Tell us a little bit about yourself and your career journey to date.
I have spent the last 13 years at GoDaddy building, growing, and now leading our global Emerging Talent Programs and team. My journey to GoDaddy was a thread of gold woven through my interests and my own experiences as an intern through college. I studied organizational psychology and in my early years of college, I cold-emailed every company I thought would be so cool to work for, to see if they had any extra work for an intern. It worked a couple of times! Notably, I was in Los Angeles, a thriving heart of the music and entertainment industry and I was extremely curious about how I could apply what I was learning to some of those exciting companies. An HR manager at Warner Music Group replied to one of my emails, and I got to spend one of my first internships helping with onboarding employees who worked with bands I loved at the time, like My Chemical Romance, Paramore, and The Used. The swag was top tier – free band tees and cd’s galore! I went on to seek out an internship in HR every year of college. I joined a scholarship program with a group of students who had internships all over the world and I remember how curious and eager I was to hear about my classmates’ experiences as interns at other companies.
I had such a great experience interning over my college years that I took that with me into my career. Prior to GoDaddy, I was working for Disney as a Tech Recruiting Coordinator and my mentor there was the head of their global internships. I learned so much from her about how intern programs run behind the scenes and knew I wanted to shift gears towards working with students and programs eventually in my own career. I landed my first role at GoDaddy through a startup called Outright, which became GoDaddy’s first ever acquisition. Aside from helping new hires onboard, I jumped in to help represent GoDaddy at so many tech conferences locally and across the country. This was at a time where GoDaddy was really putting in the effort to form an established reputation in the tech space and we were turning the tides of our brand.
At the time, GoDaddy hadn’t yet built a formal internship program, but had just identified a single person on the Talent Acquisition team to take it over. I had enough flexibility in my role at the time, that I was able to partner closely with her on everything from the ideation phase to rolling out the first official offer letter to a new grad. I officially joined her team as our first University Recruiter and we launched a huge grassroots effort to build our program from the ground up. After we were able to expand our team with more recruiters, I moved over to the Program Manager position and focused on building and managing all program operations and the intern candidate experience. A couple of years later, I took over managing the entire team and have been leading our efforts in Emerging Talent globally for the past 9 years. Over this time we have explored and expanded roles across Canada, EMEA, and India. We’ve built strong partnerships with universities, inclusion‑focused hiring organizations, coding bootcamps, and student clubs to strengthen our employer brand and expand our talent pipeline. We have stood up several different programs over the years with the focus of bridging the gap of opportunity for emerging talent who are hungry to make a difference.
What excites you most about building and running the GoDaddy internship program?
Emerging talent is such an exciting part of Talent Acquisition to me. It is highly competitive and we need to move quickly, while understanding deeply what teams need from the next generation of talent. Running the intern programs also means going past the traditional recruiting process and timeline. We don’t stop at the hire and the onboarding; we go on to build and cater to the entire cycle which includes management of a program that creates meaningful experiences and connections, while building value for not only our interns but also for the business. I love being able to use my creative brain constantly in this role.
A great internship isn’t defined by the number of fun events, but by the sense of community we build together. That’s the real anchor. I am always thinking about ways to connect interns with our leaders, with former interns who are now employees, with all the resources GoDaddy has to offer, and also connect them to what is possible here at GoDaddy and beyond. What excites me the most is being able to witness interns grow their careers over the years, and to see where the launchpad of their internship takes them in life. I’ve seen early college students go from joining us for their first ever internship, to joining GoDaddy full-time and then seeing their self-portraits tower over me at our company booth at the National Grace Hopper Conference! Many of them, I consider good friends to this day. I just attended the wedding of the very first new grad we ever hired through our program 13 years ago. We’re fortunate to have former interns, now full‑time GoDaddy employees, who enthusiastically give back by mentoring new interns, speaking on panels, supporting events, and helping run our bootcamp programs. These interns have become senior engineers, TPMs, managers and directors. Other interns have gone on to successfully launch their own ventures, building from what they’ve learned from their internship experience with us… they represent what is possible, and their success continually motivates me to inspire other interns to imagine, pursue, and achieve their own dreams!
How do you go about getting buy-in from senior leaders across the company?
We launched our programs by first identifying the schools where our senior leaders were alumni and building a strategic list of target schools from there. They came with us to campus to help us grow our brand and recruit talent and because of that, they got to see the potential of talent first-hand and acted as key ambassadors for our programs. We gained buy-in naturally because our senior leaders were hands-on from the start. Because we launched the programs with leaders in the weeds with us, we didn’t have to pitch a whole idea of a program – they were already invested. When new leaders come along and/or we’re pitching a new idea or concept for our programs, I never feel alone in those efforts. I’ve always felt welcome sharing ideas early with senior leaders. They’ve consistently kept an open door, and I never hesitate to walk through it. Often, when I do, they not only advocate but also connect my team with other leaders who champion those ideas from day one. Having leadership so bullish on early talent has been instrumental in the success of our programs. Over the years, we’ve backed this up with data, showing future leaders the tangible value early talent brings to GoDaddy and our culture.
What's the most challenging yet rewarding thing that you've worked on at GoDaddy?
Continuing to support the careers of new talent at GoDaddy has been a highlight of my career. Soon after starting the intern and new grad hiring programs, I attempted to launch an onboarding program for this new community we were building at the company. For many new grads, this was their first real job out of college and so many factors go into this life milestone: like moving to a brand new place, having benefits and 401K for the first time, and trying to understand equity and RSU’s. The list goes on! All of this on top of launching their career and the anxieties that go along with that. I had a goal of easing that burden for them so they could have a smoother transition into the workforce and dive into their new careers with confidence. I collected feedback from all of the new grads we had hired so far, and they were just as passionate about building this community and making it a little bit easier for the next wave of grads to jump into their careers.
Ultimately, we came together and built a formal pitch. Our executives thought it would be great to launch this program as an official Employee Resource Group (ERG). That was how the GD Next ERG was born and I’m so proud that it still exists today and has a group of remarkable employees running it; many of them are GoDaddy intern conversions. We run a mentorship program where GD Next members are matched with interns each year and that one connection has frequently turned into long-running mentorship and friendships. It’s amazing to see former interns who are now GoDaddy employees be so involved and enthusiastic about giving back to these programs. Their involvement isn’t just appreciated; the GD Next community has become a vital part of how our programs thrive. Recently, we were proud to send 3 GD Next members to the Forbes Under 30 Summit. When we had our round table to debrief their experience, it was discovered that all 3 of them had the same connection through our mentorship program! Such a small world, but also such a cool thing to see the real-life links of this community that functions like a chain – each link influencing and strengthening the next, forged through shared experience. This is truly how culture grows!
How does GoDaddy's culture or values show up in the way you approach work?
The programs we run would not be possible without strong partnerships across SO many different teams. It’s incredibly important to me to be able to Fuse Forces and actually foster those relationships.
GoDaddy has a culture that allows for big ideas to have a life, through Working Courageously and experimentation.
I also love that we have a culture where everyone is open to helping other people learn. If I want to become more knowledgeable in what another person or team does, all I have to do is ask. Time and time again, I’ve witnessed new ideas and partnerships come from those curious conversations. It is such a valuable part of our culture that we have at our fingertips. I feel like no matter how much GoDaddy evolves, these core values of our culture continue to ring true and steady. It's enabled me to stay confident in the way I approach my work every day!
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Outside of work, I have a 7 and almost 4-year old who keep my husband and I incredibly busy, and we go on family adventures almost every weekend. We live on the coast in the Bay Area, California so the local beaches, tidepools, parks and hikes are on heavy rotation! The kids are at an age where they are super curious about everything too, so we make it fun! I love studying astrology and going to see live shows at the theater. I also love exploring and supporting all of the local businesses in our coastal community. I feel like learning about small businesses is a genuine hobby of mine! Whether it’s a new coffee shop, a local artist, or a booth at the farmer’s market, I always have my eye out and will often go and support their events and new ventures. Small businesses here are such a web of connections to so many fun things! And it’s always a plus to catch a GoDaddy payments terminal out in the wild!
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