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HR Grapevine
Tanya Channing,
CPCO, Pipedrive
Tanya Channing, CPCO at tech firm Pipedrive knew that throwing money into headcount wasn’t the right was to scale the business...
Tanya Channing,
CPCO, Pipedrive
Tanya Channing, CPCO at tech firm Pipedrive knew that throwing money into headcount wasn’t the right was to scale the business...
Scaling a business is not for the faint-hearted. Tanya Channing, Chief People and Culture Officer (CPCO) at tech business, Pipedrive explains how she has done just that by incrementally introducing people strategies while not letting go of that enviable people-first culture and the trust so many of the ‘Pipedrivers’ relish.
You get a sense of Tanya Channing’s ethos by the fact she studied Japanese at degree level, having never done so before at Durham University. Yet, she’s not about whims but courage to do differently and step outside of her comfort zone – she continues to do so now, leaving behind a glittering HR career in which she has performed in roles including, HR Director of Burger King, Chief of Staff to the CIO, Worldpay and CHRO at Nets Group. She now works for the unicorn-valued Pipedrive, a business that began in Estonia in 2010 and is scaling up to greatness.
The HR early years
Channing’s HR career began even before Burger King. She was at energy drink maker Red Bull to start with. “I worked my way up the ranks, it was great because it gave me full autonomy and Red Bull was a creative business to work for. It very much drove the employee experience from the inside out.”
Looking back at her time at Red Bull, she says it was cutting edge, particularly in terms of how they thought about innovation and people. “Then I moved into the advertising world. I realised I needed to try something more corporate and bigger scale.”
She moved to an advertising agency, and it was to be one of her first experiences into tech and digital. “It was the early days when agile methodology was not really a thing, and everyone was still working with the waterfall strategy. I thought it was interesting to see how you could change culture not only with the hardware but with ways of working.” Channing realised then that this was going to be a better way of driving better outcomes while at the same time increasing empathy and understanding of customer needs.
It was my first experience of private equity, and I haven’t really looked back since. As an HR professional I love transformation and being part of an executive team in a PE backed business where you can drive creativity through innovative people and culture strategies is where I want to be
Tanya Channing | Chief People and Culture Officer, Pipedrive
Her next move was to Burger King. She wanted exposure to one of the American greats. “I needed to do something large and scalable. I generally think that every HR professional needs to do their time in retail because you learn so much about the employee relations side of things,” she describes it as the grounding she needed to learn about customer operations which is what she felt she needed.
It was now 2011 and she moved to Worldpay as their Organisational Capability Director. She says, “It was my first experience of private equity, and I haven’t really looked back since. As an HR professional I love transformation and being part of an executive team in a PE backed business where you can drive creativity through innovative people and culture strategies is where I want to be.”
Managing merger and acquisitions is a skillset you need to get comfortable with in the PE space. Channing says that one of the things she loves about it is that the HR role within it focuses on much more than just the traditional elements of people and culture. “I have learned a lot about post merger integration, re-engineering organisations, creating synergies, and rebuilding cultures to create a better combined value during my time in PE,” says Channing.
She eventually left Worldpay in the year the pandemic hit, 2019 and spent the next three and a half years at Nets Group.
