Eliza Jackson, Chief People and Administrative Officer at ButcherBox, joined us on The Modern People Leader. 

We talked about how operational excellence can protect and scale company culture, how her team built a "work in service of" mindset, and how ButcherBox is using AI agents to unlock capacity—not replace people.

---- 

Sponsor Links:

🔗 Request a demo of Workleap.

🔗 Get in contact with the Career Sandwich team.

MPL Links:

🔗 Buy your ticket for MPL Live New York.

🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build.

---- 

(05:59) Eliza’s Career Journey: From Finance to Education to ButcherBox

(08:04) What ButcherBox Does & Its B Corp Mission

(09:23) Why Ops Isn’t Just for Efficiency—It’s for Culture

(11:44) How Eliza Assessed ButcherBox’s Ops When She Joined

(13:52) Creating the Business Operations Team & Their Embedded Model

(16:30) Eliza’s Nerdy Toolkit: Time & Task Management

(17:58) People Ops & Biz Ops Tech Stack at ButcherBox

(21:09) Managing Hybrid Work: Boston-Based Flexibility

(23:47) Protecting Company DNA & Building Connection in a Hybrid World

(26:48) Evolving ButcherBox’s Return-to-Office Strategy

(29:35) Culture is the Differentiator in a Post-COVID Workplace

(33:31) What Great Leadership Looks Like in a Talent Factory

(35:46) The Shift in Leadership Mindsets Since COVID

(38:04) Belonging, AI, and the Performance Push: Can They Coexist?

(39:28) ButcherBox’s AI Task Force: Building Capacity with Agents

(41:50) Example: AI Copy & Design Agents That Talk to Each Other

(44:39) Why an AI Coach Can Sometimes Be Better Than a Manager

(45:57) AI Adoption at ButcherBox: What’s Sticking & What’s Scaling

(47:29) The CPO of the Future: People + Digital, Inspired by Moderna

(50:41) Why HR Should Lead AI Transformation, Not Just IT

(52:01) Rapid Fire: Advice, Superpowers & What to Steal from Slalom

(55:27) BetterUp & the Human Condition at Work

(55:40) One-Word Close: Inflection Point, Moderna, Baby

---- 

📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps

💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn

😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn

😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn