On First Round Draft Picks

I'm a big sports fan, and I love looking at and thinking about the hits and misses of draft picks. Turns out, it's pretty hard to predict the success of your first round draft pick and history is riddled with examples of huge first round flops that didn't work out and late round picks that did (hello, Tom Brady).

Today is Hannah Fleishman's seventh anniversary at HubSpot. She's been doing great work here for seven years. HubSpot was her first job out of college (go Emerson!), and watching her grow has been one of the greatest honors of my career.

What some people don't know is she was my first round draft pick. When I took over the HubSpot Communications team a few months after arriving in very early 2013, I was asked what hires I wanted to make. I had worked with Hannah only briefly (on an Ebook of all things) and found her smart, curious, thoughtful, creative, and a truly wonderful writer, so in a panic, I said "I'd like Hannah Fleishman, please."

The credit for hiring Hannah goes to @Rachel Leist, another incredible HubSpot leader, so she saw Hannah's greatness first. But when I uttered those words, Hannah became my first HubSpot draft pick, ever. It remains one of the best decisions I've ever made in my career.

I just finished Bob Iger's book on his career at Disney, and one thing he talked about was that he loves working with people who are relentless in the pursuit of perfection. Hannah embodies that. She always wants her team to do exceptional work, and is open and responsive about feedback to improve and grow. She passes that along to her team, all of whom embody a growth mindset, her trademark urgency and creativity, and passion for giving and receiving feedback to get better.

During her time at HubSpot, Hannah has been a HubSpot Fellow, won our Great Manager Award, launched our Out of Office generator, partnered with me and Dharmesh on the launch of the Culture Code back in the day, was instrumental in our IPO efforts, communications, and celebration, has racked up more company culture awards than I can even count, and written content so good I still get emails years after the blog post or SlideShare was published about her work.

But the thing I admire most about Hannah is she's not content yet. Her work here isn't done, nor is she mailing it in at her seven year mark. She is thinking about ways she can be a better leader, better manager, better innovator, better writer--you name it. She wants to be the best at getting better, and it shows in her work and her team.

Getting to watch Hannah grow over seven years has truly been an honor. I'm well aware that I hit the draft lottery in choosing her that day, as getting to work with her for so long has pushed me to grow and improve just to keep up with her. Dharmesh always says that Success is About Making Those Who Believed in You Look Brilliant. Picking Hannah did just that for me, but the truth is she's the shining star in this story, and I'll always be grateful for all she's done for HubSpot.

Hannah, you've made me prouder than I can say in words without your editorial help. Happy Lucky Seven to my #1 Draft Pick. I feel lucky to work with and learn from you every day.