Kind Words

"Kim is one of a few HR professionals defining the next wave of corporate culture and best practices. Her ideas have been foundational to our building a great culture that's focused on bringing people together to do their best work and to learn and grow along the way."

"I worked with Kim closely through her 8 years at Disqus. It's difficult for me to recall moments in the company's history without her in it, as Kim was as meaningful to the company's path as any founder or early engineer. Kim was always an excellent complement to my own strengths and skills. As a first-time founder and CEO, my job was varied and was also constantly changing. Kim complemented this by always growing as an operator and a people manager -- supporting me in areas where I was weaker and seeking growth in areas that were new to her. She excels at finding areas where she can make contributions that will be felt, no matter how murky or distant the goals may be. I feel both fortunate and proud of the time we had working together, and it's clear to me that she's someone who would be a dependable partner to anyone at any level in an organization. For similar reasons, Kim also has the make of a strong leader that others regularly look to for guidance."

"For almost a decade, Kim Rohrer has been one of the most important people in my professional network. She is a role model, a mentor and a friend. I had the pleasure of meeting her through OrgOrg, an organization she co-founded, and was instrumental in helping me find my way early in my career. I credit Kim’s thoughtful approach to community building as a main reason OrgOrg stood out as one of the top professional networks. She is at her core, a connector; always looking to help others find compelling professional contacts and opportunities. Over the years, she has helped me navigate my HR career, find my unique voice and connect with fellow People Ops enthusiasts. However, what I marvel at the most is how she has not only grown as a founder, leader and executive, but maintained a high level of integrity and humility along the way. She truly is one of a kind."

"Kim is enterprising, industrious, and engaging: she is one of those people who you want to know not just because she knows everyone you might want to know, but because of the pleasure of her company."

"Kim set out on a mission to create a community and provide stability to a burgeoning number of support professionals in the San Francisco start-up world. Through Kim’s thoughtful and intentional architecture, and her proclivity for bringing people together, OrgOrg grew from a small group of 3 in San Francisco to nearly 4,000 across the globe! Due to Kim’s credibility in the industry, she was able to form valuable partnerships with other organizations who might otherwise be competitors, as well as vendors and professional networks -- OrgOrg became not only a place to commiserate and get support, but also a place to source relationships for varying business needs. Kim has an amazing ability to juggle competing priorities from creating and scaling OrgOrg to assisting startups through their PeopleOps challenges to championing those around her struggling the same way she once did. Kim is an indelible force and I would be honored to work with her again."

"I first saw Kim's enthusiasm for helping startups get up and running when we worked together at Disqus, when she not just built Disqus, but also helped a number of startups that went from fledgling service providers to full-blown operations during the time Kim helped to guide them. Later, as I was incubating Layoff-Aid, I naturally went out of my way to get Kim's feedback, when she didn't just give valuable critical feedback. Kim was incredibly generous with intros, staffing expertise, and the kind of advocacy that can be the difference at pushing an early stage venture over the hump. Kim is the best, whether she's building a killer culture from the ground up, scaling PeopleOps teams, tackling thorny internal issues with grace, or guiding bleeding edge startups. I will be recruiting Kim whenever I have the chance."

"I had the pleasure of working with Kim through OrgOrg, Kim's longstanding brainchild, and the community network she created. We have worked together for over three years.

I remember meeting Kim for the first time in person. I had emailed Kim asking her to get coffee when I was in town. I was so nervous prior to our meeting… here was this woman who created the platform (OrgOrg) that helped me land all of my jobs over the last few years! It was a big deal! But the nerves dissipated almost immediately once she walked in and sat down.

Just like that very first meeting, Kim has consistently proven to be warm and down to earth — anyone who meets her will quickly attest to that. But what is so incredible about Kim goes beyond the ease in knowing and working alongside and for her; Kim's pioneering spirit is remarkably unique.

Kim is a creator and a founder at her core. She created an organization that helps connect people — folks who are typically in roles that can feel very lonely and isolating. For years, Kim single-handedly lead OrgOrg and eventually built a volunteer team to support her and the organization's growing community. Kim dreamt up event after event, partnership and sponsorship opportunities, built out archives, started a regular newsletter, an affiliate program, created dozens of free resources, grew the community from 1 to 4,000, and even created a first-ever OrgOrg user conference in SF in 2018. All of this happened while Kim and our entire leadership team of volunteers were working full time at our day jobs. To say that Kim inspires hard work would be an understatement. Kim inspired us to do incredible work. She models the behavior and the team followed suit because we believed in Kim and her vision for our organization.

While I don’t have the opportunity to work with Kim anymore, she remains my mentor, an advocate for me, and a lifelong friend. I’m so grateful to have been a part of Kim’s OrgOrg!"

"'I've now known Kim for over 20 years and across a variety of leadership roles, from going to school together to watching her found and grow OrgOrg, to being peer People leaders in the PeopleTech Partners community. When I think of Kim's many (many!) strengths, what stands out to me most is how she (1) deeply understands community and (2) uses this to connect people in order to (3) solve real problems. Kim has thrived in a variety of roles and contexts and has built a robust and meaningful network along the way, the next business that unlocks the magic that is Kim Rohrer is a lucky one"

"In my time at Disqus, if you asked me who the heart and soul of the company were, my first answer would be Kim. Kim defined Disqus' culture, and that culture was one of the best, most enriching and productive experiences I've had in my career. Kim helped build a company whose employees valued each other, valued the hard work they put into the product they were making, and valued their users and the relationship created with those users around the world."

"I have worked with Kim for the entire 5 years I worked at Disqus and I can easily say she created the awesome Disqus culture from the ground up and made it sustainable. Here are a few specific ways how she achieved this and helped Disqus leave its mark on me and simply shifted what I look in a company culture:

• Kim was very proactive, seeking out all the ways in all possible places to improve communications, efficiency and happiness at Disqus

• Kim was able to distill and tailor all those different ideas and implementations into something specific and applicable to Disqus

• Kim realized the need to scale herself and the culture very early on and invested into this. She expanded the People Operations team slowly but steadily while also codifying the every day operations she was doing in a way that new hires in the PO department were able to sustain the culture while allowing her to look into the future for more strategic planning.

• Kim was as transparent as she can with company decisions, status and policies. Our PO department run happiness surveys periodically and she made the raw and interpreted results available as soon as possible, without sugar coating any not-so-great parts.

• Kim always made sure that action was taken when an issue was raised. I could literally track the progress of certain changes once they were surfaced either in regular pulse surveys or in 1-1 discussions.

At the end, she helped and drived such a strong and valid culture at Disqus that when the company had tough times, everyone actually came together instead of going into their own corners in desperation. Even when there was a large number of people going in or out, the core values of the company and the culture maintained itself while also evolving to benefit from the new people's experiences.

Now if you work at a large company, you may be saying "duh, this is the way you do things" but mind you the largest Disqus was during those times were 60 people with at most 4 people in the PO department, including Kim. I'd say that's not something everyone can do and I have learned so much from her regarding how to work better and make a company feel connected.

I'd always remember those times fondly and would be looking out for any opportunities to work with her again."

"I’m starting a parents ERG at Discord and keep on coming back to examples of what Disqus did well! You are a great cultural leader!"

"Kim understands people operations better then anyone I've met. She was insightful in helping us hire the perfect person and understands the tactical side of operations (HR / Benefits / Accounting) and people / culture which is equally as important. I'd highly recommend her to any companies in rapid scale mode."

"Thanks to Kim and the community she built, I was able to scale the org I was working at the time from 10 to 150+. Kim is shaping the new paradigm of HR/People Operations. Not only is she data-driven and strategic, but she is a true leader who mentors and cultivates future leaders. Organizations should fight to have Kim because she's that amazing."