Founder at Coterie | Hampton | Ex: Chief, ClassPass, Goldman Sachs

Before joining Rosedale AI, I founded Coterie, an executive and engineering talent agency rooted in the belief that the foundation of every successful company is its people. Prior to that, I led talent functions at high-growth organizations: I was Head of Global Talent Acquisition at Trust Machines (a $150M Series A company) and Head of Talent Acquisition at Chief (🦄). Over more than a decade, I’ve built engineering teams for multi-billion-dollar companies including Goldman Sachs, ClassPass, and others.

Olga Etkina

Global Talent Exec • I build teams, companies, and cultures • Leadership Coach • Founder • Performance Mentor • Speaker • Investor

Head of Talent | Recruiting Leader | Executive & GTM Hiring | AI & High-Growth Startups

I see potential most people miss.

For 20+ years, I've built talent functions that work, not because I follow templates, but because I understand what actually moves a business forward. I'm wired differently. A pattern-matcher who connects dots others can't see.

The best hires I've made didn't come from perfect resumes or textbook job descriptions. They came from seeing something in someone that wasn't obvious yet and knowing exactly where that potential needed to go.

What I do:
I design recruiting systems from scratch that reflect how companies actually operate, not how HR textbooks say they should. At Groq, I lead global business recruiting across GTM, Finance, Legal, Marketing, Data Center Ops, Forward Deployed Engineering, and the executive layer. I've stood up entire organizations internationally, filled roles that "couldn't be filled," and built teams that moved fast without breaking things.

Before that, I founded DotConnect (Inc. 5000, 2022 & 2023) and worked as a founder's first recruiter or trusted advisor for companies like Samsung NEXT, Snapchat, and hundreds of others. You wouldn't know it, we worked in the background, embedded with internal teams, making them look good without taking credit.

The work is strategy and execution in equal measure: building infrastructure, training teams, advising leadership, staying close enough to know what's actually working.

How I work:
I'm direct. If comp is misaligned, I'll say it. If your process is the problem, we'll fix it. If a "hiring challenge" is actually a decision problem, we'll address that first.

I work hard because I love this, not as a martyr, but because matching the right person to the right opportunity is the thing I'm built to do.

A few things I believe:
Candidates aren't pipeline. Hiring managers aren't requisition machines. AI can accelerate great recruiting, but it doesn't replace judgment, trust, or the ability to see what isn't obvious yet.
Recruiting is a craft. Part strategy, part intelligence-gathering, part human instinct.

What I'm looking for next:
Something disruptive. A big problem to solve. A company building something that matters where talent becomes the competitive advantage, not an afterthought. I want to create impact, build from the ground up, and have fun doing it.

Fueled by family, commitment, and curiosity for what's next.

If you're scaling and want someone who sees what others don't, let's talk.

🔗 My Time: https://intro.co/DomFarnan

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Olga Etkina

Dom Farnan

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