Two books on what it takes to lead, and to be led, in a world the old frameworks can no longer hold.
Writing on leadership, agency, and the human dimensions of work. After 27 years inside hiring rooms, she builds the tools and writes the books that help leaders see what most frameworks miss.
The books
Two books on leadership, hiring, and the trait that decides who stays in every disruption.
Out July 2026
The Agency Effect
The trait companies hire, the trait disruption rewards, and the six behaviors every leader should learn to recognize.
A framework, a manifesto, and a practical guide for CEOs, founders, and hiring leaders who refuse to leave their next hire, or their team's future, to chance.
2024
Leading Through Human Experience
Architect your leadership, flex your modality muscle, and generate extraordinary impact.
Helen's first book on leading with empathy, intentional design, and the Korean cultural lens of nunchi. Drawing on 32,000+ hours of listening to top talent.
The product
What the book teaches, the product measures.
AgencyTrait is the behavioral assessment platform CEOs and founders use to hire for the trait that survives every disruption. Built on the framework in The Agency Effect, it evaluates candidates across six measurable behaviors and assesses three-way fit between founder, team, and candidate.
Used by companies hiring at Series A through C. Self-serve. Built for leaders who are tired of betting on resumes that don't predict who stays.
About
27 years inside hiring rooms. Two books on what I learned.
I led talent at Digital Insight through its acquisition by Intuit, at GreenDot through its IPO, and advised the early teams at DocuSign, Strava, Headspace, and Life360. I have sat in the three rooms where careers actually get decided, the post-interview debrief, the promotion conversation, and the layoff list, for almost three decades.
What I learned is that companies don't hire skills. They hire agency. The most credentialed person in the room is rarely the one who survives a downturn, a reorg, or an AI disruption. The highest-agency person does. Every time.
I built AgencyTrait so leaders could measure it. I wrote The Agency Effect to explain it. And in everything I write, I bring a lens that most leadership literature overlooks, the Korean concept of nunchi, the practice of reading the unspoken dynamics in a room. It is how I think. It is how I led. It is how I write.
I am a mother of two daughters. Everything I build is for the world they will inherit.
Writing
Recent thinking.
May 2026
Hired from the top. Fired from the bottom.
Every career has two waterlines. The one at the top decides who gets in. The one at the bottom decides who stays.
Read →April 2026
Why agency is the only trait AI cannot replace.
The credentialing wave is breaking. What replaces it is older than any technology, and it is what every founder is now asking for by name.
Read →March 2026
Nunchi in the hiring room.
The Korean practice of reading unspoken dynamics has been my most reliable hiring lens for 27 years. Most interview frameworks have no language for it.
Read →