Leah Stern: Talent Aquisition in New York City, New York

● Develop and execute recruiting strategies for clients. ● Manage all phases of full-cycle recruiting, from initial sourcing and screening through offer negotiations, placement, and onboarding. ● Creatively source highly skilled candidates by leveraging recruiting software, social media, cold calling, and employee referrals. ● Recruiting experience in multiple departments such as retail, product, design, marketing, operations, tech, and finance. ● Collaborate with business leaders to align People & Culture initiatives with organizational goals, fostering a positive and productive work environment. ● Manage and resolve employee relations issues, providing guidance on HR policies, performance management, and conflict resolution to promote a healthy workplace culture. ● Implemented training programs to enhance employee skills, contributing to professional growth and aligning development initiatives with the company's strategic objectives.

● Spearhead recruitment efforts for retail leadership positions at Mejuri, specializing in identifying top-tier talent to drive business success. ● Successfully source, assess, and place candidates for key roles, including Store Managers, Area Managers, and District Managers, contributing to the growth and efficiency of retail operations. ● Implement strategic sourcing strategies to attract diverse and highly skilled candidates, resulting in an enhanced talent pool and improved team performance. ● Collaborate closely with hiring managers and cross-functional teams to understand organizational needs, ensuring alignment between candidate skill sets and business objectives. ● Conduct thorough interviews, and assessments, to evaluate the candidate's qualifications, cultural fit, and potential for long-term success within the organization. ● Developed and maintained strong relationships with candidates, providing a positive candidate experience throughout the recruitment process.

● Revamped the recruiting process to create a more equitable candidate experience and reduce overall bias in the hiring process. ● Manage full cycle recruiting process: sourcing, identifying, engaging, and evaluating top talent for hiring manager review. ● Partner closely with hiring managers to understand their specific needs through kick-off meetings to identify the needs of the role, confirm the interview panel, and set expectations for the search process. ● Source active and passive candidates through various platforms to find diverse talent. ● Own and prioritize multiple requisitions and maintain high-quality communication with hiring managers. ● Generate and maintain data, track placement, and hiring metrics. ● Work closely with business leaders to influence effective recruiting approaches and set realistic expectations on time to fill, compensation, candidate pool quality, and market feedback. ● Established inclusive job descriptions. ● Rolled out DEIB - Hire by Design training to the entire organization to minimize bias in the recruitment process.

● Contract assignment to oversee recruiting for all NA Everlane retail stores. ● Served as a strategic partner for hiring managers to identify talent and diverse gaps within their verticals. ● Built strong, diverse pipelines of quality talent through sourcing efforts, referrals, and job boards. ● Developed creative and innovative ways to build the candidate pipeline and to successfully close searches.

Contract assignment to oversee recruiting for a brand-new retail concept scaling to open, driving full lifecycle sourcing, screening, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding for multiple positions, including leadership. ● Established overall recruiting strategy as well as inclusive and equitable hiring practices. ● Provided counsel to hiring managers across all levels on the recruitment process and talent search strategies.

Built district-wide recruiting strategy and processes from the ground up, driving top-caliber, diverse hires for all roles. ● Recognized as a subject matter expert for staff training and development, creating comprehensive new hire training, district-wide foundational leadership training, and "Not Bound by Convention" service training, cultivating a culture of collaboration, transparency, and exceptional customer service. ● Spearheaded recruiting and development efforts for the NYC district, including sourcing, screening, hiring, and succession planning to build a robust internal and external talent pipeline. ● Resolved employee relations issues while ensuring policy and procedure alignment with HR partners. ● Launched 12+ yearly environmentally focused community events for 250+ customers per event. ● Increased NYC cross-platform social media follower count by 27% by creating cohesive marketing content. ● Organized beach clean-ups, activism opportunities, and the quarterly Surfrider chapter meetings, making significant contributions to the local community and receiving the 2018 Surfrider NYC volunteer of the year. ● Achieved 30% comp growth in 2019, doubling gross revenue over the previous two years via strategic plans.

Guided the entire hiring process from interviewing to onboarding, reviewed resumes, screened candidates, and worked closely with store managers to select top talent. Created and launched a training program for new hires. ● Devised comprehensive recruiting strategies, sourcing and securing top talent for each district location. ● Crafted a region-wide succession strategy, to expand the skills of existing employees based on staffing needs. ● Increased store revenue by up to 40% while improving customer loyalty by collaborating cross-functionally with marketing, retail operations, and finance to pilot new retail initiatives.

Built and scaled the retail infrastructure from the ground up, collaborating directly with corporate leaders to devise HR policies and procedures, employee time and attendance policies, workforce management systems, operational procedures, and more, setting the standard for all future brick-and-mortar stores. ● Created, championed, and launched the leadership training program across the entire retail division. ● Attained 40% comp growth via a results-driven culture, leveraging financial Key Performance Indicators (KPI). ● Aligned with regional marketing initiatives to develop and facilitate local community-driven events.