HR & People Engagement Archives • SAP.iO

SAP.iO In Tel Aviv, HR & People Engagement

Empowering Deskless Workforces and Shaping the Future of People Management

How a company manages its people says a lot about who they are. It can mean the difference between surviving or thriving as a business. Leadership teams are realizing the current workforce has a diversity of talents and that how people work is different than it was only a few years ago. Many companies are looking for solutions to not only manage this change but to position themselves as the best possible solution for their customers.

While 80% of the world’s employees are deskless, only 1% of enterprise software investment is for deskless workforce-focused solutions. Managing these employees involves unique hurdles like communication barriers and limited digital access. Similarly, the role of people managers has evolved significantly in the modern workplace.

In a joint effort between SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv and SAP SuccessFactors, it was revealed that two populations need a great deal of support with innovation — deskless workforces and people managers.

To address these needs, ten startups were selected to solve the unique challenges of deskless workforces and people managers. These startups collaborated with SAP, developing solutions that integrate with SAP products to serve our diverse range of customers. From our work together, we gleaned valuable insights that we have highlighted in a new report.

Get your copy of the latest ‘Empowering Deskless Workforces and Shaping the Future of People Management’ report HERE.

SAP.iO In Tel Aviv, HR & People Engagement, Technologies

GenAI-Powered Recruiters Boost Qualified Candidate Pools By 55%

Matching qualified candidates with open positions just became a lot more cost-efficient with GenAI. Sense Talent Labs has developed an AI-powered talent engagement app that reduces cost per hire and gives job seekers that all-important human touch to bond with an organization’s culture.

“We provide intelligent personalized candidate journeys from sourcing and screening through interviews, hiring, and onboarding,” said Alex Rosen, co-founder and head of products at Sense. “Our full lifecycle talent and engagement platform empowers recruiters and candidates with individualized interactions. Organizations can find, hire, and onboard qualified people faster, boosting recruiter productivity and giving candidates a higher quality experience.”

Sense’s customers are from a variety of industries worldwide including retail and hospitality, manufacturing and logistics, healthcare, and technology. Rosen said that on average companies reduce time to hire by 30% and cost per hire by 35%, while increasing the number of qualified applications by 55%.

Surprisingly personalized automation from GenAI chat bot

Embedded in SAP SuccessFactors, Sense AI Copilot sources and pre-qualifies candidates from an organization’s existing applicant database and new applications. The conversational AI chat bot asks important questions based on the job description including someone’s last job title, years of experience in pre-designated responsibilities, and willingness to work certain hours at a particular location. Candidates that pass the first pre-screening are automatically scheduled for interviews with the appropriate hiring managers based on updated calendars.

“The chat bot knows as much as possible about each candidate based on all the touch points that they’ve had with the company, such as jobs they’ve previously applied to and their resume background,” said Rosen. “There are no redundant questions that reflect what someone’s already provided on their application. Without wasting any time, the chat bot asks the candidate for new information, speeding up the entire process.”

Accredify beats 260 startups to win 2023 Supernova Challenge

Accredify, a Singapore-based startup and service provider for issuing verifiable documents and information, has emerged as the champion of the 2023 Supernova Challenge at Expand North Star Dubai, the world’s largest startup event. The startup received the $100,000 grand prize after an intense final round of pitching against 27 global finalists from 521 entries.

The Supernova Challenge in partnership with the Dubai Future District Fund, is the region’s biggest startup pitch competition, offering $200,000 in total cash prizes. The challenge is a key feature of Expand North Star Dubai, which hosted its biggest edition this year. It attracted over 1800+ startups from over 100 countries to explore the emerging opportunities in Dubai’s dynamic, diverse and tech-driven digital economy.

Simon Gordon, Chief Commercial Officer of the winning team, said, “Supernova 2023 has been an incredible experience. It’s surreal to win this challenge at Expand North Star. This region, particularly the UAE, has so many great opportunities, and we are excited about using this prize money to expand our presence here.”

One of the judges at Supernova, Sharif El-Badawi, CEO of Dubai Future District Fund, commented, “It is encouraging to see a shift towards sustainable solutions that are better for the planet and its people. We witnessed several startups delivering concise yet compelling pitches that could impact our lives. The pitches we witnessed here at the Supernova Challenge are brimming with promise, unique innovations, and inspiring ideas.”

An expertly curated list of categories covered the latest trends in tech, inviting startups to showcase innovations that can solve some of our most pressing challenges. These included AI Disruptor, Fintech & Ecommerce Disruptor, Blockchain & Web3 Disruptor, Mobility & Smart Cities Disruptor, Healthtech & Wellness Disruptor, Martech Disruptor, Insurtech Disruptor in partnership with MENA Insuretech, Female Founder Award in partnership with the Sharjah Businesswomen Council, Africa Fast Award presented by GITEX Africa, Asia Fast Award, India Fast Award, and the Top MENA Award. In collaboration with GITEX Impact and Future Urbanism, Expand North Star also awarded the most proficient Sustainability and ESG Disruptor.

The Mom Project Announces its Talent Platform of 1.3 Million Moms is Now Integrated with the SAP® Store and SAP Fieldglass

The Mom Project, a leading digital talent and community platform serving more than 1.3 million moms, dads and caregivers and 3,000+ companies today announced that it is now available on SAP^®Store, the online marketplace for SAP and partner offerings as well as integrated through the SAP Fieldglass Vendor Management System (VMS) for managed services procurement and external workforce management programs. This new total talent offering through The Mom Project will connect companies with its unique talent community through The Mom Project technology platform, delivering a real competitive advantage to recruiting and hiring needs.

“Partnering with SAP SuccessFactors via the SAP® Store and SAP Fieldglass brings the total talent offering a significant step forward in creating opportunities for our talented pipeline of moms while helping companies address their evolving hiring strategies,” said Allison Robinson, founder and CEO, The Mom Project. “The future of work continues to change with an even stronger focus on the human-centric experience and we are here to help companies support the entire employee journey by creating a clear advantage to hire more moms and lead the future of work.”

Through this new partnership and integration with SAP SuccessFactors into the SAP^®Store and SAP Fieldglass, The Mom Project will enable more companies, from Fortune 500 to small and midsize companies to connect with its platform’s diverse and inclusive talent pipeline of 1.3 million users. More importantly, these new distribution channels will accelerate The Mom Project’s commitment to creating economic opportunities for moms by expanding access to more customers and partners to meet their talent pipeline and diverse hiring strategies quickly.

Paradox Named to Third Consecutive Inc. 5000 List — Growing by More than 720% Since 2020

Paradox, the conversational recruiting software helping companies like Unilever, Nestlé, Pfizer, and General Motors automate recruiting work to make the hiring process more efficient, was named to the Inc. 5000 for the third consecutive year — achieving the honor with a 720% three-year growth rate, highest among recruiting technology companies. The list, published annually by Inc. Magazine, recognizes the fastest-growing private companies in the United States and celebrates their outstanding achievements in business development and innovation.

Paradox debuted on the Inc. 5000 list in 2021 and was also recognized on the Deloitte Fast 500 list in 2022 and 2023. While those achievements celebrate the company’s growth, Paradox founder and CEO Aaron Matos said they’re simply the result of focusing on something far more important.

“Recognition like this is nice, but we’ve always benchmarked our success by a simpler metric: Our client’s success, specifically, our ability to solve real, meaningful problems for them in transformative ways,” said Matos. “This company has come so far from the early days of a dream and an idea — that Conversational AI and automation could change enterprise software — and we still have a long way to go to reach that vision. But, I’m so proud of the team we’ve built and the clients we have the opportunity to partner with every single day.”

First launched in 2016, Paradox’s conversational software is underpinned by a smart AI assistant that acts as a concierge throughout the hiring process — automating time-stealers and points of friction to create world-class experiences that drive higher candidate conversion and dramatically improve recruiter and hiring manager efficiency.

Crosschq Helps Companies Advance Diversity Hiring Through Enriched Insights

Crosschq, the world’s first Hiring Intelligence platform purpose-built to increase Quality of Hire announced a new DEI enhancement to its TalentWall offering. The introduction of enriched diversity data expands the solution’s ability to visualize the entire active and historical candidate pool, enabling companies to track diversity-focused sourcing and hiring initiatives more accurately.

Jake Paul, President of TalentWall, shared, “When it comes to rendering the full picture of ATS analytics, diversity data plays a major role. Until recently, most companies relied solely on voluntary EEOC forms. This approach produced gaps and impacted the efficacy of DEI programs. With this enriched data from TalentWall, Crosschq customers will be able to prioritize their diversity hiring efforts with a 90 percent confidence rate in the diversity of their candidate pipeline.”

Earlier this year, the latest Crosschq Q Report found that diversity hiring, specifically gender and ethnicity, has slowed significantly, potentially undoing years of purposeful progress. To help prevent further erosion and ensure employers can attain their ESG and DEI goals, Crosschq built this newly enriched diversity data set, leveraging third-party resources and artificial intelligence to break down the gender and ethnic makeup of candidate pipelines. In doing so, Crosschq TalentWall customers gain a better understanding of how their talent acquisition strategies correspond with outcomes, able to see how pipeline diversity trends over time. This allows these teams to measure the impact of certain initiatives and amend diversity hiring efforts to reflect organizational goals.

Breaking the trust barrier: Accredify’s journey to secure digital interactions

In our increasingly digitized world, the manner in which we exchange information has evolved from traditional pen and paper to the utilization of digital data, facilitated by the internet.

While these advancements offer efficiency, speed, and accessibility, digital interactions are typically hindered by a lack of trust. To preserve data integrity, verification is required, usually through methods involving multiple parties, and this can result in inefficiencies.

When Zheng Wei Quah, co-founder and CEO of Accredify, recognized this challenge, he decided to embark on a journey to transform the landscape of digital interactions.

Implementing blockchain technology for real-world cases

Quah’s first blockchain venture, Ceito, aimed at aiding businesses in leveraging blockchain technology for optimizing supply chain management and commodities trading. In 2017, he ventured into a new chapter together with his co-founders, taking the strategic step of establishing Accredify, in response to the evolving landscape that witnessed a transition from service-centric to product-centric enterprises.

According to Quah, one of the significant challenges they encountered was the scarcity of available information and resources about blockchain technology at that time.

“We’re accustomed to leveraging resources like Stack Overflow and other tools to search for solutions to our challenges. However, back then, the situation was quite different. Tasks such as customizing specific Ethereum components to align with our use case posed significant challenges. The answers to these questions weren’t readily available, leading us to recognize the need to invent our own solutions,” Quah said.

Furthermore, the concept of blockchain was relatively new, and Quah found himself needing to explain granular technical details. Controversies such as the crash of the Terra Luna cryptocurrency and the FTX centralized exchange did not deter their efforts.

Support from government entities, universities, and its clients helped people learn to distinguish between firms offering real-world applications like Accredify, and cryptocurrencies. This provided strong evidence that the company is here for the long haul.

Conversational AI in Recruitment

hrtech, the Singapore-headquartered HR Technology Analyst firm, recently announced the launch of an HR Guide titled “Conversational AI in Recruitment” to address the need for automation that simplifies and streamlines the candidate experience, while saving hours of repetitive work for recruiters every day. The guide was produced in partnership with Paradox, the conversational hiring platform helping global employers like Unilever, Nestle, McDonald’s, and General Motors transform hiring with mobile-first automation.

The idea behind the HR guide stems from the fact that there has been a drastic change in the way organizations and employees approach business processes. Digital transformation has been the topmost priority for organizations wanting to enhance business proficiency and candidate experience. Today, candidates want a consumer-grade experience at their workplace and expect the hire-to-retire journey to be digitally seamless and efficient. Candidates also expect multi-channel accessibility to connect with recruiters — and instant access to information throughout the hiring process. This is where Conversational AI proves to be a great aid for recruiters.

The HR guide intelligently brings rest to all the myths surrounding Conversational AI and maps out the differences between traditional recruitment techniques and Conversational AI-led recruitment. To harness the full potential of Conversational AI, the HR guide validates that organizations can integrate this technology into their recruitment tech stack, including Applicant Tracking System (ATS), job boards, CRM, assessments, recruitment marketing tools, and more.

The HR guide brings to light the success stories of global organizations that have deployed Conversational AI to enhance their recruitment function. The detailed case studies about the United Overseas Bank Limited (UOB), McDonald’s, and a non-profit healthcare organization will help you understand how Paradox helped them improve their recruitment function and enhance the candidate experience using Conversational AI.

Impress.Ai Unveils ImpressGenie, A Generative AI-Based Workflow Builder

impress.ai, a leader in enterprise recruitment software solutions, announced the roll-out of their innovative product impressGenie – a generative AI driven bespoke recruitment workflow builder. Recruiters can easily design role-specific recruitment workflows using simple natural language user-friendly prompts with this tool.

impressGenie’s capabilities include:

Mass Customization: Builds bespoke, role-specific recruitment automation workflows with precision
Job Description Parsing: Identifying and integrating relevant screening criteria, including keywords, into the workflow based on the job description
Competency Assessment: Recommending relevant assessment questions or third-party assessment tests

With impressGenie, recruiters can now efficiently customize recruitment automation workflows at a large scale, generating distinct workflows for each role, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach. This mass-customization capability radically transforms the recruitment process, accommodating the unique requirements of thousands of roles.

When a new role opens, recruiters can provide basic prompts about the role to impressGenie, which will then generate a custom workflow. This workflow manages role-specific candidate information collection, screening, interview scheduling, and onboarding. Recruiters have the flexibility to decide which parts to automate and which to retain a human touch, ensuring a perfect blend of efficiency and personalization. impressGenie seamlessly integrates with all major Applicant Tracking Systems (ATSs), including SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, and Oracle Recruiting Cloud.

Mitigate Risk During Employment Separation with Onwards HR

Talent acquisition remains a focal point for most organizations in this dynamic and highly competitive corporate environment. Unfortunately, the pivotal process of offboarding often takes a back seat. An efficient employment separation process plays a key role in enhancing the employee experience, protecting the company’s reputation and mitigating potential legal and financial risks associated with employee separation. One solution that effectively addresses these complexities is Onwards HR, a platform that automates key portions of the separation process to ensure accuracy, compliance and a positive overall brand experience for those leaving the organization and those charged with executing what is often an emotional and stressful process.

Even under the best circumstances, employment separation is traditionally a labor-intensive and challenging process. It involves multiple stakeholders, including human resources representatives, line managers, legal counsel and executives, who must ensure a smooth and compliant transition while managing their primary job responsibilities. This dual responsibility often leads to overstretched staff and an increased risk of errors, creating a potential minefield of financial and legal implications for the organization. Examples include lawsuits resulting from unlawful terminations, potential violations of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (or WARN) Act during mass layoffs, adverse impact on protected groups and the financial pitfalls due to clerical errors or improperly executed severance agreements. The stakes are higher than often appreciated, considering legal fees and the potential damage to the organization’s reputation. Plus, the emotionally charged nature of the circumstances surrounding these events further compounds stress, making it essential to manage with precision and sensitivity.

In light of these challenges, organizations are turning to technology to ensure a structured, automated separation process that safeguards accuracy and compliance. This is a natural extension of the ongoing movement to automation in HR technology, which is critical to achieving the best business outcomes. We assert that by 2025, three-quarters of organizations will identify use cases that specify human capital management system requirements for optimum agility. This critical business process is a perfect example of how technology brings structure and automation to a business-critical but sometimes highly risky process.

Enter Onwards HR: an innovative system that streamlines employee separation actions, minimizes financial and legal risks and saves time and costs typically incurred by a long and redundant process with the engagement of external legal counsel. Onwards HR is a comprehensive digital platform that seamlessly manages the most critical elements of the separation process. The technology ensures strict adherence to laws and regulations, minimizing the potential for costly litigation. For instance, Onwards HR has built-in compliance checks for WARN Act implications, flagging potential violations during large-scale layoffs. This preemptive risk mitigation is an invaluable asset for organizations navigating the complex legal landscape of offboarding.

Censia Talent Intelligence Launches AI-powered Executive Search Tool, Developed With Industry Leader Monica Bua

Censia Talent Intelligence is excited to announce its development of an AI-powered Executive Search tool, created with the guidance of Monica Bua. A distinguished global retained search executive, Bua has worked closely with Censia’s team on the development of Censia Executive Intelligence, an AI tool revolutionizing the landscape of executive search and talent acquisition.

Bringing over 20 years of executive recruitment and emerging product expertise, Bua guides Censia’s technology team in crafting an innovative solution that merges the realms of executive search and artificial intelligence. The new tool, Censia Executive Intelligence, is designed to provide companies with in-depth market and talent insights, instantaneous market mapping, and an unrivaled competitive advantage.

“By using Censia’s Executive Intelligence platform, we can predict with 97% accuracy how an executive will perform in year one at their new organization. Our platform has profiles on more than 550 million executives globally and can codify an executive’s past performance and help place them in the most impactful roles for top organizations. Our AI is designed to identify these difference makers with precision and speed, and with it, we dramatically reduce the placement time to 45 days, with 70% diversity hires.”

Monica Bua is well regarded across the executive search industry for her ability to identify and deliver transformational talent for preeminent organizations. In addition to her deep domain expertise in leadership assessment, Bua is a venture fund investor, a valued advisor, and a board member for numerous leading-edge technology startups. Her knack for understanding client needs and forming enduring relationships with senior leaders from the Fortune 100 has cemented her reputation as a trusted authority in the industry.

Plum Wins 2023 Globee® Awards for Disruptors

Plum Talent Platform has been honored as a winner in the prestigious 3rd Annual 2023 Globee® Awards for Disruptors. The Globee® Awards, recognized globally as the foremost business awards and ranking lists, bestow these esteemed accolades to celebrate and acknowledge exceptional disruptors in every industry.

The Globee Awards for Disruptors is an esteemed program that recognizes and celebrates organizations and individuals who have made significant contributions in driving disruptive innovation across various industries. These awards acknowledge the trailblazers who have challenged the status quo, introduced groundbreaking ideas, and transformed traditional practices through their disruptive approaches. The Globee Awards for Disruptors highlight the achievements and impact of disruptive leaders, companies, products, and technologies that are shaping the future of business and society. It serves as a platform to honor those who have redefined norms, created new market opportunities, and revolutionized industries through their visionary thinking and innovative solutions.

With a universal design, Plum uses objective data to measure and match human potential to job needs, enhancing talent decisions across the employee journey. Featuring unmatched scalability, Plum empowers organizations to quantify job fit, improve quality of hire, identify potential, provide personalized career insights and create high-performing teams from one platform.

Delhi startup is using AI to fix challneges in the hiring process

At a time when security concerns and cyber threats are plaguing organizations, employee background verification has become more important than ever. TraqCheck, a Delhi-based startup launched in 2021, aims to make employee background verification more efficient and cost-effective. Founded by Jaibir Nihal Singh and his childhood friends Armaan Mehta and Rishabh Jain, the startup uses AI for the background verification of employees and helps organizations onboard the right people. It uses technology and automation to increase speed, enhance efficiency, reduce human error, and help companies maintain compliance to streamline the background verification process.

“Despite initial feedback from several industry experts suggesting the infeasibility of automating background checks in India, we persisted in building our product and discovered that it was indeed viable. This realisation motivated us to focus on developing the technology and advancing ahead,” Jaibir Nihal Singh, Co-founder of TraqCheck, tells YourStory.

The founders initially invested Rs 6 lakh from personal savings to bootstrap the startup. Currently, the team has about 20 employees. Automating verification solution TraqCheck is an ‘Application Programming Interface (API)-first product that is customizable and can be integrated with any Human Resource System (HRMS) with just a few lines of code.

Singh explains that after getting information about the candidate, it runs a background verification with the data gathered. It then produces results that can be viewed on the dashboard or the client’s HRMS system. The product authenticates and aggregates an individual’s historical information, including their criminal record, education history, previous employment, identity, address, and psychometric results, with meticulous accuracy and a fast turnaround time. It also includes a myriad of bots and algorithms such as the Identity Matching Algorithm, the Employment Verification Bot, and the Forgery Detection Algorithm, amalgamated with an end-to-end automated system, providing organizations with complete background check solutions.

“Our streamlined approach is designed to minimize any additional workload for HR teams, providing them with a convenient and seamless experience, while their advanced system handles the entire background verification process expeditiously,” Singh asserts.

The startup has partnered with OpenAI to build various features such as categorizing criminal records, computer vision for current address verification, and more.

SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv Kicks Off Deskless Workforces & People Management Program

May 30, 2023 — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today launched a virtual startup program focused on supporting deskless workers and people managers at SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv. A jury of SAP SuccessFactors solution experts selected 10 international startups whose solutions address the personas’ unique challenges as specified in original SAP SuccessFactors research.

Research from SAP SuccessFactors reveals that deskless workers (workers who complete their work away from a desk and lack consistent access to technology or internal system) face unique challenges across the employee lifecycle, such as outdated hiring processes, inadequate rewards, and a lack of opportunities for meaningful development beyond ongoing required training. Deskless workers – and the managers and HR teams that support them – often lack fit-for-purpose technologies to solve their most pressing issues.

In addition to deskless workforces, SAP.iO is also addressing the challenges faced by people managers in this year’s program. Results from a new SAP SuccessFactors research program show that over 90 percent of people managers believe their role has changed in the past three years, with their roles becoming less tactical and administrative and focusing more on supporting their teams’ well-being and growth. However, people managers lack the technology and tools to thoroughly understand their team members’ needs, and HR leaders struggle to help managers navigate this change.

Driven by the findings of these research programs, SAP.iO aims to close these gaps through this program by establishing a partnership with 10 startups that address these challenges by integrating in SAP products.

”At SAP, we are committed to help our customers succeed in a rapidly changing world, and we understand the critical role employee experience plays in the success of any organization.” said Aaron Green, Chief Marketing & Solutions Officer at SAP SuccessFactors. “By combining our expertise with the innovative solutions of our partner startups, we are able to provide our customers with the capabilities they need to create a better employee experience, no matter where they work.”

Over the next 30 weeks, the startups will be guided and supported by SAP executives, receive exposure to SAP® technology and application programming interfaces (APIs), and opportunities to collaborate with SAP customers around the world.

The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundry Tel Aviv program:

Arist allows Fortune 500 organizations to create, deliver, and analyze bite-sized courses and nudges experienced over SMS, WhatsApp, Teams, and Slack to drive behavior change.
Beekeeper gives frontline employees technology in one place to streamline their work, collaborate with teams, and access critical safety, maintenance and training information to be the best at their jobs.
Bites Learning Ltd. combines the captivating nature of short videos with interactive elements, empowering organizations to effectively share professional knowledge and engage their workforce.
Connecteam is a mobile first employee management platform to manage, train, and communicate with non-desk workforces.
LumApps provides ultra-personalized and media-rich communications, smart integrations and automation, and community spaces that enhance collaboration and knowledge sharing across the enterprise.
Operations1 digitizes operational shopfloor processes to empower workers.
Retrain.ai is a responsible AI-driven talent intelligence platform for talent acquisition, talent management and skills mapping.
Sense provides an AI-powered talent engagement platform that accelerates the hiring process by helping candidates find the right jobs and making recruiters more productive.
Winningtemp analyzes and presents employee experience data with the help of AI.
Yoobic offers a mobile frontline employee experience platform that is purpose-built for the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries.

About SAP.iO  
SAP.iO curates a relevant and diverse startup ecosystem that extends the value of SAP solutions and meets the continuously evolving needs of our customers. Our programs provide dedicated support to the most promising startups as they launch and scale relationships with SAP and our global network of customers, partners, and employees. Since 2017, we have connected thousands of SAP customers with innovative enterprise software startups, helping them find solutions to their unique needs. For more information, visit http://sap.io/.  

SAP.iO In Foundries, Inclusiveness, HR & People Engagement, Inspiring Innovators

Inspiring Innovators: Alex Lamb Chief Executive Officer and Founder of BOLDLY-Get A Couch, On Being BOLD

At SAP.iO, we work with innovators and new technologies that positively impact our world every day, and we think it’s time to share their stories with you! In our series, “Inspiring Innovators,” we hear how founders, CEOs, and presidents of cutting-edge startup technologies overcame, thrived, and pursued their goals. SAP.iO’s Alexa Gorman sat down to discuss the road to success and lessons learned with some of our most inspiring startup founders.

Meet Alex Lamb

People described as bold tend to listen to their gut, prioritize, take action, and demonstrate courage. Boldness inspires and energizes, both of which are important qualities in a leader and a coach. As the Chief Executive and Founder of BOLDLY, these are traits that Alex Lamb personifies. In addition to her leadership role at BOLDLY, Alex is also a fractional Chief People Officer, organizational psychologist and executive coach, and has a deep understanding of how to create an environment to develop people’s skills. We were excited to have the opportunity to speak to Alex about her path, starting with looking for career advice, to coaching, to becoming a Founder and Chief Executive.

Working in Shanghai and Hong Kong for Korn Ferry over seven years, Alex honed her skills in various positions, from client management to product development. To get direction for her next career move, Alex started searching for a framework for decision-making which led her to studying evidence-based coaching practices and becoming a coach herself.

Observing an appetite for customized solutions suited to Asia, Alex moved to Singapore and started a consulting service designed to nurture domestic leadership talent. The service grew rapidly, taking on 11 consultants, and she quickly realized they needed a coaching technology platform to build BOLDLY beyond the reach of consulting. Alex launched the BOLDLY platform in 2017 to democratize coaching.

BOLDLY is a global coaching marketplace of qualified executive coaches and career coaches who are trained to develop staff and impact business performance using evidence-based coaching practices. Coaching is an evidence-based career development method proven to nurture professional growth, enhance workplace performance and provide targeted support for vocational confidence, competence, and leadership development. Their mission is simple: to ensure everyone has equal opportunity in the future of work.

“I figure if I don’t show up and have a try at something, somebody else will. And so, why not me? I often do things that scare me or might be a bit awkward at first, but this is where I learn. So being bold and finding courage has meant that we’ve taken the business further than we expected.”