Anne Caron

Profiles of Googlers & Xooglers making outstanding contributions to their communities.

Current role: Anne Caron Consulting.

I support startups with their people development, strategy, and organization.

Location: Singapore

Most Xoogley contribution(s) to date: Leading the Xoogler community in Singapore, and organizing events on entrepreneurship for Xooglers and Googlers.

Supporting the startup ecosystem in developing businesses’ Googliness, and making the workplace a happy and fulfilling place for all!

What’s your professional goal? Happiness being intrinsically linked to performance, my goal is to redefine the way organizations and founders think about “human resources”, increase leadership awareness around the necessity to develop people strategies and develop smart, flexible and scalable people operations.

Google is only one part of our journey to accomplish greater things that matter to each of us and potentially to the world :-)

What was your best experience at Google? The opening of the Paris office with Eric Schmidt and Nicolas Sarkozy. This is not so much the best experience but definitely a fun anecdote!

The new Paris office was inaugurated in Dec 2011 when I was still working from France. As the renovation work was not finished on time, it was decided to focus on getting one floor fully ready for the inauguration day tour with Sarkozy and the journalist. So for this to feel real, they needed volunteers to sit at the desks. I was one of those volunteers and during the tour, a group of photographers stopped in front of me to take pictures.

I was so sure I would be in the newspapers the following day … but nothing! Nothing for a month … until a colleague in Singapore sends me a link about an article about Google India being the best place to work. And guess what, it was a picture of me at the Paris office to feature the article !!!

Since then, friend regularly send me links with this same picture being used again and again!

Most valuable lesson learned at Google? When I joined Google in 2005, innovation and creativity were really part of our daily lives. Nobody had really heard of Google as an employer brand outside of the US. We were still in building phase and so much still needed to be created in People Ops.

With my teams we ran a number of new initiatives and projects in pilot modes which I ended up developing and implementing at global scale. The stimulation to think big combined with the ability to try out new things really taught me what it takes to do things that matter. Knowing what it takes to build such a strong Employer Brand was probably my main learning.

Starting small, failing and reiterating are part of a successful journey.

What’s your vision for the Xoogler community? To grow a community of well-rounded entrepreneurs (in mindset and actions) and capitalize on everyone’s experience and knowledge.

Google is an enabler: the learnings we get from Google go way beyond Google (whether we are still at Google or not). Being a Xoogler doesn’t necessarily mean you left Google. Xoogler is a forum for both xooglers and googlers to learn and exchange on our experiences beyond Google.

Being part of the People Ops team in the “Best Company to Work for” for 10 years definitely gave me credibility to set up my People Strategy practice Hahaha! When I left Google, we were receiving over 3 million applications per year (!) — I learnt so much and this is part of what I am helping other startups build now.

How to get in touch with me? Shoot me an email or connect on LinkedIn.

Thanks Anne!