In this episode of Becoming Better with StartupExperts, we sit down with Adriana Asdourian, a purpose-driven leader at Sequoia Social Impact, to explore how companies can embed social good into their core strategies—not just their CSR decks.

Adriana shares her perspective on what it means to build cultures that align performance with purpose, how impact initiatives can drive business growth, and why intention matters more than perfection. Whether you're leading People, Ops, or Finance, her insights will challenge and inspire you to lead with greater clarity, conviction, and care.

Tune in for a thoughtful, practical conversation on building better companies—inside and out.

In this episode, we chat with the team at ApplyAI about how they’re making AI more approachable and actionable for professionals. From common misconceptions to real-world use cases, we explore how teams can confidently integrate AI into their workflows—and what leaders need to know to stay ahead.

In our 7th episode, we meet Emily Gaine who serves as our Leadership Team Director and supports all of our volunteer leaders in StartupExperts. While many of us started our HR careers right out of college and are now in senior leadership roles, Emily is an amazing individual because she entered the HR field after 4-years at the US Naval Academy and then after a 7-year career in the US Navy.

In this discussion we learn why she chose to serve in the US Military, how she transitioned from the US Navy to her current HR role, and why social impact volunteering is so important to Veterans. 

In our 6th episode, we meet Olivia Bowser as she serves as our Director of Member Wellbeing. In this role, she dedicates herself daily to supporting StartupExperts by sharing wellbeing ideas and thoughts in our online workspace. In this discussion we learn about Olivia's own personal journey and why she became a wellness expert, how she founded her own company Liberate, and why she's so passionate about helping others. We also discuss her visit on Shark Tank and what she learned from that experience. 

In our 5th episode, we meet Anita Pagin who leads up our Private Leader Circles program and is, by far, our most active community member with well over 15k posts. She also is one of our more popular members and lives our Go-Giver spirit because nearly every post is in service to another person. In this discussion, we learn about Anita, her talent leader career and current role, what's she's learned so far, and her passion for doing triathlons. 

In our 4th episode, we meet Nathan Sheranian who is a longtime StartupExperts member now living in Salt Lake City. We learn how he got into HR after thinking he'd be a musician, why kindness is so important to him, and the value of saying yes as much as possible in one’s career. We also talked about the role of HR in an organization, how a leader should approach building their HR team, and who in his life influenced him.

In this third episode, we take it on the road to Seattle to meet Jen Haller, the Chief of Staff at Ascend Venture Capital. Our discussion cover a wide range of topics including the Seattle Startup Scene, what it's like to be a Chief of Staff and why Jen thinks its the perfect role for her, and also how she became the first person in the entire world to take the COVID vaccine.

In this second episode of our new Becoming Better with StartupExperts podcast we're excited to introduce CJ Tinloy, one of our longer-term members. After serving in various Finance Leader roles for a number of startups, she recently stepped up into a Chief Financial Officer position at her current company. 

This is the first episode of our new Becoming Better with StartupExperts podcast and we're excited to host the amazing Payal Maheshwari. Payal is a People Leader with many years of experience, an infectious energy, yet what intrigues us most is her background and how she arrived at becoming an HR Leader and Coach.