LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bambee, the company that makes Human Resources affordable for every small to medium-sized business, is announcing today that HR veteran Lainie Cooney has joined Bambee as the company’s Chief People Officer.
“Part of my affection for building companies is driven by a genuine motivation to identify the often-overlooked gifts in people,” said Allan Jones, founder and CEO of Bambee. “My belief is that seemingly ordinary people are actually innately extraordinary. Lainie shares this inherent belief in people and for that and many other reasons, I’m thrilled she has come on board. As a founder, my job is to build a culture that isn’t just lip service, but one that has texture and is unique in its ability to activate each person's potential. To date, we’ve done this by hiring the best people possible across as many diverse backgrounds as we can reach. I am confident Lainie will carry the torch here.”
Bambee is a first-of-its kind HR technology company that helps nearly 10,000 of America’s small businesses put their HR on autopilot while also pairing each company with a dedicated HR Manager. Bambee’s mission and its unique place in the market helped lure Cooney away from the top people role at FanDuel, an American gambling company that offers sportsbook, daily fantasy sports, online casino, poker, and horse race betting products that has recently been valued at $30B+. Cooney now joins Bambee’s stellar executive team, comprised of former Headspace alum, Steven Gross, chief financial officer, former Bird Head of Government, Tommy Tate, chief product officer, and former ADP VP of Product Development, Mike Ruangutai, chief technology officer.
Beyond her last role at FanDuel, Cooney joins Bambee with a wealth of people leadership experience she’s built over the last 25 years at brands such as Home Depot, State Street, DPI Foods, and Blue Apron.
“I am both honored and incredibly excited to join Bambee. Bambee is an amazing company with great people and visionary leaders. I am looking forward to helping us realize our vision for our employees, and for the workers of small businesses across this country,” said Cooney. “I had the honor of leading Blue Apron’s people strategy as their workforce grew by almost 3x in my tenure. I had a similar honor at FanDuel as their workforce grew by 5x. So I’ll be well suited at Bambee as we expect to grow from a diverse group of 120 employees, to 300 within 2022 alone.”
As a leading HR company for America’s small businesses, Bambee puts extra emphasis on its people strategy. One of its three core objectives in 2022 is to create the space for Bambee employees to do the most fulfilling work of their careers.
“Bambee views its internal people strategy as key to our external customers trusting us with their HR,” Jones said. “We hire for traits like high aptitude, kindness, introspection, self-accountability, broad levels of creativity, and thoughtful optimism. These traits are rarely present on a resume. We don’t care if you have a technology background or a Harvard MBA. This philosophy has helped us create a workforce as deeply diverse as the nation. We are well above average in representation of women, Asian Americans, African Americans, and members of the Latinx and LGBTQ communities. We lead this way not to hit a diversity quota, but because we know that the best talent comes packaged in a variety of personas. Now we need the people infrastructure and people leadership to continue building our intellectually unique team at scale. Lainie Cooney is undeniably the leader to help us do this.”
The company also recently announced its $30M Series C investment. In this latest round, SoftBank joined QED, leader of both Series B and C rounds, and AlphaEdison, who led the Series A round. Key investments were also made by Mucker Capital, Ken Chenault (chairman and managing director, General Catalyst; and former CEO and chairman of American Express), Damian Maldonado (CEO and founder at American Financing and American Home Agent), and Gaingels (the LGBTQIA+/Allies investment syndicate).
About Bambee
Allan Jones founded Bambee in 2016. Bambee has been at the forefront of solving HR problems for small businesses since its inception. Bambee puts their customers’ HR on autopilot, starting with a dedicated HR Manager and smart automation. Bambee helps each company navigate the complex regulatory world of compliance, HR policy, employee relations, and HR strategy -- including internal investigations, hires, furloughs, and return to work procedures. The combination of a real HR Manager coupled with an intelligent software platform gets Bambee customers to HR compliance, and helps keep them HR compliant year-round. In October 2021, Goldman Sachs celebrated Jones as one of the 100 most intriguing entrepreneurs, at their Builders + Innovators Summit. For three years running, Forbes has named Bambee a top startup employer in the U.S., and in 2022 listed Bambee as top 5 in Los Angeles. Learn more at www.bambee.com.
