The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR 235 - 3 principles this Head of People swears by to build high-impact teams – Frieda Möcker (Head of People & Culture, Sastrify)
Frieda Möcker, Head of People & Culture at Sastrify, joined us on The Modern People Leader.
We talked about the first steps she took to treat HR more like a product, how her team does sprint planning, and why she prefers “NCTs” over OKRs.
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Timestamps:
(11:05) What’s Your Story? – Frieda’s path from business grad to People leader
(17:30) Lessons in Career – Finding purpose, startups, and self-awareness
(18:47) About Sastrify – SaaS management, shadow IT, and compliance
(20:40) Why PeopleOps as a Product Resonated – Discovering the framework
(23:03) Reading Jessica’s Blog – The gym moment that changed everything
(25:15) Reaching Out to Jessica – Building connections through shared philosophy
(26:23) Putting Theory into Practice – Mapping employee journeys, launching sprints
(29:17) Our 3 Guiding Principles – Maximize impact, think like a scientist, build through others
(31:33) Employee Research – Interviews, pulse checks, and surfacing insights
(33:26) Making It Your Own – Culture fit and adapting frameworks
(34:05) Maximizing to Mission – How priorities ladder up to company goals
(38:27) Ruthless Prioritization – Why some good ideas wait in the backlog
(39:35) Team Structure – A three-person generalist People team
(41:33) Visualization in Practice – Miro, Asana, Slack, and the “SAN Stack”
(42:58) Sprint Planning – Lifecycle mapping, roles, and task ownership
(47:58) What Is ScrumBan? – Combining kanban boards and sprint logic
(50:20) Blocking & Saying No – How visualizing work helps stakeholders understand tradeoffs
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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.