Dena Upton: Chief People Officer at Drift: Career & Culture Insights

Who’s it for?: If you’re looking for ideas and inspiration for problem solving the major problems of the pandemic and how to bring people together, check out this conversation with Dena!

On E135 of #thePOZcast, I sat down with Dena Upton, Chief People Officer at Drift. We discussed company culture, and how to learn and adapt our way through the new challenges of COVID-19. Dena is a strong leader in people and talent access. She’s also grateful to be the CPO of Drift-- a conversational marketing platform-- where their strong principles reinforce and empower her ability to build and maintain strong teams and culture. 

Dena and I discussed the eight major principles that Drift mobilizes to promote this strong culture, and we get into the specifics of how they actually put them into use-- rather than just putting them on a poster or t-shirt. Integrating these principles has been key to their team’s success, and it’s also helping them adjust in new ways during the pandemic. Dena explains how Drift went from an in-office five day a week company to a digital first organization. She talks about some of the possible options for the future where Drift can learn from this change when things go back to “normal” and how they’re specifically thinking about their approach to collaboration.

We then get into what makes company culture in its simplest form, and how that might change post-pandemic as well. She gives some insight into how they’re thinking about bringing on junior talent, among other ways that they can start to supplement a mix of digital interactions and communications to fill the void of the in-office meetups. Dena and the leadership at Drift are focused on prioritizing equity in their adjustments, and have come up with some really strong ideas for how to make the playing field more even and effective.

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