Culture as an Operating System: Hypergrowth and People Strategy with Q Hamirani

In this episode, Bill Banham sits down with Q Hamirani, Chief People Officer at HighLevel, one of the fastest-growing remote-first SaaS platforms serving agencies and consultants worldwide.With 1,600+ employees spread across the globe and 1,000 new hires added in a single year, HighLevel’s meteoric rise demands a People strategy that can scale without losing its soul. As the company’s cultural architect, Q is at the helm of building a durable, people-first operating system that keeps teams aligned, inspired, and moving fast—no matter the time zone.A trusted advisor to founders, boards, and accelerator programs like Techstars, Q blends startup grit with global operational experience and deep HR expertise. His leadership journey spans hypergrowth environments at Airbnb, Paper, and now HighLevel—giving him a front-row seat to how People leadership is evolving in the age of AI and distributed teams.Inside this episode:Scaling Culture Like an Operating System: How HighLevel structures communication, decision-making, and goal-setting to keep 1,600+ employees rowing in the same direction.Remote Leadership Rituals: From all-hands forums to the monthly Founder’s Corner, Q shares the leadership touchpoints that anchor strategy across borders.Evolving the CPO Role: Why today’s Chief People Officer must blend innovation, business acumen, and cultural fluency to thrive in distributed, AI-enabled workplaces.Hiring for Mission Alignment: How values-based interviews and compelling onboarding narratives—like HighLevel’s “skateboard-to-Ferrari” story—help transmit founder intent to every new joiner.The Human Side of Hypergrowth: How creativity, music, and transcendental meditation help Q lead with empathy and resilience, and how parenthood shaped his leadership lens.Whether you’re scaling a remote startup or professionalizing a late-stage rocket ship, this conversation is packed with tactical frameworks, cultural insights, and hard-won wisdom to help People leaders build lasting alignment at speed.Connect with Q Hamirani on LinkedIn.If you find this episode valuable, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review.Support the showFeature Your Brand on the HRchat PodcastThe HRchat show has had 100,000s of downloads and is frequently listed as one of the most popular global podcasts for HR pros, Talent execs and leaders. It is ranked in the top ten in the world based on traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness. The podcast is also ranked as the Best Canadian HR Podcast by FeedSpot and one of the top 10% most popular shows by Listen Score. Want to share the story of how your business is helping to shape the world of work? We offer sponsored episodes, audio adverts, email campaigns, and a host of other options. Check out packages here.Follow us on LinkedInSubscribe to our newsletterCheck out our in-person events