The People & Culture Connection
The boutique People and Culture Consulting firm for all of your startup People needs.
Who We Are
Solutions for Success
The People & Culture Connection is a boutique HR Agency that focuses on people. We take a fresh, modern, people-first approach to HR and People Operations, creating vibrant workplaces, and offering businesses the security of knowing that efficient and compliant systems and processes are in place.
The Team
Behind the Scenes
Samantha De Fonseka
Founder & Fractional CPO
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Samantha is genuinely passionate about people and their experience at work. With over 10 years of experience across the entire employee lifecycle, Samantha brings a professional skill set that is key to supporting startups and growth stage businesses. With an understanding of both local and global businesses, including the US, the EU, Latin America, APAC, and South Asia, Samantha brings a strong understanding of people practices in a variety of settings and cultures.
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Samantha is pragmatic and understands commercial business drivers and how to create a people strategy that supports success. Samantha is confident, energetic and passionate about promoting cultures of diversity, inclusion, and belonging, and brings these values to the people and culture initiatives she leads.
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She is a seasoned People Operations professional and expert in scaling start-ups through hyper-growth phases. Having worked in international education, fintech, and crypto, her key strengths are big-picture strategy, coaching, change management, implementing systems and infrastructure, compliance, defining and fostering culture, developing total rewards programs, employee relations, and data analysis.
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Samantha is dual certified in HR best practices, holding both SPHR and SHRM-SCP designations. She is continually furthering her skillset and is currently pursuing her MBA at the Australian Institute of Business, with a focus on HR and entrepreneurship.
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