Her Story
About Lisa
Lisa Cambra serves as HR and TA manager for the School of Hard Knocks, a startup media organization, where she is expanding into the head of people position. She has been fractionally with Beyond Booksmart for nearly 8 years following a restructuring and previously held the role of chief operating officer for 10 years before pivoting to HR. Over the past 9 to 10 years, she has concentrated on people operations, balancing business objectives with employee experience, organizational change, cost reductions, and budgeting. In her current remote-first role, she manages compliance, performance issues, employee relations, talent acquisition, recruitment, retention, and the development of scalable policies and procedures as the company grows. Cambra is a member of SHRM and values integrity, accountability, adaptability, kindness, respect, and open-mindedness. She attributes her success to never giving up, maintaining persistence and grit even amid self-doubt, and shifting her mindset to build scalable processes rather than merely reacting to issues. She advises young women entering the field to remain curious, never stop learning, surround themselves with admired mentors, and stay open to new perspectives.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Lisa
01What do you attribute your success to?
Never giving up. Even when I've hit roadblocks and have been in my woes of frustration and wanting to sort of say, this isn't me, I'm not cut out for it, just taking a step back and just being persistent, really having the ability to think forward, having the grit, but having confidence in myself and my ability, even when there's times where I've had self-doubt. Just being able to really take the space to say, okay, I'm going to take a step back, this isn't working right now, and then come back to it with sort of like a shift in mindset, and that persistence of wanting to almost prove myself wrong.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Earlier on in my career, I realized in HR I could spend a lot of my days reacting to issues. And I had to shift my mindset toward building scalable processes, so not just solving today's problem, solve the process that really created it. And so I've always tried to anchor to that.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I think the biggest thing is I would tell young women today is to be curious. Never stop learning. Surround yourself with people that you admire and respect. And spend time with them, ask them the questions. Because when you are curious, that opens up doors. If you come into it with the attitude of, I know it all, then that's going to not just prevent you from learning, but close off relationships for you, and you need both. You have to find mentors. Someone who's going to really challenge your thinking, but support you, be your cheerleader. You know, really observe those people at the same time.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Biggest opportunity is AI. And I guess at the same time, it can be AI, because if you're resistant to it then which there's a what I'm seeing is a mixed bag of people that are, and they don't really understand the capability that it has, and that it doesn't replace people. It just helps you be far more efficient. With that, there's just so much potential there. You're able to eliminate a lot of transactional entries, just like simplifying processes. But error is not eliminated. You still need people involved with the thought processes. There is a significant challenge with people that are opposed to using it.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity, accountability, adaptability, kindness, respect, open-mindedness. Those are the top contenders.
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