Vice President of People, Coast
$250-280k
+ Equity grant
3-4 days a week in office
Payments platform & fuel card for fleets
Be an early applicant
Payments platform & fuel card for fleets
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
$250-280k
+ Equity grant
3-4 days a week in office
101-200 employees
Company mission
Coast's mission is to make fleet management easy.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years in People/HR roles, including experience leading a People function at a high-growth startup that has successfully scaled beyond Coast's current stage of maturity
- Track record designing compensation philosophy, pay bands, and equity strategy, and running comp cycles that scale with headcount
- Experience coaching managers through performance, promotion, and org design decisions, and building manager enablement programs where none existed
- Recruiting leadership: you've managed a recruiting team and built hiring processes that hold the bar as hiring volume grows
- Deep knowledge of employment law and HR compliance across multiple U.S. states, including New York
- Experience supporting a multi-site workforce that includes non-exempt and commissioned sales and operations teams based outside headquarters, including sales compensation design
- Comfortable operating at the executive table: strong judgment, discretion, and the ability to influence without formal authority
- Strong analytical instincts: comfortable working in HRIS and comp data and turning it into a recommendation
- High ownership mindset: when a process doesn't exist yet, you build it
- Experience in fintech, payments, or B2B SaaS preferred
- New York City based; able to be in-office 3–4 days per week and to travel to our Utah office at least once a quarter
What the job involves
- Coast hired its first people operations lead two years ago to stand up the basics: benefits, onboarding, policies, and the day-to-day experience of the Coast offices
- Since then, Coast has grown its total funding to $135 million and its team to about 130 people across two offices: our New York City headquarters, home to roughly two thirds of the team, and our sales and operations office in Utah. The People function now needs to grow with the company
- You'll be Coast's first VP, People, the company's senior people leader, building and running the function end to end: People Operations, Total Rewards, Talent (recruiting, performance, and career development), and Culture
- You'll partner directly with the executive team on org design, leadership development, and the people decisions that shape how Coast scales, while making sure the fundamentals (comp, performance, compliance, onboarding) are run well
- This is a build role: you'll inherit a foundation and turn it into a people strategy that keeps pace with the business. You'll report to Stephen Rosen, Coast's SVP of Operations, and lead a team that includes our Head of Talent, People Ops Lead and a growing people team
- Take People Operations from a foundational function to a full People org: design the team, the roadmap, and the systems (HRIS, payroll, benefits administration) that scale with headcount
- Own the People budget and the tooling decisions that come with it
- Hire, develop, and lead the People team as it grows
- Partner with the executive team and managers
- Work with leadership and the CEO on organizational design, headcount planning, and the People implications of major business decisions
- Coach managers through hiring, performance, promotions, and difficult conversations, and build the manager enablement program Coast doesn't have yet
- Be the person leaders and teammates trust with hard people problems
- Own recruiting, performance, and career development
- Design and run the performance review and promotion cycles, and the career frameworks that make "what good looks like" clear at every level
- Build the systems that catch performance and engagement issues early, while there is still time to address them
- Lead recruiting through our Head of Talent, owning hiring plans, process, and the candidate experience for both offices, including sales and operations hiring in Utah
- Partner with hiring managers to keep the hiring bar high as Coast grows
- Design Coast's compensation philosophy and pay bands, and partner with Finance on the equity strategy that keeps offers competitive
- Source and manage the benefits, perks, and platforms that make Coast a place people want to build their careers
- Run comp cycles with the rigor and fairness a growing company needs
- Partner with Finance, Sales, and Revenue Operations leadership on sales compensation plans for account executives, BDRs, and other commissioned roles
- Keep Coast's culture intact as headcount grows past the size where culture happens by accident
- Lead team events, office experience, and company traditions in both New York and Utah, so the Utah team has the same access to leadership, information, and career paths as the headquarters team
- Run engagement surveys and other feedback loops, and turn what you hear into action
- Make sure Coast's policies, records, and practices comply with employment law in New York, Utah, and anywhere else Coast employs people
- Build the HR infrastructure (records, policies, and processes) that holds up under scrutiny as Coast scales and potentially expands into new states or geographies
- Own worker classification and wage-and-hour compliance, including timekeeping and overtime for salaried non-exempt roles such as customer service representatives and BDRs, and written commission agreements for commissioned sales roles
- What Success Looks Like:
- By 90 days:
- You've met every person at Coast, including time on the ground with the Utah team, and you have a clear read on where the People function is strong and where it's thin
- Your review of the current comp, benefits, and performance processes has produced a prioritized plan to fix what's broken
- Managers know who you are and have brought you at least one real problem
- You and leadership have agreed on the three People priorities that matter most this year
- By 6 months:
- Coast has a documented compensation philosophy and pay bands, and hiring managers use them
- At least one performance review cycle has run under your design, and managers and employees trust the process
- The People team, including recruiting, has clear ownership of onboarding, benefits, hiring, and employee support, and a plan for the roles it needs next
- Coast's HR policies and records are compliant and audit-ready across every state and location Coast operates in
- By 12 months:
- Coast's people strategy is a direct input to the company's growth and headcount plans
- Engagement and retention are measurably better, and you can point to what you changed
- The People function runs on infrastructure and playbooks, and the team handles day-to-day issues without you in the room
- Leaders in both New York and Utah bring the People team into major decisions early
Our take
In recent years, companies like Ramp, Brex, Divvy, and others have emerged to provide easier ways for companies to allow their employees to pay for job-related expenses through corporate cards. However, none of these services really work for businesses operating automobile fleets, approximately 10% of B2B card spend in the US.
That’s where Coast comes in, offering a modern card issuing expense solution specifically built for fleets. The Coast card meets the demands of fleet-specific controls, security, and visibility, contributing to preventing fraud and unauthorised use. Its platform allows fleet managers to visualise spend, block or flag transactions for review, and set their own rules for cardholders.
With back-to-back funding rounds awarded in 2024, Coast has been focused on expanding its team and the platform’s capabilities, offering a wider range of financial products - including parking, maintenance, and other on-the-road expenses on top of just fuel. Its Visa Fleet card program, which enables Coast Visa Fleet cardholders to make payments wherever Visa is accepted, makes it an attractive option in the market as fleet management continues to modernise.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
52% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Jul 2024
$40m
SERIES B
Mar 2024
$25m
EARLY VC
Total funding: $98.5m
Company benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Meaningful stock options
- Flexible vacation policy
Company HQ
SoHo, New York, NY
Leadership
Daniel Simon
(Founder & CEO)Previously co-founded consumer finance startup Bread, which sold to Alliance Data Systems for over $500 million in 2020.
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