I’ve known the founders of HumanFirst for more than 10 years. Gregory Whiteside and I were early founding team members of a startup, Passwordbox. Going from pre-product-market fit, working at the ground level with a handful of beta users, to millions of users around the globe, we got to build and scale a few really exciting things together, and experienced the full development of a small, lean team into an established operation. With different perspectives, I was building on the business and marketing side, while Greg and Mathieu Rene–an incredible technical leader whose later addition to the team was game-changing–were innovating on the product. Together we saw the company through a Series A raise and an eventual exit to Intel - it was a ride. 

We stayed connected during our next chapters. Greg and Matt started building what would become HumanFirst. I ventured down a path of Venture Capital, and later operated in startups of different scale. But I always loved my time connecting early-stage teams, building GTM strategies, and helping companies find different ways to grow.

When Greg and Matt reached back out for advice and support, they were at an exciting stage of development. HumanFirst had just been selected as a Google Partner to help bring AI-powered prompt and data engineering to Google customers across the GCP ecosystem. With a deep belief in the problem they were solving, and a hunger to return to hands-on operation, I jumped at the chance to join HumanFirst–initially as an advisor, and soon as full-time COO. 

I’ve seen many companies grapple with the emerging potential and challenges brought on by AI in the last five years. The uptake of Generative AI at the beginning of 2023 was catalytic, both to the potential and to the challenges. Before I joined HumanFirst, I was already a want-to-be user, understanding the kinds of problems this tool can solve for any company across any function, from analytics and customer experience to sales, marketing, product, and HR operations.

I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to now join HumanFirst formally as COO. I’m focused on scaling the team, the product, and our path to growth. We’re lucky to have an incredible customer and partner base, and we’re excited by the problems we’ve been able to solve for enterprises who are looking for safe, effective and agile ways to mine their data for insights as they set out to build more company- and customer-specific solutions with AI. 

At HumanFirst, we believe Generative AI will power every company, and we’re bullish about the productivity tooling that will keep humans in the driver's seat. The truth of great product, team, and customer experiences is hidden in the data companies collect daily. With a more intuitive, more efficient, and more human-in-the-loop workflow to organize and action that data, we believe teams will have what they need to improve their employee and customer experience, differentiate their product offerings, and find and solve real problems with AI they can trust. 

If you’re interested to know more about what we’re working on at HumanFirst, please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. If you’re in Montreal, you can always intercept me on a waterside walk with my 7 month old puppy, Boo. And of course, you can visit our website and book a meeting. My team and I love thinking creatively with people and teams who are as excited as we are about the new GenAI future as we are–we want to know what you’re working on!

HumanFirst is a data-centric productivity platform designed to help companies find and solve problems with AI-powered workflows that combine prompt and data engineering. Experiment with raw data, surface insights, and build reliable solutions with speed, accuracy, and trust.