot. It was a lot. think there's, and this happens, we get in our heads this idealized version of what something's gonna be. And I think we were both like, it's gonna be like Central Perk and we're gonna be best friends with our customers. And it's just gonna be this great feeling. then day to day it's like, oh, we're out of cold cups and the avocados aren't ripe yet.
Jen Porter (13:08)
Yeah, it could be.
Sarah Greenwell (13:17)
you just don't you don't anticipate those things. We've talked about it now that we're in our 40s that if we attempted something like that again, we might be able to do it. We were you know, we had just gotten married when the coffee shop opened, we were in our 20s, we were used to, you know, hanging out with friends at night. And so our lives just so drastically changed overnight. was hard.
Jen Porter (13:21)
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what I'm thinking about is you, both took a risk and you realize after a couple of years, it isn't what you thought it would be. And so you, you shifted gears again, you did something different. And I think that's the sort of the thing that holds people back from pursuing the thing that they want is will it work out? Is this going to be a big flop? Not that yours was, yours was an intentional decision, but you learn things that
It was like, this doesn't line up with how we want to actually live our lives. This isn't actually the intersection between health and career fulfillment that we thought it was going to be. So it will get to how you stepped into what you're doing now, but what would, what advice would you give people who are considering making that leap and everything in them is talking that like their brain is like, protect, protect, protect, do not do this. Do not take these leaps of faith.
Sarah Greenwell (14:39)
Yes.
Jen Porter (14:39)
What would you say now that you've, now that you're on the way other side of that, you've seen a lot of, you've lived a lot of life since then. What would you say?
Sarah Greenwell (14:43)
Mm-hmm.
just go, just do it. All the time I imagine my life like a Pac-Man game. know, I'm chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp. And if I hit a wall, switch direction, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp the other way. And that's really what it is, is you hit that wall, whether it's say, you know, this business isn't going the way I want it to be, or I'm not as happy as I thought I'd be, or.
Jen Porter (15:01)
Yeah.
Sarah Greenwell (15:13)
Any multitude of reasons where, you know, there's some sort of wall you didn't anticipate. You can't stay there. You know, the ghost is going to come get you. You need to turn. Moving and keep trying until you find something that feels good, feels good to be in. And when it stops feeling good to be in, you've got to move again.
Jen Porter (15:27)
you
Or at least ask yourself the questions, right? Get introspective, like what's going on? What is this? Because sometimes we think we need to exit or escape when really we just need to transform.
Sarah Greenwell (15:39)
Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Well, it's a and this is what I loved about doing the holistic health work is even you know, I I talk to Just countless individuals every week about their jobs and most of the time I'm interviewing for them for a new job and I always say, know, what's the motivation if if you were to make a move what would the motivation be and what's important to you in this next step and it's such an important question to ask yourself because
You know, do you just want to make more money? Do you need more breathing room? Really figuring that out and then saying, okay, is where I've been putting all this stake into it really the right place to be looking? Maybe I'm not happy at work, but maybe that's just because I've got so much else on my plate at home that what if, you know, I had an honest conversation with my partner and asked them to step up?
or I invested in having a house cleaner come once a month, whatever it is, there's always a place you can look. And so, yeah, to clarify, it doesn't necessarily mean, you know, I'm gonna change the job because I'm unhappy in the job, but you've gotta change something. Something has to change.
Jen Porter (17:07)
to change.
Yeah. And I want to talk about boundaries because you brought you, you and I talked about this in a previous conversation and I'm curious what, what are you learning about boundaries? Because I think this can apply to everything and everyone.
Sarah Greenwell (17:24)
Yes, great question. So I know I had sent to Jen, she had sent me a little form and I'm like, I'm passionate about selective boundaries. And then she said, I've never heard that term. What does that mean? I made it up. But thinking about it, I think it's more selective enforcement of boundaries. So here's the thing. I am not good at boundaries.
Jen Porter (17:38)
Hehehehehe
Sarah Greenwell (17:52)
And that realization kind of got me mad of seriously, this is another thing that I have to feel bad about. Like our boundary is supposed to be helpful, but instead it's just another thing. And I hear friends say this all this time. I hear other business owners say, I'm not great at boundaries. It's like, we've just added something else to the list that we can feel bad about, right? So I think what it is is figuring out, okay, here.
Jen Porter (18:13)
I'm
Sarah Greenwell (18:21)
An example is I don't, I've decided I'm not going to be on Slack with any of my clients. It's too much. I get talked to in a certain way I don't really like. I prefer to have dialogue about searches. So I don't do Slack with any of my clients. I can have that as a boundary, but I have one client that I work with that I absolutely adore.
Jen Porter (18:37)
Yeah.
Sarah Greenwell (18:49)
and they're respectful and they respond with heart emojis to things. And so I'm on their Slack and it's okay. And it's not something to feel bad about like, God, said I wasn't gonna do Slack with clients and now I'm on this Slack. It's a, you know what? I have a boundary if I don't do Slack with clients and I'm on Slack with this one client that I adore.
Jen Porter (18:57)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. I love that example. I'm also still thinking about the Pac-Man analogy because it's a really good one. My curiosity is what is it, what characteristics do you have and does one have to have in order to be able to make those turns in Pac-Man when we hit a wall and also hold those boundaries and be selective, be wise about which boundaries we hold and when. So what
What are the characteristics that we have to embody in order to work that way and live that way?
Sarah Greenwell (19:54)
I think you have to be able to look inward and be really honest with yourself. And that's a hard thing to do. And it could be, you might feel uncomfortable doing it on your own. Maybe you have a really good friend that you trust completely. Maybe you journal, but you need to, when you're feeling this is a,
whatever it is, you need to be able to say why and truthfully say why, not just why will I hate my job. All right, that may be so, but why do I hate my job? what are the pieces that can move around here to help with that?
Jen Porter (20:43)
Yeah.
Yeah. When did you become aware of women in leadership roles and that being important?
Sarah Greenwell (20:55)
Yeah. So it was really, it was really the move from the Hartford to Redbox. And so thinking about, so the Hartford is a giant financial services company. During the time I was there and I gained so much and I don't want to speak poorly of them, but run very much like in your head, you're probably imagining a financial services company running. So a lot of white men in charge, lot of
things done in a certain order, very slow. When I went to Redbox, I saw so many women leaders. I saw so many women at the table and they were all incredible and smart and part of the conversation. And this was a company that was moving so fast and innovating. And I just saw all of these voices represented. Even beyond that, I mean,
I was in Connecticut most of my life. That's where I grew up. It's a very white state as was the Hartford where I worked and go into Redbox in Chicago. I mean, there was ethnic diversity. There was just, I'd never seen it before. And I saw how amazing it was for our product, for our people. And that's when I really got, just started, I hadn't even thought about it before. I just started noticing it. so then everywhere I went,
Really, I became a champion of that, of making sure that women at least were being brought into the mix of who we were considering for certain role types and challenging things that were brought up and, you know, saying, hey, let's change this wording on the job description so it doesn't say role with the punches. You know, let's take away the sports analogies in these interview guides. Let's try, you know, these little things that I think people weren't picking up on.
Jen Porter (22:46)
Right.
Sarah Greenwell (22:52)
not novel right now and I should say right now is a very tough time for diversity and I can't get into it too much because I get emotional about it but up until from when I started really noticing this up until very recently there has been so much forward progress in this and where
companies are conscious of their verbiage and what they're presenting on their website and of making sure there are women represented on their leadership team and being held accountable to that by their boards and by their investors and stakeholders. So anyway, I'm sorry, whatever I did there, but.
Jen Porter (23:42)
I'm just thinking that as a recruiter,
you get to play a pretty critical role in that.
Sarah Greenwell (23:47)
Yes. Well,
and so when I, so the story of growth mode, which until recently was called Home Move. So I want to honor her move as well in this conversation. So when I started her move in 2019, I was working for Bullhorn, which is a large software company, also a wonderful place. It was leading a large global recruiting team there. And I,
You know, there were certain times where my team was just overloaded and we couldn't take on a search ourselves. Or anytime there was an executive level search, we would find a partner on the outside to help us with that. Every single time, every single time, all of the diversity actions requirements that my team had just went out the window.
because these recruiters, they were just working with the hiring manager and just getting the hiring manager orders, here's what we're looking for, coming back with, here's candidates that match what you're looking for. They weren't doing what I was doing. They weren't saying, hey, by the way, you're asking for 15 plus years of engineering leadership experience. There were women in engineering leadership until the early 2000s.
Jen Porter (25:09)
Yeah.
Sarah Greenwell (25:10)
Let's you know, let's widen that up They weren't having those conversations and we were mostly hiring white men for the most critical role in our company so When I decided that it was time for me to leave I just had my second child. I have three now And I was commuting from Connecticut to Boston staying overnight twice a week And I talked to my boss, she's still a very good friend
of mine and she said, well, what would you do if you weren't leading the recruiting team here? And I said, I would start my own recruiting business and I'd focus on women in leadership. And she said, okay, cool. When do you want to leave? Let's build up a ramp period for you. You do need to find your replacement. I got a three month runway to plan her move before I launched it. But I think it was kind of being backed into
Jen Porter (25:56)
Wow.
Sarah Greenwell (26:05)
You know, I know this isn't working. am, you know, just missing my children, missing my four month old baby. I am, you know, working until midnight because I have a team in Australia. And, and so was like, well, what would you do? And that was my answer. And that's
Jen Porter (26:23)
Incredible.
Incredible to have. I think it's not common to have that kind of support right above you. Somebody that in a sense holds power because they're your manager. But there's, I love when people have a special enough relationship where a leader truly wants their, their people to be successful and to do what they really want to do, where they're going to be able to thrive. So glad you had that.
Sarah Greenwell (26:50)
It's amazing and it's a, like I said, what I studied and understanding how important the right leader is. And yeah, her name's Kim. We had so much trust between us and I like to think I was that type of leader for my team. I still keep in touch with all of them.
But it's so important. It's all about leaders. And so that's why I love hiring leaders, bringing leaders into these companies that are shaping our world.
Jen Porter (27:24)
Okay, so I'm curious about the three months. What did you do during those three months to set yourself up?
Sarah Greenwell (27:31)
Ah, good question. Um, a lot of just writing. I still have my original notebook. It was a, you know, what is this? What's, you know, what is my company focused on? Who am I going to work with? How much money can I anticipate making? Um, I just, all these things. then big question marks next to the things I didn't know. And then going and researching those things. So for instance, how much do recruiters charge?
I knew I had contracts from every firm that we ever worked with. So I'm like, I don't know if that's off the of my head, but I'm going to go check those out. And from that determine, all right, what's my rate? From that figure out, okay, knowing what I can handle, how many positions can I fill within the first eight months that were left in the year from when I was launching? And what does that mean?
And then what are the things I need to get started? How much money do those things cost? So I had it all down until I realized, I need clients. I need companies that are gonna pay me, because that's great that I can fill three rolls a month, but someone needs to want me to do that, right? So I started reaching out to people I've worked with, and that's why having worked so many places was really...
really beneficial, our previous CTO from Bullhorn, I had a great relationship with Mark and he had left and gone to another company and it was called Boomtown. They're a real estate software company. And I reached out to him and I said, hey Mark, I'm starting my own business. I'm launching April 1st. Do you have any role that you'd want me to help with? And he said, yes, let's set up a meeting. And I said, great.
And so I sent him an invite for April 1st, kicked off my first search and that was all I needed. I just need one client to get going and I'll figure out the rest and let's just jump into it.
Jen Porter (29:37)
Wow. And so what kind of challenges did you have to overcome in that first year or two?
Sarah Greenwell (29:45)
So there were a few challenges right off the bat. I realized that I based everything off of being a contingent recruiter and I wasn't specific in what I was gonna work on. So Mark, of course CTO, he had technical roles for me to work on. I'm a technical recruiter in my background. I enjoy working on those, but I hadn't set myself up as
that Also contingent recruitment you only get paid if someone gets hired as You know is pretty awful I Had a couple other companies that you know, there's no risk to them, right? Like sure let's see if you can find someone that our team isn't finding and I would pour everything into
Jen Porter (30:21)
Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greenwell (30:41)
know, sourcing and finding these incredible people and putting them through and they'd get through the interview process. And I know having been on the inside that those are valuable data points, even if they're not hiring the person, it's like, they mentioned this. We didn't realize we needed this. and then they hire someone else and then I get nothing. So I realized then, okay, I am not comfortable with this. working really hard. I should get paid. And then I said, Hey, I was.
I was an executive at my last company. I'm just going to call myself an executive recruiter. I'm going to say I work retained and started saying it and no one had a problem with it. And so then I just went that direction.
Jen Porter (31:19)
Mm-hmm.
It's a great business model.
Sarah Greenwell (31:28)
Yes.
It's much better. It's much better.
Jen Porter (31:33)
And so what are some of the fears that were coming up for you in that the first few months for sure, but even even across that first year?
Sarah Greenwell (31:43)
Yes, money, which I think is everyone's. you asked about Matt. Matt is my husband. Matt has made other career pivots as well since. So he ended up leaving the world of selling retirement plans and becoming a general contractor. Restoring historic homes. He had started doing that a few months before I decided I was going to start my own business.
So we had to have a lot of conversations about health insurance. You know, we have two small kids and neither of us works for an employer. And you know, how much money I can have coming in since he is a general contractor, he doesn't get paid a regular paycheck either. So really had to figure out how much do we need? How can we utilize other forms to make this okay? And
And then when do we have to call it if we have to call it? And that meant I'd have to go back and work somewhere if it didn't work. And so that was, I know that that was scary, but it was also a really big driver for me because I didn't want that.
Jen Porter (32:49)
Thank
Yeah, yeah. so are you in, this was just your business? Did you have a co-founder or partners?
Sarah Greenwell (33:03)
Just my business. I've brought in different contractors along the journey. have one, so I have a woman, Shelly, that had worked for me at Rockwell Automation that I knew was an amazing recruiter. I knew she was an adult and very trustworthy. And so when I decided that I was going to build out my team more,
I had heard my friend Camille, I reached out to both of them. They were the only two on my list. And I said, I need to bring someone on the team. Here's what I'm thinking. Are you in? And Shelly said, yes. So she was a 1099 contractor for me for about a year and a half. Then things got kind of scary in the venture capital world and we were doing a ton of work. She went back in house and then
Finally last year I was able to bring her back as an employee. So now there's officially two of us, two employees of Growth Mode. And who knows, I hope to expand more within the coming year. But I also am constantly going back and forth on what's enough? know, do you like, this is good. I make a good living. I have freedom. I...
you know, I enjoy work. why, why, you know, why bro? And so that's, and I have reasons in both columns, but that's kind of a constant tug for me.
Jen Porter (34:40)
I bet. And so what for you is the intersection between health and career fulfillment now?
Sarah Greenwell (34:46)
It's, it's all comes down to owning my schedule. And when I have that control, which I did not have in house anywhere, um, I block time for yoga once a week. I block time for a run every Tuesday and Thursday morning. I, you know, I block no more meetings to pick my kids up from school. I make sure that I am.
putting the time in to take care of my mental health and my physical health. And it all comes down to being able to control my schedule.
Jen Porter (35:23)
Yeah, that's a huge thing that people want is freedom. And it's really hard to carve that out when you're in house.
Sarah Greenwell (35:30)
It's so hard and I see my mother-in-law just came to visit and she's worked for the same company for over 40 years, which is incredible. It's another financial services company. She will be retiring within the coming year or so, which is great. But I looked at her calendar and she was telling me about it. It's meetings all day. It's like 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
There's no time. There's no time for breathing in there. And I remember that I've forgotten that. My business, thankfully, but I remember being like, when am I actually going to get work done? It's just meetings all day.
Jen Porter (36:04)
Yeah.
Right. Yeah. It's a different world. It really is. And having that, the freedom of our, of making decisions about our schedule is just awesome. I mean, talk about the quality of life that shifts.
Sarah Greenwell (36:27)
Yes, absolutely. And then with that accountability of, right, I don't like, I don't have the energy today. I'm just, you know, I'm going to take some time. I'm going to go for a walk and get a latte. And then I, because I'm doing that in the middle of the day, I'm going to log back on when my husband and I are sitting watching a show and do some, some sourcing because I do that during the day, but I can make that decision. And that feels awesome.
Jen Porter (36:36)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
That's right.
So good. And tell us about what kinds of searches you're working on right now. What's your sweet spot?
Sarah Greenwell (37:03)
Yeah.
So my sweet spot is definitely product searches. So I love product leaders. I meet the most incredible people. I interviewed a woman recently who created the product for Walgreens for scheduling your COVID vaccine. And it was like that needed to be rolled out in
Jen Porter (37:26)
wow.
Sarah Greenwell (37:29)
Like three weeks, you know, would normally that's something that would be years worth of development. Um, I, I interviewed the head of product for Bumble. Um, so getting insight into, you know, dating applications and, um, Fitbit and all these, I just love product leaders. It's fascinating. Um, so I just wrapped up a search for a product leader for a mental health app.
which was very cool and having people that are really passionate about that was great. Meeting a lot of like-minded candidates. And then right now I'm working on a head of sales role for an e-commerce company. So little different, motivations of sales leaders are definitely different, but I think that's why I pick out the good ones. Salespeople are interesting because
If you're entirely money motivated, you don't become a leader. You stay the sales rep with the quota, you exceed it, you make doctor money, you go to president's club at Aruba. But sales leaders, they like teaching. They like on what their team can do. So that's a little bit of what I'm working on.
Jen Porter (38:41)
Thanks for your time.
How do you decide who you are gonna work with? Because when you say clients, you're talking about the organization or the company.
Sarah Greenwell (38:53)
Yes. Yep. that good point. So yeah, I'm talking about the company. First, making sure it makes sense for my area of expertise. So things like consumer packaged goods, probably not good for me. I don't know a lot about supply chain. If it's a supply chain software company, then I can do it because that it's about the products people, the engineering people that drive it. making sure the company makes sense.
And then the hiring manager, that's a really important relationship. Throughout my career, I've really developed awesome relationships with the hiring leaders. If they are not invested in the search, I don't want to work with them. And that's not a, you know, being mean sort of thing and say, you know, I am a partner that is going to bring you insights on the market. I'm going to talk to you about
you what you're you really need versus what you think you need. know, we go deep and I need a commitment from you. If I am talking to you know if I'm giving you a leader from DoorDash and Grammarly that are excited and want to talk to you. I can't have a week go by before you get back to me. No, that's not good for me. That's not good for you. So as long as it's a hiring leader, that's yes, let's do this and.
open to different candidates, not set in, know, I have in my head, this is what the sales leader is going to be. Because I'm going to bring you different types of people that have different backgrounds maybe than you originally thought. And I want you to at least see why this different perspective could be impactful for your team.
Jen Porter (40:41)
Yeah.
And what makes the work so meaningful for you?
Sarah Greenwell (40:46)
Yeah, it's, it's the puzzle pieces. It's a, you know, I work with a lot of different types of companies, as I said, different cultures. And I had a search recently that was the same title, but it was for one company that's a series C B2B travel tech company, hustle culture. mean, they will tell you, you work 24 seven.
Everyone is working for the exit. That's what they're, they're all like, I'm going to work myself to death over the next few years, but we have an exit then I'm going to get paid $20 million and then I'm I'm another company that does, home health aid software training and they are very much about, you know, the whole person and this is a job, you know,
Jen Porter (41:26)
Mm-hmm.
Sarah Greenwell (41:41)
this, we love each other, but we know you have family, work is not quote unquote family. We're looking for someone who's going to really pour themselves into what they do, but also have a life. And so, so I could look at the same candidate with the same skillset, but depending on who they are, they're going to be a good fit for either this company or this company. That's simplifying in a bit. But I love.
Jen Porter (42:03)
Yeah.
Sarah Greenwell (42:11)
being that person to figure that out.
Jen Porter (42:14)
and you're uncovering the motivation.
Sarah Greenwell (42:16)
Yes, yes. And placing people at companies, a lot of times, especially when it's the series A, series B companies, they've never heard of. The home health software example, I met so many candidates that are like, this really hits home for me. I just had to set my mother up with home health aids or my father was a home health aide grown up or whatever it is. And so it's like,
Jen Porter (42:39)
Yeah.
Sarah Greenwell (42:44)
amazing. They're going to bring so much heart to this job and be so invested in the end user and they didn't even know this company existed and the company didn't know this person existed and they're going to just be so incredibly impactful in getting the product out.
Jen Porter (43:04)
I can remember the, you know, being on pins and needles, waiting for the outcome of like critical interviews. I'm sure it's exhilarating when you find out like it's a hire and they say yes, and you've made this match. that, are those the best days for you?
Sarah Greenwell (43:11)
Mm-hmm.
Oh yeah, those are the days.
this business, I talk about this a lot with Shelly and with my friends that are in similar roles is it can go from one conversation, it can go from you're super low. Like I'm not finding anyone that is good for this. I need to, I have one conversation. Like, yes, this is the one, this is the person.
or the other way around, like I have this person doing their presentation today. If all goes well, making an offer. so excited. I'll get an email. Like they bombed the presentation. It's like, it's just so, but it's the ups and ups that keep me going.
Jen Porter (44:01)
And...
it is.
Yeah, yeah. So what trends have you seen in female leadership over say the last decade or even even in the five or so six years that you've been doing this?
Sarah Greenwell (44:20)
Yeah, so I have seen a couple trends across the board that I think then women in leadership fit into. So one thing, and I'm happy it seems that this is turning around a bit now, during the heyday of venture capital, everyone's raising money, it's post-COVID, everyone can build their teams as much as they want.
started to really build out specializations. And that is where I really saw an emergence of more women in leadership stepping up that maybe I think going back to when we are first hired, are maybe hired for more of a specific role, like a content specialist, for instance. During that time when there was so much expansion in hiring,
there might be a director of content marketing. The last year and a half, that didn't exist. It was VP of marketing and you have to handle content, have to handle demand, you have to handle product. I saw many more women being elevated when the focus wasn't on talent density. And so I have a few theories as to why that is, but...
I think what the last year has done, at least in the startup space, is really push women to go out and to learn other areas beyond maybe their specialty that they were brought up in. And I see that all the time. I'm interviewing product marketing leaders that started out doing demand. Women are smart. We realize that.
If we want to get to a certain level, we can't just be a specialist. Sometimes we can, 2022 we could, right now, and possibly who knows how long, we can't. We need to understand all of it. And so I'm seeing that trending, I'd say in women more so than men.
Jen Porter (46:30)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm all about the lioness and I'm curious when you are in your roar and I define roar as, you know, strength and courage and competence. And, you know, we're doing what we were made for in our essence. What is, what are you doing when you're in your roar?
Sarah Greenwell (46:50)
Ah, so I have two, I have two different roars. So, since we've been talking business, I'll go my, I guess, business side or professional side roar. So I joined an angel investing group last year here in Chicago called Josephine Collective, named after Josephine Cochran, who invented the first commercial dishwasher, unsung woman hero, innovator.
And we invest in companies that are typically under invested in. think women founders, people of color, founders that typically don't get traditional venture capital. And so that has been so wonderful to be a part of for so many reasons. I mean, we get pitches every month from
all sorts of amazing innovators that just have these great ideas. And it's like, I want to invest in every single one. I can't, I'd love to. But you see how this could be so cool. working, recruiting for these companies where so much of the offer package is on equity. And I'm so excited that the candidates have this thing that could end up being a huge payout.
I kind of think that I know it's going to take a while, but the companies I'm investing in like these founders are going to make millions. They're going to get their product out there and then I'll get a little chunk of change from that too.
Jen Porter (48:24)
Yeah, yeah, incredible. Wow. And then on the personal side.
Sarah Greenwell (48:29)
Personal side, yes. So I have three young kids. I have a nine year old, a six year old and a four year old. I love my family. I also have a fur baby, Wrigley. He's our dog. I still say puppy, he's 13. And there are moments as any parent can relate to where there's just so much. I mean, this week is a good example. We're coming up.
schools that Friday off, ours does for parent-teacher conference and then next Monday, President's Day, they're off. We've got Valentine's parties. My daughter is having her birthday party on Sunday. I just got a text that our, you know, eye exam is next week. There's like a thousand things to manage and you can either let it bury you and be like, my God, there's so much.
Jen Porter (49:25)
Mm.
Sarah Greenwell (49:26)
or you can step into the lioness and say, I got this and how amazing am I, right? I'm running a business. I'm scheduling the parent teacher conference. I'm ordering the pinata from party city. Like, Let's do this.
Jen Porter (49:35)
Yeah.
It's such a different perspective because we can feel buried. know, lot of women feel this mountain on our shoulders and, it really can be deflating and, and, and draining. I mean, talk about energy. And so really leaning in to say, I can solve for this. This is just, you know, I could figure this out. can lean in and step into this such a different perspective. So how do you take care of yourself when you're having that surge of energy?
Sarah Greenwell (49:48)
Yes.
That's a great question. It's in that. It's in celebrating any little thing, any little, I guess, checked off. It's like, all right, I did that. We are good. And then just the regular maintenance of making sure I'm keeping myself healthy.
Jen Porter (50:26)
Yeah.
Yeah, I am with you on the celebration. I will celebrate the smallest of things because it's fuel, right? It's good for our soul. It's good for our mind and body to recognize like I am celebrating that I did that thing. And a lot of times for me, it's the things that are hard, right? The things that take courage or are just extremely tedious, but important and getting those things done. I will celebrate. And of course I celebrate all my clients.
Sarah Greenwell (50:41)
Yes, yes.
and
Yes, you should
celebrate those. We need two more. was thinking about the, one of questions you had sent me was about being brave. I think we put brave as this, I've done something monumental, I will be brave. But brave comes from just doing the thing, from getting out of bed, from,
Jen Porter (51:18)
Hmm.
Sarah Greenwell (51:28)
taking your shower. There's so much that we do. Yes, like all the adulting stuff where it's it's brave that I am just like, I'm doing this. I'm living this life and I'm I keep going.
Jen Porter (51:31)
showing up for your daily life.
You are, it's beautiful. love it. Thank you. It's, it's an honor. It is very fueling for me to do this work. I have found that intersection between health and career fulfillment. This is my great joy to get to do this work and to raise up, elevate other lionesses and help women see themselves as a lioness because they're doing incredible things.
Sarah Greenwell (51:45)
You are!
Yes, I did yoga this morning, a video because it's snowing here in Chicago and it's too cold. But she said to pick one word for today that you're going to meditate on throughout your practice. And I picked lioness because we were doing that.
Jen Porter (52:26)
Awesome, I love it. And
I just learned recently from a yoga therapist that there is the lion, lion's roar.
Sarah Greenwell (52:35)
yeah. Okay. So funny story about that. One of my clients that is not an ideal client, the founder CEO is just awful to work with. mean, really talks over you and swears and like just, I shrink when I'm with him. I be with other people and engage in dialogue and I'm not afraid to give my opinion, but with him, I just shrink.
Jen Porter (52:54)
Hmm.
Sarah Greenwell (53:02)
And one of my friends who's in healing arts said, just do lion pose before your meeting with him. Just take up space in your room and I did and I had a better meeting with him. So it won't cure him, but it'll help. Yes, yes.
Jen Porter (53:12)
Right.
It'll help you show up different.
Wow. Yeah, I do a lot of work helping women find their voice. And that's such a representation of our voice, the power that we hold within us.
Sarah Greenwell (53:28)
Yes.
Yes.
Jen Porter (53:38)
So Sarah, how can people find you and how should people think about you when they are reaching out?
Sarah Greenwell (53:44)
Yes, so one of my boundaries is I'm not on most social media. The only thing I'm on is LinkedIn. And that is out of pure necessity because I'm a recruiter. So if you're looking for me on LinkedIn, my website is growthmode.partners. I am being really much more so than I have been intentional about who I'm working with this year, the companies I'm working with.
Jen Porter (53:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Okay.
Sarah Greenwell (54:14)
I have three things up on my whiteboard here. have great leaders, interesting products, doing good in the world. So if anyone listening is a hiring leader at a company, is an executive or knows someone who is, and it's a great company to work for, if it's a woman founder or CEO, I love that. But really a place where I would feel good.
Jen Porter (54:22)
Yes.
Sarah Greenwell (54:41)
bringing incredible humans to come be a part of that team.
Jen Porter (54:47)
Awesome. So connect with Sarah on LinkedIn and it's growthmode.partners.com, growthmode.partners. Okay. So Sarah, thank you so much for being here, sharing. Thank you for roaring in your ways that are so important to your family, to the world, and to the leaders that you're matchmaking into these incredible companies. And I hope people will reach out if they know of
Sarah Greenwell (54:55)
Updates growthmode.partners.
Jen Porter (55:17)
you know, startups maybe that are run by women, women founders who want to scale and need some incredible talent to do that. Think of Sarah. So thank you so much. And until the next episode, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you.
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