PUTTING THE HEART BACK INTO THE WORKPLACE with Claude Silver

Audio production by James Ede, Be Heard

Claude Silver is the Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia, a digital agency founded by Gary Vaynerchuk, an entrepreneur, author, speaker and internet personality.

Like other businesses founded by Gary V, the agency experienced rapid growth since it was founded and now works with a wide range of clients including Fortune 500 brands including GE, PepsiCo, Mondelēz, Dove, Spotify, Unilever, Toyota, and many more.

In our interview, Claude explains that the “heart” in Chief Heart Officer means being in touch with the heartbeat of every single person at the agency.

She feels it’s her job to have a finger on the pulse of who needs mentorship, who needs a chat, who needs a team change, or who needs anything really.

Claude is constantly reaching out and communicating with people — through one-on-one conversations, text messages, emails, and quick phone calls.

Claude and I talk about the challenges of maintaining such a high-touch job while running an HR department of an agency with 800+ employees, what the culture at VaynerMedia is really like, and why “heart” is important when running a business.

Episode Highlights

• What Claude learned from her grandmother and how she’s integrating this knowledge in her life and career today
• What Gary V wanted to accomplish by integrating a Chief Heart Officer role into VaynerMedia
• How Claude perceives the uniqueness of VanynerMedia
• What the culture at VaynerMedia is like according to Claude
• The challenges of “scaling” culture during a period of rapid growth
• What Claude is experimenting with when it comes to HR systems and tools

Listen to the interview in the player below, or on iTunes. If you like what you hear, please leave a review and it may be featured on a future episode.

Audio production by James Ede, Be Heard

More about Claude Silver

As VaynerMedia’s first Chief Heart Officer, Claude Silver unlocks employees’ potential by forging a human-to-human connection, creates cultures of belonging, empowers teams to be purpose-driven, efficient, and strong, and infuses the agency with empathy, humanity, and joy.

Claude’s unique perspective on servant leadership and team-building comes both from her training in Positive Psychology and her experience in talent management, leadership development, coaching, workplace culture, and people operations for over 800+ employees across VaynerMedia.

She also founded and ran an outdoor adventure & surf company in San Francisco where she was in the cold Pacific Ocean coaching 250 days a year. Prior to VaynerMedia, Claude held leadership positions at Publicis London, J.Walter Thompson (London & San Francisco), and Organic San Francisco. She and her family live in New York City.

Connect with Claude on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Books mentioned on the Podcast

You Are A Badass® by Jen Sincero

Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live. Love, Parent and Lead by Brene Brown

Build it: The Rebel Playbook for World-class Employee Engagement by Glenn Elliott

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