[Interview] Leslie McIntyre Tavella, Founder of Culpeo HR

Not every staffing executive comes with an Ivy League pedigree. In fact, many of the most successful staffing entrepreneurs had humble beginnings—and created great success through grit, determination, and a lot of street smarts.  

Today’s guest, Leslie McIntyre Tavella, is one of these people. As you’ll hear in her story, she grew up in a blue-collar family, leaving high school at age 16 to take on the world.  

And boy, has she succeeded.  

Leslie has had a 31-year career in the staffing industry. In that time, she founded and grew an award-winning agency serving central Connecticut, CT, wrote a book on the lessons of growing an entrepreneurial company, and founded an HR consulting business training small to midsize employers to become “HR progressive.” 

In this episode, Leslie talks with us about her experiences in the staffing industry, the keys to breaking through the ceilings that often constrain small staffing companies, and her remarkable journey to becoming a community and industry leader. 

Here are a few of the topics we discuss: 

• What staffing company owners need to do to build a rock-solid foundation for growth. 
• The importance of having a clear “MVP.” 
• The one-question Leslie trained her team to ask – as question she credits for increasing company revenue 10 to 15 percent each year! 
• What it means to be “HR Progressive” and why companies need to start thinking this way. 
• Reasons to create a “bragable” brand, and why this has become so important for staffing companies and their clients. 
• Rethinking job postings with the HYMN process. 
• Why today is really not a “new normal” and we’re never going back to what was. 

 If you’d like to know more about Leslie, here’s how you can connect: 

Leslie McIntyre on LinkedIn  

Culpeo HR website 

And don’t miss Leslie’s book, Framing Success. 

Here’s the Amazon link