A Non-Traditional Path to Peop

A Non-Traditional Path to Peop is an executive coaching coaching and courses product available on the Whop marketplace, created by msbo and launched in January 2026.

Our guest today is Ryanmae McAvoy-Pepin, Vice President of People Operations at Blackthorn, a SaaS company specializing in Salesforce-native event management software. Ryanmae has built a career that crosses industries from veterinary practices to the ski slopes, before settling into the tech sector, where she’s now recognized for her transparency, candor, and practical approach to HR leadership. In this episode, we dig into Ryanmae’s nontraditional career arc, her philosophy on executive presence, and how she leverages authenticity to drive effective people programs at scale. We explore how Ryanmae’s drive to keep learning has shaped her career moves, why she initially turned down her recent promotion, and what it takes to build real trust with executive teams and individual employees. We also discuss how she navigates hard trade-offs around benefits, organizational change, and her commitment to keeping HR genuinely human - especially in high-growth startup environments. We discuss: Ryanmae’s path from veterinary practice management and admin work to SaaS people leader How the People Leader Accelerator and Startup Experts communities supported key career transitions The value of transparency, healthy debate, and “hot takes” in HR and executive conversations Strategies for communicating across functions and building deep trust with a CEO and executive peers Lessons learned from saying “no” to a promotion, battling imposter syndrome, and eventually stepping into top

A Non-Traditional Path to Peop has is priced at $14.12 (one-time payment).

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