What Lisbon is Teaching Me About Building Startups That Don’t Break Their People
I originally came to Lisbon for the lifestyle. I'm staying because it makes me rethink what I knew about building companies (well that ... plus the food).
As a fractional CHRO, I help fast-growing startups from Seed to Series C scale their people ops. I used to believe speed was the edge. Now I know clarity is the edge.
Lisbon runs on a different clock. Coffee breaks aren’t performance metrics. People greet each other like humans. It’s not slowness, it’s presence. And presence is exactly what many startups need.
Early-stage chaos rewards hustle and motion. But teams don’t fall apart because they moved too slowly. They break because they moved without shared focus, without intentional systems, without attention to the human engine driving the work.
Now, my work is rooted in both strategy and space. I help founders and investors build resilient leadership, people-first systems, and culture that doesn’t melt under pressure. Lisbon reminds me: pace without presence is just noise.
This isn’t about going slow. It’s about knowing when to pause, reflect, and build with intention, before speed becomes self-destruction.
Lisbon is a city of contrasts. Bold yet grounded. Historic yet inventive. That’s exactly how I now approach HR.
Not as a department. As an operating system.
If you’re an investor, founder, or operator scaling a team, don’t wait for dysfunction to emerge.
DM me if you’re building and need a smarter people strategy from Day 1.
#FractionalCHRO
#PeopleOps
#StartupLeadership
#ScalingStartups
#HumanCapital
#VentureTalent
#SeedToSeriesC
