We embed inside VC firms to build world-class teams.

Our Services

OUR CLIENTS

From venture firms to their portfolio, we’ve partnered with high-impact organizations on team building.

WHAT WE DO

Embedded

Talent work compounds when you stay in it. Relationships with candidates take time to deepen, context about the firm and the portfolio takes time to build — and all of it resets when the work pauses. That's why we don't pause. We stay in it with you, so what we build together keeps building as you grow.

Internal Talent Partner

Fractional Talent Partner

Talent + HR Advisory

On-demand

Sometimes a search is just a search. You have a defined role and a hire that needs to close — and you want someone who'll run it well. We meet you where you are with executive-caliber work, scoped to the engagement and run on your timeline.

Calibrated Search

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OUR TEAM

  • Founder

    Founder of Paine Talent with over a decade across venture capital and operator roles, including foundational years at Benchmark and Gusto. At Gusto, she scaled the company from 25 to 2,000+ employees and $5M to $250M+ ARR — first as the right-hand to the CEO and later focused on People strategy. She brings a venture‑native network and an operator’s lens to every hire she makes.

    Now, she collaborates with firms like Base10, Riot Ventures, and PLUS Capital on talent acquisition and development.

  • Talent Partner

    Talent executive and trusted advisor with 15+ years building and scaling recruiting organizations across high-growth companies, including leadership roles at Salesforce. She's partnered with executives and founders on critical talent decisions—spanning org design, hiring strategy, and M&A integration—bringing a pattern-recognition lens from operating at scale.

    She now serves as a Talent Partner at Paine Talent where she acts as a strategic talent arm for top-tier venture capital firms, specializing in operational hiring, talent advisory, and organizational design.

WHY US

  • We're not an outside agency, but an embedded teammate. We stay small to go deep, learning your culture and team dynamics to find the exact person—not just the profile—who fits your firm. From sourcing through close, we manage everything. No candidate dumps, no handoffs, no gaps.

  • We grew up in this ecosystem, from Benchmark to Gusto to the funds we partner with today. We speak your language because we've lived it. We're part of this ecosystem and read the same signals you do: career trajectory, approach to sourcing, and where someone chooses to build.

  • Lea scaled Gusto from Series A to IPO — $5M to $250M+ ARR, 1K to 300K+ customers — as right hand to the CEO and later defining People strategy. Kate ran talent acquisition at Salesforce through the Tableau, MuleSoft, and Slack acquisitions. We've seen firsthand what it takes to build the teams behind outcomes like these — and we bring that lens to every hire we make for your firm.

  • Lea has been in the venture ecosystem since Benchmark and built deep relationships through Gusto's fundraising rounds and rapid scale. Kate has spent over a decade recruiting and advising across the talent world. Our network isn't assembled when a search kicks off — it's been built over years of showing up and earning trust.