Jelena Djordjevic Promoted to Chief People Officer Role
At Thumbtack, we believe that we’re only as successful as our people. They’re the ones who define our vision, drive impact for our business, and deliver value for our pro community and consumers. That makes our People Team not just an operational function, but a truly strategic part of our organization and our business. And today, I’m excited to announce that Jelena Djordjevic will lead that team as our new Chief People Officer.
Jelena’s already been heading our People Team for the last three years as VP of People. Her elevation to Chief People Officer is a recognition of both the importance of this role in our company and Jelena’s exceptional qualifications.
To succeed as a CPO, you need to be a leader who believes in the power of people to deliver an incredible business impact. The job calls for a unique combination of IQ and EQ: you’ve got to be able to think at all times in terms of business strategy, while also being sensitive to what people need and how best to attract, retain, and inspire them.
Jelena has all of these skills in spades. Since she joined Thumbtack six years ago as Chief of Staff, I’ve seen her dedication to our company values and her determination to help put them into action time and time again. In recent years, she’s played a critical role in areas such as our Future of Work initiatives, performance and goal-setting philosophy and practices, as well as building systems and processes to support our high-impact team. Along the way, she’s recruited and empowered a talented group of leaders and experts to complement her own experience. From top to bottom, Jelena has made our People Team stronger and more effective for our employees and our business alike.
For those who haven’t had the pleasure of getting to know Jelena as well as I do, I sat down with her to chat about her new role, her background, her leadership philosophy, and her vision for the days ahead.
Marco: How would you describe your new role?
Jelena: In one sense, the scope of my responsibilities won’t change from what I’ve been doing for the past few years. I still have the same incredible team, functions, and responsibilities as before. But over time, the expectations for business impact have grown significantly, and that’s going to be a defining feature of my work as CPO.
As VP of People, I was responsible for managing the People Team to ensure that we achieved important people outcomes, including launching initiatives such as Future of Work and our new performance and goal-setting philosophy that had a positive impact on the business. I had to understand our employees’ and leaders’ needs and regularly take the pulse of the organization to shape our strategy and roadmap.
While those remain key priorities, as CPO, the bar is now higher on business impact. As much as the CFO, COO, or any other senior executive, I’m expected to act as a steward and driver of the business. That means contributing equally to our team’s ability to hit our short-term financial, business, and organizational goals, as well as helping make the business more successful in the long term. I have to think years out about where we’re headed as a business and use every tool at my disposal to positively change our trajectory of Thumbtack.
It’s no coincidence that our team’s vision statement is to power the success of the business through the success of our people.
Marco: You had never worked in an HR role before becoming Head of People at Thumbtack. Tell us about your journey.
Jelena: Before joining Thumbtack, I worked as a management consultant at Bain. I loved the people, culture, and professional development there, but I really wanted to help build a business and organization, not just serve as an advisor to clients. I looked for a company with a mission and culture I could believe in. I found that as Chief of Staff at Thumbtack, where I could apply my passions and skills around operational excellence at a very people-centric organization.
As a Chief of Staff, you have a fair amount of flexibility to craft your areas of focus according to both the needs of the business and your own strengths and interests. I found myself gravitating to people-oriented projects like defining our company values, reshaping our parental leave policy, supporting reorganizations and executive hiring, and so on. I then was able to step into a Head of People role.
Along the way, the things that have really kept me here and deepened my commitment to Thumbtack are its people and the opportunities it offers for growth. This is a place where you can really be yourself and do your best work, and I’ve always felt that as an employee. It’s also a very dynamic and exciting place. Every 12 to 24 months, the company goes through a major transformation, whether in the product or driven by the macro economy we operate in. I constantly find myself on the front lines of change for the company, and that’s where I thrive.
Marco: How did you develop the specific skills and capabilities required to be an effective CPO?
Jelena: It was clear from day one that I needed the best possible team around me. I recruited the best functional experts and leaders I could find, and they’ve been instrumental in the success we’ve achieved together.
Stepping into the Head of People position three years ago put me on an incredibly steep learning curve. I had a lot to learn, as quickly as possible. I regularly collect informal feedback from my team, but I also run robust, structured 360-degree processes where everyone I work with, from the Board and other executives to my direct reports, is interviewed to give me feedback. Every six months I do a deep assessment with my manager on what’s going well, what’s not, strengths I want to develop, and paths I want to pursue. Based on this feedback, I set development goals for myself and share them broadly with my team so they know what I am working on and can help me by giving me targeted feedback. I’ve also worked with two long-term executive coaches.
Marco: How would you describe your leadership style?
Jelena: As I mentioned, I’m a big believer in feedback and having a growth mindset. We’re all on an endless path of development, and we need mutual support for that. That goes hand-in-hand with vulnerability and authenticity so that we can get to know each other as humans.
I often say, “I love building the future, together.” Being part of a tight knit, effective, and impactful team really fuels me. As a leader, I am very team and impact-oriented and constantly ask: What impact can we have as a team?
Marco: What impact has virtual work had on the people function at Thumbtack?
Jelena: When you’re working virtually, you have to be much more deliberate and intentional on all fronts, whether it be building relationships, onboarding employees, or developing professionally.
It’s key that you make the implicit, explicit, to set employees up for success. We applied that learning to our Performance and Goal-setting philosophy. We’re moving toward a model of an annual performance review and lightweight quarterly check-ins, along with explicit goals, clear career criteria, and structured learning and development programming.
As a company, we need to put in enough structure so that people have a clear set of expectations and opportunities for feedback and growth. That context helps put their careers in their own hands so they can develop, advance, and thrive on their own initiative.
Marco: Looking ahead, what are you most excited about?
Jelena: My favorite type of work involves transformative change with company-wide impact — the kinds of inflection points where the world has changed, and you have to figure out how to get ahead of the curve instead of falling behind it. For example, the Future of Work transition involved everyone in the company and fundamentally changed Thumbtack forever. We banded together to build a new future.
Now, we’re bringing the same kind of energy to elevating our business impact orientation, while fiercely protecting our values-driven culture.
I’ve always believed that, as a company, we need to bring the same level of rigor to managing the health of our organization, as we do to managing the health of our business. That’s why we have robust People dashboards, do regular employee surveys, and host quarterly Organization Health Reviews with our Board, execs, and leaders.
As a People Team, we are challenging ourselves to be more impact and outcomes-oriented. We are clearly defining the impact we want to have and measuring progress against concrete metrics through our own Quarterly Business Reviews. The next frontier for us is to really understand and quantify the business impact of the significant investment Thumbtack makes in the employee experience. By understanding the ROI of our efforts, we can continue to make investments that will move the needle for our employees and the business.
Simply put, I am excited to continue finding ways to power the success of our business through the success of our people.
Marco: When you aren’t working, what are you up to?
Jelena: I live in the Bay Area with my husband and two young kids. As a family, we love going on local adventures, bike rides, hosting dinner parties with other families, and playing board games. When I get some time alone, I love hiking in the East Bay hills behind my house, doing yoga, meditating, hanging with friends and doing art projects with my kids.
My personal passion is traveling and I try to show the world to my family. We’re going to Georgia (in the Caucasus) this summer with our kids to hike and do village homestays. We’ve also taken advantage of virtual work to work remotely during school holidays close to family on the East Coast, Serbia, and Germany.
To learn more about Thumbtack and our open positions, visit www.thumbtack.com/careers.
