Hi there, I’m Glenn Nishimura. Nice to meet you, and thanks for stopping by.

As an experienced advisor, consultant, and mentor, I’ve helped dozens of early and growth stage startups and scaleups across North America, Asia and Europe to build and optimize their teams, culture and people operations. Simple to say, not so easy to do. The people part of a startup’s journey is often full of frustrations, disappointments, headwinds, and unknowns.

However it doesn’t have to always be that way if you have the right people in your corner. I’m proud that my work has helped numerous startups to successfully double, triple or even quadruple the size of their teams, reduce that dreaded turnover by up to 65%, and improve employee engagement by up to 75%. One Silicon Valley client of mine hit escape velocity and achieved over 150% growth in one year and was named one of America’s Most Promising Companies by Forbes. That’s super satisfying. But not all of my work has led to success; there have been failures along the way too. After working with one startup off and on for a couple of years, they were forced to shut down because they just couldn’t make it work. The bleeding was too severe. The leadership problems, toxic culture, and unwillingness to get out of their own way were just too entrenched, and they imploded.

We all approach work differently, and how I approach my work and my work relationships is deeply rooted in my upbringing. Having been raised in a very traditional Japanese family (descended from samurai on my father’s side and Buddhist ministers on my mother’s side – it’s an interesting mix, right?) I’ve learned the value of acting honourably and with integrity, showing compassion and understanding, and being of service to others. I try to bring those core tenets to every client I work with.

This is the reason why I enjoy spending my time mentoring young entrepreneurs through Futurpreneur, Venture for Canada, the Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD), and PEI’s Startup Zone. I feel that awareness and education are the best preventative medicines to mitigate people problems from taking hold in the first place.

On a fun note, I’m a huge sushi snob (translation: I only eat at reputable institutions and refuse to eat “sushi” from grocery stores, mall food courts, and definitely gas stations). I honestly don’t know how people can eat that stuff – #barf

Curious to learn more about me and my work? Download my Media Kit, or call me anytime at 416.566.6892. I hope to speak with you soon!

– Glenn

“Thanks again for more excellent advice Glenn – it was helpful, concise and I really appreciate you efficiently understanding our business and people needs. Definitely give Glenn a call – he’s an ideal expert resource that you won’t regret calling upon”. – Andy Peck, Founder/CEO TrustedHouseSitters.com, Bristol, UK- Winner of the Virgin Media Business Award

How I can help often depends on what stage your startup is in, and what pain points you’re experiencing. I typically work on a project basis, short contracts, and/or weekly or monthly calls. But if you have a burning question and just need on demand advice, you can set up a call with me on Clarity.

Ideation:

This stage is probably a bit too early to involve me, at least fully. Your focus should be on identifying a solution for the problem you’re trying to solve, validating the market and market size, and thinking about that killer product you’re going to build. What I can help you with however is defining who and what you need in a co-founding team, and laying the groundwork for productive and healthy relationships. Getting this part right can make all the difference between success and failure.

Pre-Seed/Seed/Post-Seed:

These are the sweet spots for us to start a conversation. While you’re acquiring customers, booking revenue, and refining your product-market fit, I’ll do the same for your people-culture fit, and ensure that you have a people strategy with the smooth running systems, tools and activities to underpin and drive your people operations. Let’s increase your odds of securing that (often elusive) Series A!

Whether you’re thinking about your first hire, first handful of hires, or planning to expand your team by 5X or 10X, it pays to be proactive. Typically I’m asked to help with problems like:

• Attracting top talent to your startup – Competing with other companies who are better known and/or pay better may seem like a lost cause. But you don’t have to compromise and settle for second (or third, or fourth) best. We’ll develop strategies so that the best candidates come to you first, and for the right reason, and build a strong candidate experience and talent pipeline so that you’re not always scrambling when you need people.
• Compensation – what you pay your team shouldn’t be arbitrary, unrealistic or unfair (or worse, unaffordable). We’ll benchmark your current and future positions against the market, and develop a pay structure that’s transparent, flexible and scalable no matter how big your team gets (let’s hope really big). And since compensation can be a very touchy and emotional subject for many (no kidding), we’ll develop a plan to communicate the what, why and how to your team so everyone is in the loop at all times.
• Culture – this is a biggie. Culture is often misunderstood because it’s often intangible and invisible. But the results (good or bad) are very real. Think of culture as your company’s physiology, or the immune system that makes you resilient and less susceptible to the bad things that can often happen. We’ll develop a culture plan together that will act as the foundation for all of your people practices, and ensure that your mission, vision and core values are front and centre in everything you do. Having a strong culture can lead to less turnover, higher performance, and higher operating margins too. Who wouldn’t want that, right?
• Hiring – We’ll move away from hiring exclusively for skills, experience and likeability (which never works out anyway), and implement my 3H System (Head, Heart, Hands) to ensure all of your hires have the thinking, working and relating skills needed to crush it. I wrote all about it here: https://link.medium.com/P1E4EzfhDdb
• Roles & responsibilities – most startups are terrible at this (no offence). Sure it can be a fluid environment, but having gaps and overlaps in what people do is a waste of valuable time and money. Not to mention an added headache for you as you try and sort it all out. We’ll build customized performance oriented job descriptions for every position that focus on results, not tasks. If you want to hold people accountable, it starts here.
• Managing employee performance – people perform best when there are clear and consistent standards and expectations set. Unfortunately, many startups don’t do this, and instead rely on loose and subjective metrics where favouritism and bias can creep in. This is a dangerous and slippery slope, and will often lead to your culture eroding right under your feet. We’ll build a program together that redefines what performance really means, and emphasizes what truly matters — like contributions to the culture and living your core values.
• Founder/Co-Founder leadership and management – this will be the toughest part of building your company, because your role will change as your team and your company grows. I’m here to coach you every step of the way so that you can focus on your priorities, manage your time and resources effectively, and maintain your emotional health and well-being.

Series A/B/C and beyond:

Many startups have at least one HR person on the team at this point, but not always. Not sure who or when you should hire one? My article will help: https://link.medium.com/apVavayhDdb

If you don’t have an HR person, and you (or your COO) find you’re spending a lot of your time on people issues (probably more than you should be), then let’s talk. We’ll baseline where you are, where you want and need to be, and lay out a prescriptive plan that will introduce positive change to shape hearts, minds and behaviour. And will last. And yes, that sometimes means making the hard choices to let certain people go.

Also, employee disengagement and churn can be rather high in these growth stages, as people grow tired or disillusioned, the culture changes, and your investors press you to become profitable. I can help you navigate all of it.

Did I miss anything? Reach out anytime – email me at glenn AT nishimuraconsulting.ca, or fill out this form — and we can create a plan that’s right for you.

If you just need advice on the fly, feel free to contact me on Clarity:

“Glenn gave me some real clarity on how to communicate with my co-founder more effectively, and gave me some insightful questions to ask a potential hire to determine if it was a good fit. He definitely knows his stuff when it comes to people in an organization.” – Venkat Dinavahi, Founder, New York City