📣 Kaylee Tanner, Director of Human Resources @ Trace Genomics:
Sounds like your company is in the sweet spot where it's time to insource and make HR a strategic part of the business. This is very exciting and a challenge to find the right person 🙂 At first glance, I'd recommend hiring at least the director level or C-Suite to ensure you find someone who is focused on strategy.
Ensure the person has both hands-on execution and a strategic focus... this is difficult to find but paramount to success as you make that first hire. Typically someone with a background with smaller organizations or even startups may be helpful. Ask really tangible questions about what they have personally done, implemented, and recommended to dive into the details.
I have experience with similar organizations and now own a consulting practice. Let me know if you want to chat about your needs, I love making connections in the agriculture industry and am happy to dig deeper with you!
📣 Dan Bonach, Fractional CHRO @ Valhalla HR:
Have you considered hiring a Fractional HR leader? I work with clients ranging from 15 to 500, with very little support infrastructure within each company and have helped them create foundational HR functions from nothing while creating sustainable processes for future growth.
Most often at this stage of growth, you have a need for experience, but cannot afford to pay an experienced HR professional, leaving you having to lead and direct someone without the experience you need to build and scale. An experienced fractional HR professional can give you an immediate return on the investment and have the experience to help you continue your growth journey.
📣 Rosetta Williams, Sr. Director, People Talent & Culture @ Immigrant Justice Corps:
This is a great question, and one that comes up a lot at this growth stage. A few things I'd offer from experience building HR infrastructure in nonprofits that operate more like businesses:
Start with a clear-eyed role design before you post anything.
At 120 people, you're at a classic inflection point — too big to manage people informally, but without the HR foundation to support real growth. Resist the urge to hire a generalist and see what happens. Be explicit about the full scope: compliance, operations, and people strategy. Candidates who claim "strategic HR" but mean they've attended culture committee meetings are not what you need.
Hire at the VP or Director level — and make clear this is not a department of one. The complexity you're describing — multi-state compliance, a revenue-generating nonprofit model, 100% remote workforce, and a genuine culture agenda — warrants senior leadership, not just a senior practitioner. Equally important: the right candidate should walk into the interview already thinking about the team they'll need to build. Ask them directly: *"What HR support structure would you put in place in year one to achieve compliance, operational efficiency, and strategic culture work?"* Someone who hasn't thought about this isn't ready for the role.
For a remote, field-based workforce, operational credibility matters.
"Remote" in agriculture doesn't look like remote in tech. Your HR leader needs to understand distributed, non-desk workforces — different rhythms, connectivity realities, and relationships to HR. Ask candidates how they've supported field-based or similarly dispersed teams. It's a differentiator that narrows the field quickly.
Nonprofit-specific considerations:
- Mission alignment matters, but don't let it substitute for HR competence. You want someone who connects with sustainable agriculture's ethos — but first, they need to be a strong practitioner and people leader.
- Prioritize builders over maintainers. Ask: "Describe a time you built an HR function from scratch with limited resources." The answer tells you everything.
- Compensation will be your friction point. HR leaders with this depth command competitive salaries. Make the business case internally — underpaying this hire is a false economy.
Include a practical component in your interview process.
Give candidates a scenario that reflects your actual complexity: "We've just learned we're out of compliance with leave laws in two states — walk me through how you'd assess and address this." Strategic instincts show up in how people think, not just what's on their résumé.
Happy to go deeper on any of this — hiring for HR compounds, for better or worse.
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