239 - Helen Russell (Chief People Officer, HubSpot): The growing trust gap at work

Helen Russell, Chief People Officer at HubSpot, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about how HubSpot is fostering an AI-first culture, why belonging is so important right now, and what HR leaders can do to move fast without losing their humanity. ----  Sponsor Links: 🔗 Get your free 30-day Synthesia account. 🔗 Get in contact with the Career Sandwich team. 🔗 Request a demo of ChartHop. MPL Links: 🔗 Buy your ticket for MPL Live New York. 🔗 Go sign up for MPL Build. ----  (04:48) Creating safe spaces for HR leaders to connect (07:43) What HubSpot does & Helen’s role as CPO (10:09) HubSpot's marketing leadership and AI innovation (11:53) What HR leaders are talking about now: RTO, AI, DEI & manager overload (14:10) Engagement, psychological safety & cultural struggle (16:38) Why belonging is the metric that moves everything else (18:58) The four-pillar talent strategy at HubSpot (21:51) How cultural commitments and behavior are being realigned (24:09) The evolution of “HEART” to “Deliver with HEART” and new commitments (26:22) Balancing urgency with human-centered belonging (28:23) Monday Minute & Grow DAI: Scaling safe AI experimentation (31:21) From deflect to automate to enable – how HubSpot’s internal AI strategy evolves (33:17) Flashback to Rivian: bottlenecks, decision-making, and now AI frameworks (34:28) Buying vs building AI tools – from BrightHire to Tenor to Qualtrics (36:45) Creating a “common front door” with GPT for all employee services (39:01) Why HR teams should start building AI tools themselves (42:47) A call for HR to step up and lead through AI transformation (44:50) Don’t get left behind – HR’s chance to take the lead (46:05) MCPs explained (for non-tech leaders) & the future of SaaS + LLMs (49:38) What MCPs mean for employees as internal customers (50:34) Why traditional SaaS may be in trouble & horizontal automation is the future (53:09) Rapid Fire: Top leadership traits in the AI era (53:39) The HR team of the future is deeply human (54:29) AI strategy envy & final takeaways ----  📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get episode recaps 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn