RECOMMENDATIONS & OTHER KIND WORDS
Colette GRGIC | CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER, BLUECHILLI
“Claudia is an expert in organisational design, culture transformation and people operations. We worked together on innovation and transformation projects (at the ABC and UTS) before recruiting her as BlueChilli’s Head of People, where she built our entire People function for Australia, Indonesia and Singapore from scratch.
It’s fun and productive to work with Claudia. Every program and initiative she designed and implemented had deep expertise, thought and measurable metrics behind it. She really shines in complex projects, tackling them with courage, curiosity and care for the people they will affect. Claudia is known for striking a great balance between creative solutions, hyper-organised project plans (she’s a master using Asana, Airtable, Trello and spreadsheets) and making sure that the people come along on the journey. She is highly collaborative and is an engaging and charismatic presenter and facilitator - internally as well as when working with our tier one corporate clients on their innovation and transformation agendas.
On last count, Claudia designed and delivered end-to-end 13 internal programs, owned our employer brand, and provided weekly insights and strategies to the executive team and CEO. I’m really grateful to Claudia for all that she has taught me, and for making sure that inclusion and belonging were intentionally baked into every process and ritual in our business. If you have an opportunity to work with Claudia, I highly recommend it!"
SEBASTIEN ECKERSLEY-MAslIN, | CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, BLUECHILLI
“Claudia was Head of People at BlueChilli and was the leader in establishing and growing the diverse culture of the company making it one of the best places to work in Australia. Claudia is an incredibly well researched and empathetic individual, able to balance the dynamic priorities of the company with the needs of our people. I could always count on Claudia in providing frank advice on the direction to take on all HR issues, trusting that her empathy with her team was always backed up with facts and where appropriate, our legal obligations. Every single HR process and framework used at BlueChilli was designed and implemented by Claudia, including recruitment, retention, salary reviews, performance reviews and conflict resolution.
BlueChilli was widely regarded of having an incredible work culture and ethic, and this is largely due to Claudia’s work in driving the BlueChilli culture. From evolving our company’s values to establishing programs and activities intended to bring our team together and to celebrate our diverse nature, the truly remarkable work place that was BlueChilli was built on Claudia’s cultural blueprint. I can’t recommend Claudia enough in any culture and people related leadership role where diversity and inclusivity are celebrated."
BEN WIRTZ | CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER, BLUECHILI
“It is my absolute pleasure to recommend Claudia as a former employee of BlueChilli. Claudia was Head of People at BlueChilli until December 2019. In her role she worked closely with the executive and leadership team, and was responsible for hiring and retaining the incredible team at BlueChilli.
Claudia joining BlueChilli as Head of People is one of the best things that ever happened to BlueChilli. She is a deeply caring leader who puts people truly front and centre of everything she does.
Claudia has huge amounts of empathy for the individual team members and constantly champions their needs at executive level.She also has a talent for implementing systems and processes that saved us many times from chaos. She has been a highly trusted and valued advisor to the whole executive suite and will be sorely missed.
Hiring Claudia has allowed our team to reach new heights, and she will no doubt be a huge asset to any company.”
MATTHEW WERNER | NEW INITIATIVES, STOCKLAND
“In my opinion, the Head of People at BlueChilli is one of the company’s most important roles as it sets the tone for the company’s culture. Claudia did an excellent job in this role! Claudia put into place a recruitment strategy that consistently hired the best and most qualified people for their roles. But this strategy also ensured that all new hires fit into the BlueChilli culture from day one and were ready to contribute to the company’s mission of solving society’s biggest challenges with technology while making lasting impacts on their teams, startups they worked with and colleagues in the entire business. None of this could have happened without Claudia careful and considered approach to the hiring process she created.
Claudia’s responsibilities extended far beyond recruitment. She consistently impressed me with her approach to change management, solving difficult HR issues and relationship management, amongst others. Claudia shines very brightly while on stage sharing her experiences building an innovation culture with senior level executives and directors from Australia’s largest companies. Claudia leads compelling and engaging workshops that inspire participants to return to their day jobs with a call to action to make real changes within their organisations. I cannot recommend Claudia strongly enough to any organisation lucky enough to benefit from her skills and talents. Claudia is driven to succeed and does not hesitate to take on ambitious and difficult projects and sees them through to successful completion. Claudia is highly structured and process-orientated and a consummate professional. I have learned a lot working with Claudia while having a good time thanks to Claudia’s great energy and creativity! I sincerely hope that our professional paths cross again in the near future!”
BREE CLARE | SR OPERATIONS MANAGER, COVER GENIUS
Claudia is the fairy godmother of businesses. She can come in and bring order to utter chaos, she can transfer even the most mundane and archaic departments and companies into well oiled innovative machines and inspire all those around her. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with her on several projects and there is no doubt that she continually leaves any project exponentially better than when she started. No challenge is too intimidating and she’s not afraid to get her hands dirty either, she has the rare ability to think big picture without losing sight of the details.
One of the best examples is her work at the ABC, where she was given the task of transforming the technology department into a culture of learning and growth. This is no easy task within a legacy company. Claudia designed a comprehensive learning program for employees including intensive workshop sessions that covered not only the hard skills but the soft skills such as vulnerability and creativity.
This is her secret sauce if you will, she’s deeply empathetic and plays the tape to the end so she understands how to take someone on a journey from A to B. I could go on and on about how incredible she is not only to work with but as a person but as soon as you meet her you’d see it.
JASON MA | PRODUCT MANAGER, BLUECHILLI
“Claudia is an absolute genius at what she does and she did an amazing job at hiring and retaining our crazy bunch of people, called BlueChillians. As our Head of People, Claudia not only assembled an extremely diverse group of people, with different skills ranging from software development, to product management, UX/UI design, business development and more, she also had the systems in place to engage and retain the team, and keep everyone aligned towards BlueChilli's common goals and four values. She's upbeat, upfront, loud and proud, and brings an energy to the office which is unrivalled. It's no wonder we call her our resident 'Flamingo'! Claudia is the most talented People/HR professional I have ever worked with and I know she will make a huge impact in whichever organisation is lucky enough to have her. She has my highest recommendation.”