Become a better Head of People in 5 minutes
The Business of People is your shortcut to success. It's a free newsletter read by 1,500+ Directors, VPs, and Heads of People. We'll send you tips, tricks, tactics, and templates to land and succeed in your next People leadership role.
🚀 The Multiplayer AI Playbook: Player One (Part I)
The Multiplayer AI Playbook: Player One (Part I) July 28, 2026 | Edition 26 Priya was told to "figure out AI" for her 200-person company on a Monday. By Friday she'd shipped a rollout plan: a Claude Team license for every employee, a lunch-and-learn, a Slack channel for tips. Three months later, adoption had flatlined at people asking the tool to summarize meeting notes. Priya herself had used it maybe a dozen times, mostly to punch up an email. When her CEO asked why "the numbers" hadn't...
🚀 The offer letter that lied about the job
Title July 21, 2026 | Edition #25 | The Land-the-Role Playbook, Part III Jordan spent three days negotiating a Head of People offer at a 90-person Series B. They pushed the base up $15K. Got another 0.1% in equity. Traded a signing bonus for double trigger equity acceleration. By the time Jordan signed, it felt like a win. Four months in, Jordan realized they'd never gotten the job they interviewed for. The CEO had described a role that would "build the People function from scratch and sit on...
🚀 The best "HR" answer in an interview is often the wrong one
Answer interview questions like a business leader July 14, 2026 | Edition #24 | The Land-the-Role Playbook, Part II Priya did everything The Land the Role Playbook, Part I on positioning yourself as a credible candidate said. She rewrote her résumé around outcomes, not duties. Cleaned up her LinkedIn so it told one story instead of a list of job titles. And made it to the final round for VP of People role at a 120-person Series C. The panel was the CEO, CFO, and VP of Engineering. No one from...
🚀 The positioning gap costing you the Head of People job
Make the same business case everywhere they look June 30, 2026 | Edition # 23 | The Land-the-Role Playbook, Part I Renee had the strongest HR résumé in the stack. Eight years in People Ops. A SHRM-SCP. Two HRIS migrations she ran without a hiccup. A Glassdoor rating she'd personally pulled from 3.4 to 4.6. She made the final round for Head of People at a Series B company. Then she lost to a candidate with fewer years in HR. The feedback came back gentle and a little crushing: "We loved Renee....
🚀 Are you working differently today than you were a year ago?
Are you working differently today than you were a year ago? May 12, 2026 | Edition 22 Maya, a Senior People Ops Manager, spent every Sunday night the same way for three years: open her laptop, try to remember what she accomplished the previous week, write her weekly update for her boss, and plan her week ahead. Then, on Monday, she'd open her laptop again, full of optimism that she was going to accomplish all her goals... and immediately fall down a Slack rabbit hole. 2-hours in, she didn't...
🚀 Two weeks of a VP of People's Claude use cases
Two weeks of a VP of People's Claude use cases March 31, 2026 | Edition #21 The Business of People is brought to you by: Personal AI Build Partner for Startup HR The Workspace Pass is the go-to subscription for smart startup people teams. It brings together 25+ years of real-world experience and insights from 1,000+ startups and scale-ups from people who've actually done your job into highly practical, ready-to-execute playbooks, and a personal AI Build partner designed specifically for...
🚀 The 4 questions that make you a better meeting facilitator
You need to work on your executive presence March 17, 2026 | Edition 20 The Business of People is brought to you by: Startup HR Operating System Nahed Khairallah and I teamed up to put together the Startup HR Operating System. It has everything you need to launch or accelerate your HR career with 20 hours of content and 50+ templates and tools. Before the course goes live, we're giving early access to a limited number of people in our network. If you provide feedback and a short testimonial,...
🚀 The playbooks for internal AI adoption (because there isn't one tried and true standard yet)
Leading AI adoption when you feel behind the curve February 10, 2026 | Edition 19 The Business of People is brought to you by: Top CPO AI Playbooks Real AI use cases, adoption strategies, and experiments shared by 10+ CPOs on The Modern People Leader podcast — what’s working, what’s not, and what they’ve learned along the way. Download the toolkit Maura, the VP People Operations at a Series C SaaS company, is getting worried. She's reading and hearing more and more about the impending...
🚀 How to avoid overpaying for the wrong executive experience
Don't hire a triathlete as your next CMO January 6, 2026 | Edition 18 The Business of People is brought to you by: Step Up MBA: Master Business Acumen Make 2026 the year you go from HR leader to business leader. JooBee Yeow's Step Up MBA course and community are a great first step. You'll learn about various business models, how products get built and brought to market, what the three financial statements are, and what investors look for before deciding to back a startup. Use the discount...
🚀 You're stuck at Senior Manager. Commercial literacy might be the culprit
You're stuck at Senior Manager. Commercial literacy might be the culprit December 16, 2025 | Edition 17 The Business of People is brought to you by: Step Up MBA: Master Business Acumen Use the code BUSINESSOFPEOPLE for an exclusive discount of 50% off the Step Up MBA course. Offer valid December 15th through January 16th. Learn more about Step Up MBA Cora had spent eight years building her HR career. For the last three, she had been a Senior HR Manager at a Series B SaaS company. She'd earned...
The Business of People is your shortcut to success. It's a free newsletter read by 1,500+ Directors, VPs, and Heads of People. We'll send you tips, tricks, tactics, and templates to land and succeed in your next People leadership role.