Luke joined Lightspeed in 2014 as the founding member of the Talent Infrastructure team, where he supports startups ranging from single-person Seeds through multi-thousand employee pre-IPO companies, and runs Lightspeed’s Launch program geared towards seed and early stage Founders. Luke spends his days helping founders solve challenges spanning recruiting, HR, people operations, compensation strategy, and more.
His passion for working with founders developed over the last 10 years helping high growth tech companies build world class teams. “The ability to learn rapidly is what sets apart the most successful Founders,” says Luke. “The first phase of company building is chaotic and requires constant context switching–if we can help Founders learn faster, we believe they will be more successful.”
Prior to joining Lightspeed, Luke led recruiting at Flurry, a mobile analytics startup acquired by Yahoo!, and Nextag. His immersion in the controlled chaos of scaling technology companies has been instrumental in his ability to mentor and advise founders. “When you are in the trenches, it can feel like every problem is unique to your company,” he says, “but we have seen it all and can leverage that knowledge to save you time and pain.”
Since joining Lightspeed, Luke has seen the maturation of the venture services model and its ability to help founders tackle critical business challenges. His team uses its birds-eye view of the startup ecosystem to provide hyper-focused training, guidance, and mentorship to companies at all stages. “It’s the application of talent strategy to core business goals that keeps me excited,” he says.
An East Coast native, Luke has been a happy Bay Area transplant for over a decade. When not reading an endless stream of fantasy and sci-fi novels, you can find him semi-successfully surfing and kite-boarding.
- Favorite Book Peter F Hamilton's The Void Trilogy and Pandora's Star
- Favorite Hobby Reading fantasy and sci-fi
