Chief People Officer at Ethena (she/her) | Sharing actionable insights for business-forward People leaders
New York City Metropolitan Area
68K followers
500+ connections
68K followers
500+ connections
Articles by Melanie
Activity
68K followers
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Melanie Naranjo reposted thisMelanie Naranjo reposted thisCEOs want 🚀 AI adoption, but most HR and Compliance leaders still feel 🐢 or 🤔 about AI adoption in their orgs. In our latest webinar, Ethena CEO Roxanne Bras Petraeus and CPO Melanie Naranjo unpacked how HR and Compliance can bridge that gap, setting realistic goals, building psychological safety, and decentralizing adoption so teams actually use AI. And don’t miss the highlight: Roxanne demoing Ethena’s new AI Course Builder, where a policy doc turns into custom training in seconds! https://lnkd.in/g3FkF8Cc Catch the full replay here: https://lnkd.in/gDW8FaKH #AIAdoption #FutureOfWork #HRLeaders #ComplianceTraining #AIInHR #LearningAndDevelopment
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Melanie Naranjo posted thisWe don’t negotiate on salary offers. No, really. We don’t say that with a wink and a nudge. Our first offer is our final offer. We mean it. If you’re accustomed to the game of cat and mouse that usually accompanies salary discussions, you might be feeling a little skeptical just reading this. But here’s why we at Ethena made the decision 3 years ago to take salary negotiations off the table. 🤝 We want our employee relationships to start from a place of honesty and trust. We’ve all asked ourselves, “I wonder if they would’ve gone higher if I’d asked.” With a no-negotiation policy, there’s no question. Candidates receive the most competitive salary their hiring manager can build a case argument for from the start. Because there’s no room to low ball a candidate and then “work your way up” with a no-negotiation policy. 🙅🏻♀️ It helps reduce pay gaps. We believe salary offers should be based on skills and experience, not how much a candidate made at their last job or how good they are at negotiating. 🏃🏾 It makes for a more efficient process. Because frankly, we’d rather focus our resources on recruiting best-in-class talent, not wasting time going back and forth on salary negotiations. Yes, it does tend to ramp up those last-minute jitters when hiring managers settle on a number and extend their one and final offer. But personally, we think a bit of nerves are worth it for a policy that works towards creating an increasingly equitable and effective workplace. So, what does it take to make this a reality at your company? 🔎 Get super clear on your salary bands. 💪 Hold fast to your policy! No making exceptions for really shiny candidates. 🧐 Assess whether or not you need to adjust the salary band for a particular role throughout the recruitment process and BEFORE you make an offer. Collecting data along the way is part of the process. 📣 Be loud and upfront about your policy from the start. We tell all our candidates about our no negotiation policy during the initial phone screen so that neither one of us is caught by surprise at time of offer. And before you ask: Yes, it’s been working for us. In fact, candidates often share how appreciative they are of our commitment to an equitable process and what a relief it is not to have to stress over salary negotiations on top of everything else. Looking for more resources to level up your recruitment process? 🧠 BS-proof interview Qs: https://lnkd.in/eJvaqF7m 💰 How to answer comp and salary band Qs: https://lnkd.in/e7Wu64XY 📋 Headcount approval template: https://lnkd.in/exhmNaqY PS — We’re hiring. Check out our open roles at https://lnkd.in/eVeYpHfS
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Melanie Naranjo posted thisMANAGER: I need to fire my direct report. They’re seriously underperforming, and it’s been going on for months. HR: Okay. Let me see what feedback you’ve given them outlining their performance issues over the past few months. MANAGER: Oh, uh… I mean. Well, I haven’t really told them in so many words… HR: ... 🤨 --- Most managers suck at managing underperformance. Either they tolerate it for far too long or they go the other extreme and endlessly critique their direct reports in a demoralizing and unproductive manner. In my experience, it's typically the former. All of which eventually builds up into an explosion one day when the manager decides they’ve finally had enough and it’s time to part ways. Regardless of whether or not they’ve actually shared the feedback with their direct report. So why do so many managers tolerate underperformance instead of actually doing something about it? 😰 Fear They’re scared of: being unliked, hurting someone’s feelings, creating awkward working relationships, navigating conflict or defensiveness, having to let the person go, the process taking up too much time, not getting a backfill, the impact to team morale 🤔 Unclear expectations They’re unclear on the performance standards they should be holding their reports accountable to; they think these are just typical challenges every manager has to ‘put up with’ 😖 They think they’re the problem Any time a direct report falls short, they immediately focus inward: I must not have set clear enough expectations, I must not be providing enough support, I must not be asking the right questions The problem, of course, is that tolerating underperformance puts an incredible drain on company resources. Not only does it slow down your progress towards goals, it also scares off your high performers, who are often forced to pick up the slack. So what should companies with a history of tolerating underperformance do? How can we get managers to start addressing the issue head on and help their under performers either meaningfully step up or gracefully step down? Here are a few free resources that can help. 👉 Feedback Friday template to ensure you’ve always got a paper trail of documented, continuous feedback: https://lnkd.in/e69anW3i 👉Performance management training that focuses on driving agency and accountability: https://lnkd.in/eJG4Np3W 👉Manager frameworks for navigating tough discussions: https://lnkd.in/ehZxSXSm What resources have you found especially helpful? Any other resources you’d like to see?
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Melanie Naranjo posted thisLet’s be real: compliance training is important, but it’s also kind of a pain. I say that as someone who works for a compliance training company and deeply understands the value add of effective training. Our training is the highest quality, most relevant and engaging compliance training I've seen in the market. It drives measurable results on preventing sexual harassment, reducing phishing scam susceptibility, and educating employees on when and how to make a report. But let’s not pretend that any training — no matter how well designed — isn’t competing with an already overloaded to-do list. Employees aren’t thrilled to hit “start module,” no matter how engaging the material is. And leaders aren’t exactly hyped to hear about everyone having to carve out time away from our revenue goals for everyone to take their training. That's just reality. So how do we deliver the critical training employees need — legally, ethically, culturally — while preserving as much time as possible for the very real and meaningful work already sitting on every employee's plate? Here are 4 practical strategies that have worked for us: ⏱️ Don't overtrain your employees. California managers are required to take 2 hours of Harassment Prevention training every 2 years. Connecticut managers, on the other hand, only have to take 2 hours of training every 10 years. Be strategic about how much training you assign your employees vs forcing a one-size-fits-all approach just to be “safe.” 🤖 Use AI to keep it short and sharp. Need a 5-min refresher on your dating policy? Our AI-powered PDF-to-training converter allows you to turn any company policy into a custom training in minutes. Just upload your PDF, and boom: You've got an interactive, custom training in minutes. You can even tailor the training further by prompting our AI copilot for adjustments, i.e. "Switch up the images and learning scenarios to include warehouse workers to better reflect our employee population." 📆 Replace time, don't add time. Got a companywide All Hands? Replace it with a calendar block for everyone to take their training so your employees don't have to find extra time in their already fully booked schedules to take training. ✅ Let people test out of the training If your employees can prove they already know the material, why force them to take the training? A quick quiz before the training can save someone 30–60 minutes. Unless the training is legally required, there's no need to reteach what they already know. Compliance matters. But so does employee time. Let’s treat both like they’re valuable — because they are. Your leadership team will thank you for it, I promise.
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Melanie Naranjo shared thisMost People leaders don’t do a rigorous enough job of vetting out the Headcount Planning process. And you know what? I don’t blame them. More often than not, #HR leaders aren’t brought in until the eleventh hour — once all the decisions have been made and the only step left is to execute on the recruitment process. But here’s the thing: If you want to be an effective People leader, it’s your job to get in front of this and ensure your team is implementing a robust Headcount Planning process beyond just recruitment and post-hire enablement. Things like: - Ensuring you’re not over hiring to compensate for ineffective performance and workplace inefficiencies - Verifying that each hire is a long term need, not a short-term need that will lead to layoffs - Pressure testing that every dollar spent on your greatest company expense — employees — is optimally spent - Exploring the long term potential of each hire and whether or not it makes more sense to go more junior or promote from within We recently rolled out a new headcount approval process at Ethena and — among other things — it requires all department heads to answer the following 3 questions for any role they’d like us to open: 1. How will this hire help us hit our 2025 revenue goals? 2. What breaks if we don’t hire this role? 3. What alternative solutions have you explored, and why is a full time, in-house hire the only remaining option? Oh, and also: It’s a public document that all department heads have access to. Including everyone’s responses. Here’s what I love about this process: 🥇Questions like, “How will this help us hit our revenue goals” keep everyone focused on the big picture business goal while questions like “What breaks if we don’t hire this role?” help surface underlying inefficiencies. Maybe the person responds with a series of things that the business is in fact okay with breaking and should never have been prioritized in the first place. 🕵️ Getting everyone’s answers all in one place helps identify overlapping scopes of responsibilities. 2 teams are struggling with data analytics? Could we combine these roles into 1? 🧠 Giving all leaders visibility into everyone’s responses helps everyone level up their game. Perhaps someone on G&A is struggling to tie their needs back to the business, but a quick peek at the RevOps leader’s responses offers clear insights for how to apply a more business-forward mindset. 💡 The responses are a veritable treasure trove of insights into other areas of the busines. How do marketing leaders think about pipeline generation per BDR? How do Product leaders determine how many engineers it takes to roll out new Product updates? Want access to our full Headcount Request Template + tips for getting more involved in your company’s Headcount Planning process? 👉 Download my free template here: https://lnkd.in/exhmNaqY What are your top tips for ensuring a robust headcount planning process?
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Melanie Naranjo posted this5 legal resources every HR professional should have in their toolkit — especially if you don't have an in-house lawyer. 🤖 Generative AI Policy template: https://lnkd.in/e-F_A9hW 🕵 Employee investigation guidelines (including dos and don'ts + key language to lean on): https://lnkd.in/e2APi_WE 📜 Reasonable Accommodation request form (including policy language): https://lnkd.in/egv_2x7m ❤️🩹 Employee termination guidelines (including dos & don'ts + helpful language to lean on): https://lnkd.in/eBVKk8Js 🙅♂️ Sexual Harassment Policy template: https://lnkd.in/etUjUJaw What other legal resources would make your life easier? #hr #compliance #legal
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Melanie Naranjo shared thisI’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: HR doesn’t have to be so lonely. Especially if you’re a team of one. Or the most senior People person in a company where no one else quite gets what you do. Or just trying to navigate big, messy people problems without a sounding board. That’s why I love TroopHR. It’s a community just for People leaders. No BS, no fluff—just smart, generous HR pros who’ve been there and are figuring it out together. Every time I hear a message like: “As a struggling HR department of 1, thank you for building this incredible Troop community…” or “Your support and the support of the community has been pivotal in giving me the confidence to know we can make a difference…” or "It's been a really tough year. It's been so helpful having this community to lean on..." …I’m reminded of how needed this space really is. If you’ve been looking for your people—come find us. You don’t have to do this work alone. 💛 Check us out at https://www.troophr.com/ And, of course, big shoutout Tracy Avin for creating this wonderful community. So grateful you brought us all together. 🫶
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Melanie Naranjo posted thisI hate the term “influencing without authority.” Especially in the HR world. It implies that we’re right, everyone else is wrong, and our job is to sneakily convince everyone to do things our way. Because we know better. That fact is: We’re not always right. Sometimes, we don’t know what the hell we’re talking about. Example: When I first joined Ethena, I wanted to create a quarter-long management training series together with a comprehensive performance rubric and manager handbook to get all our managers aligned on how to manage effectively and quickly identify (and address) underperformance. Seems like the obvious move, right? But my CEO Roxanne Bras Petraeus pushed back. Our managers didn’t have time for an intensive manager training. They were never going to read through an overly long handbook or fill out a complicated performance rubric. I could have responded with: “Well, if we cared enough about effective management, we’d make the time.” But not only would that have led to a failed initiative; it also would have dismissed a very real problem: Managers *do* care about doing their job effectively. And my CEO sure as hell cares about quickly identifying underperformance. But that doesn’t change the fact that people have limited time, and overly full plates. So instead of “influencing” her, I partnered with her. And it led to the most effective manager enablement tools I’ve ever created. Things like: ⏰ Replace don’t add: We never add calendar time to our managers’ already busy schedules for training. Instead, we replace existing meetings (think: All Hands). If the training can’t fit within the allotted time, it’s too long. 🌕🟠🔴 Color coding our feedback to ensure managers communicate the severity level of feedback without having to remember a complicated script. 🌕Yellow = stretch opportunity 🟠Orange = without improvement, you won’t be eligible for an increase or promotion 🔴Red = failure to improve will lead to job loss 📈 Performance pulse checks: Instead of complicated performance rubrics, our managers answer 3 simple questions: 1. If I could go back in time — knowing what I know today — would I hire this person again? 2. If this person were to quit today, how would I feel: Panicked or relieved? Neutral? 3. Is this personal ultimately making my job easier or harder? These strategies work because they take business challenges into consideration — not enough time, can’t slow down progress on business goals — and accommodate them vs trying to enforce “the HR way” through brute force. We’re not here to “influence.” We’re here to advise and empower. To explore underlying business issues, and develop People strategies that work *with* the business, not against it. What do you think? Am I way off in space here? How do you think about partnering with your leadership team? — Want more manager enablement tools? Check the comments below for a few of my favorites. ⬇️ #HR #hrbp #people
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Melanie Naranjo posted this3 resources every HR leader should have in their tool belt: 1. HRBP 1:1 template — Qs to bring to your stakeholder meetings to help surface issues, build partnership, and show your value (link: https://lnkd.in/ehKtXDs2) 2. Coaching through conflict template — So you can coach your stakeholders through key challenges without forcing yourself in the middle of everything (link: https://lnkd.in/ehZxSXSm) 3. Guide to negotiating pushback — So you can advocate effectively, whether it's with your CEO, a key stakeholder, or even the CHRO (link: https://lnkd.in/egBrc4Kj ) What other resources have you found handy along the way? #hr #hrbp #coaching
Melanie Naranjo commented on a post
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I enjoyed the heck out of this episodes! Learned a lot and was great to have some very candid and productive discussions. :)
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Melanie Naranjo reacted on thisMelanie Naranjo reacted on thisI procrastinated so hard on my performance reviews that Melanie made me do it live, on our podcast. Want to know how I assess my performance? Apparently Melanie did! 😂 I loved this because I was able to knock out my-self assessment and explain to Melanie why I procrastinate. If you're curious about Ethena's self-assessment structure and how we run perf reviews, check out this episode. Or, if you're in HR and are curious why your CEO drags their feet on perf reviews, this one might also be for you! Sorry, Melanie, but at least we got an episode out of my aversion to all things process!
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Melanie Naranjo reacted on thisMelanie Naranjo reacted on this💥 I'm excited to share that I've joined Filevine as VP Sales of Government and Corporate! 💜 The past 4 years at Ethena were an epic ride. When I joined we were a fledgling and scrappy Series A start-up with a dream to help companies build a better workplace through modern compliance and ethics products. I'm so proud of building out our outstanding Sales team. We brought on hundreds of customers across tech and F500 to help Legal, Compliance, and HR teams improve trust and mitigate risk with their employees, customers, and the public. 🙏 Thank you Roxanne Bras Petraeus and Anne Solmssen for your leadership and partnership in taking Ethena to the next level. I'll miss our talented team and incredibly brilliant customers (and daily puns). ⚖️ I also developed a deep interest and excitement in the future of Legal Technology while working with the world's most innovative General Counsels, Chief Compliance Officers, Legal Ops, and Employee Relations leaders. Which led me to Filevine! Filevine is the top AI-powered legal operating system for firms, corporations, and government agencies. I started this week by attending our 1,500 attendee user conference. WOW. I'm blown away by how happy customers are, the power of our AI tools (ex: "chatting" with all documents across a case), and how smart and driven this team is. Thank you Ryan Anderson and Sean Dowdle for bringing me onboard to this killer team. I can't wait to partner with you both. 🏔️ The cherries on top: Filevine is a Salt Lake City based rocketship. We just raised $400M in funding from Insight, Accel, and Halo Fund. Let's go Legal Tech and let's go Utah!!!! I couldn't be more excited about this new chapter. PS. Yes, that is Bob Odenkirk speaking at our conference. Y'all know I love Saul.
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Melanie Naranjo reacted on thisMelanie Naranjo reacted on thisCEOs want 🚀 AI adoption, but most HR and Compliance leaders still feel 🐢 or 🤔 about AI adoption in their orgs. In our latest webinar, Ethena CEO Roxanne Bras Petraeus and CPO Melanie Naranjo unpacked how HR and Compliance can bridge that gap, setting realistic goals, building psychological safety, and decentralizing adoption so teams actually use AI. And don’t miss the highlight: Roxanne demoing Ethena’s new AI Course Builder, where a policy doc turns into custom training in seconds! https://lnkd.in/g3FkF8Cc Catch the full replay here: https://lnkd.in/gDW8FaKH #AIAdoption #FutureOfWork #HRLeaders #ComplianceTraining #AIInHR #LearningAndDevelopment
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Melanie Naranjo reacted on thisI love downloading great trainings and help documents. Even if I already have a similar one, I like to see how other people/companies present information, especially to managers. These three are amazing finds! Also the situation that Melanie Naranjo speaks about is SO common. If we as people leaders can proactively get ahead of it, then everyone wins.
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Melanie Naranjo reacted on thisMelanie Naranjo reacted on thisI'm excited to share that I've joined The Fair Path Project as their HR Policy Advisor! The Fair Path Project is doing important work to advance equity and justice, creating systems where fairness is the expectation, not the exception. That mission connects directly to my own belief that HR should be about more than compliance; it should mean building progressive policies that support people in their work and ensure employees always have trusted channels to raise concerns. I’m grateful to Kimberly Williams, founder of the Fair Path Project and my mentor, for the chance to contribute to this vision. Her leadership continues to inspire me every single day! I encourage you all (HR/People and non-HR/People folks) to check out the website (https://lnkd.in/emQUggZ8)!
Experience
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Ethena
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Insider Inc.
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Intern
BRAG
Education
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Harvard University
Bachelor's degree History
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Activities and Societies: Peer Advising Fellow; Story-Time Players
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Languages
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English
Native or bilingual proficiency
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Spanish
Professional working proficiency
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French
Professional working proficiency
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