Yolanda Antonio

My career path has been shaped by being told 'no' throughout my life and using that as fuel to excel beyond expectations. I spent close to 13 years in sales in my early to mid-20s, then transitioned to HR after 9/11. When a boss told me I could never be an HR manager and kept pushing me down, I resigned and landed an HR manager position at Thomas J. Henry Law, one of the most prestigious law firms in South Texas. I was there for 10 years and helped scale the company from 30 employees to 520 employees within four months. We eventually had to build out a whole recruiting department because the company had grown too much. I handled all of Thomas J. Henry's unemployment hearings with a 99% success rate over hundreds of cases. After 10 years, when they needed a director of HR and gave the position to someone else despite my track record, I resigned and started my own HR consulting company. I felt I could give so much more to startups since I had already built that company's HR department from the ground up. Now I help organizations throughout the U.S. with their HR needs. I have experience in all levels of HR, from federal and state labor laws to recruiting and talent development. What drives me is seeing companies grow to the point where they can hire their own internal HR team - that's a huge achievement for me. I'm passionate about adding value to others, mentoring and coaching them, and helping build their HR departments.