Andrew Golden, Chief People Officer at RetailNext, joined us on The Modern People Leader.
We talked about how he’s driving transformation, why HR and IT must partner more closely, the power of building lightweight AI solutions in-house, and why he’s optimistic about the future of people teams.
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(10:15) Burnout, Leaving RetailNext & Working in Family Accounting Firm
(11:49) Explaining RetailNext’s Business: Hardware + data insights for retail stores
(13:30) Why Andrew Returned to RetailNext & Rejoining After Private Equity Acquisition
(16:35) Restarting PeopleOps as a Product at RetailNext
(17:59) Partnering with PX Sapiens & Lean PX Design Principles
(20:16) Portugal Trip Lightbulb Moment: Rethinking HRBP model
(22:21) Moving Away from Traditional Org Charts → Workflow Alignment
(24:16) Practical Application: Embedding People Team into Business Workflows
(26:36) The Three Workflows: Pre-Customer, Post-Customer, and Transitions
(28:08) EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) & Core Processes in HR
(29:50) How EOS + PeopleOps as a Product Fit Together
(32:18) Redefining “Strategic HR” as Operationally Relevant HR
(35:20) Advice for Skeptics: Why Agile PX Matters
(36:57) Building HR Tools with AI: Andrew’s Employee Engagement Platform
(40:33) The SaaS vs. Build Trade-Off: Flexibility with AI Tools
(42:58) Why Now Is the Time: Optimism in HR’s Future
(59:36) How HR and IT Partner Together at RetailNext
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Past guests on MPL include Brené Brown, Annie Dean (VP of Team Anywhere, Atlassian), Josh Bersin, Katie Burke (Chief People Officer, Harvey), Liz Fosslien, Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot), Dave Scott (Chief People Officer, ADT), Melanie Rossenwasser (Chief People Officer, Dropbox), Crystal Boysen (Chief People Officer, Sprout Social), and many more.
