Talent Makers

Expert Insights: Beth Steinberg

Please tell us a bit about your background.

I was in people and talent during a very fast growth period for Nordstrom. During my 12 years there, we hired in excess of 10,000 employees.

Then I went into the world of tech in a variety of emerging companies and more established companies like Facebook, Nike, and Electronic Arts, as well as a number of fast-growing companies like Sunrun, BrightRoll, and Chime.

Wherever I am, I try to bring some of that maturity around planning around talent, thinking about it as a strategic imperative, and focusing on the things you need to do to equip yourself for the next three to five years.

What's your promise to the CEO?

My number one promise that I make myself and the CEO is that wherever we end up, we don't want to lose what made us special at the beginning—we're still a culture that we're proud of and want to be a part of.

You hear about a lot of companies where you get to that stage of going public or being large and they're like “Who are we? Who have we turned into?” My promise is that we can maintain our culture and values if we focus on whom we hire, and what we do with people once we hire them.

What do you ask of the CEO?

What I ask of the CEO is that they understand that the only way they'll be successful in hiring is if they have commitment and partnership. The talent team creates the process, the systems, and finds the candidate, but this is not a function of just that team.

I really learned that ...