Katelyn started her career in corporate law before pivoting into people operations. Today she's the Director of People Operations at Aloha, a 100-plus person agency that's won the Inc. 5000 award six times in a row, and she just rolled out a custom AI agent named "Ali" that handles the repetitive HR questions her team used to spend hours on every week.

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ The three transferable leadership skills she carried from corporate law into HR

▸ How a 100-person agency uses a custom AI agent to free its HR team from repetitive questions

▸ Why her leadership team meets monthly with a shared goal across departments

▸ How to balance welcoming new ideas with fiercely protecting your core values as you scale

▸ Three tips for delivering hard feedback in a culture that loves to celebrate

▸ The 30/70 rule for structuring feedback conversations so people leave aligned

▸ Where AI stops being useful and human leadership has to take over

▸ The one mistake she would refuse to repeat as a people operations leader

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing? Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at:

https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guest: Katelyn Hoffman, Director of People Ops at Aloha

Host: Dr. Vo, CEO of Agency Workplaces

Chris Fink didn't found his agency. He joined it as a strategist after 23 years in automotive management and a stint running operations at a med spa. Years later, he's a partner running multiple sister agencies under one roof, and he has strong views on what makes the team-to-leader transition work.

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ Why "clarity over comfort" is the most important shift a new leader can make

▸ The advice he gives every newly-promoted leader before their first hard conversation

▸ How his team runs multiple sister agencies on one shared operating system

▸ The hiring process that uses personality assessments to put the right person in the right role

▸ How to break a "yes-man" culture using a deliberately ridiculous idea as a test

▸ Why he'd rather build leaders who eventually leave than build lifers who stay forever

▸ The one mistake he'd refuse to repeat if he had to rebuild his agency from scratch

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing? Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guest: Chris Fink, Partner at Fannit

Host: Wesley Hoang, Agency Workplaces

When Eric Ritter walked away from a stable career at Johns Hopkins to go all-in on his agency, the people closest to him didn't understand why. Ten years later, Digital Neighbor is a 14-person hybrid team built on a culture so specific it has its own clause inside every client contract.

In this episode, you'll learn:

▸ How to know when your side hustle is ready to become your main hustle
▸ The Jeff Bezos "risk test" Eric used to push past the fear of going full-time
▸ Why his very first hire was about protecting his energy, not adding skill
▸ The two non-negotiables that hold his entire culture together
▸ The "kindness clause" Eric writes into every client contract, and what it actually says
▸ Why visibility, not productivity, is the real currency of any hybrid culture
▸ The early warning signs that tell him a team member is starting to slip
▸ The one mistake he'd refuse to repeat if he had to rebuild Digital Neighbor from scratch

🏆 Run an agency with a culture worth recognizing? Apply for our official agency culture recognition program at:
https://agencyworkplaces.com/nomination-form

Guest: Eric Ritter, Founder of Digital Neighbor

Host: Wesley Hoang, COO of Agency Workplaces