Real businesses. Real problems. Real results.

How a Sparkling Water Company saved $100K+ and modernized HR with Ampleo

INTRODUCTION

This Sparkling Water company is a fast-growing beverage company known for its bold flavors and clean ingredients. When its only HR leader went on parental leave, the timing couldn’t have been worse. A bonus cycle, open enrollment, and an organizational reorg were all in motion at once. The company needed more than a placeholder. It needed someone who could step in, take ownership, and keep everything moving.

What started as interim coverage turned into something much bigger.

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CHALLENGE

This company was running lean on HR when its manager stepped away on parental leave. With no backup and several high-stakes initiatives already underway, the company faced a familiar but difficult situation: too much happening to pause, and no one to lead it.

At the same time, HR infrastructure had deeper problems. A fragmented, manual tech environment was creating inefficiencies across payroll, benefits administration, and reporting. Data visibility was limited, administrative burden was high, and the systems in place weren’t built to support a growing company.

They needed both immediate support and long-term solutions.

SOLUTION

Ampleo HR embedded a seasoned HR consultant directly into the sparkling water company’s team and got to work fast. Within days, she was operating like she had been there for years, taking full ownership of critical processes while also identifying opportunities to modernize the underlying infrastructure.

She handled:

RESULTS

CONCLUSION

The partnership with Ampleo HR is a reminder that the right fractional support can do far more than fill a gap. By embedding quickly, owning critical initiatives, and modernizing core HR infrastructure, Ampleo HR helped them come out of a challenging stretch stronger, leaner, and better equipped for what’s ahead.

BACKGROUND

Visit Park City is a chamber of commerce and convention visitors bureau, a 501c6 nonprofit organization. They currently have nearly 1000 members made up of tourism businesses, professional services, non-profit organizations, and event organizers located all-around Park City, Summit County, and the surrounding areas.

CHALLENGES

In October 2020, Jennifer Wesselhoff was hired as the new CEO of Visit Park City. She inherited a well-managed organization with established HR policies that she wanted to refresh and update. After reorganizing the organizational chart, she wished to provide training for a new Director of Operations and Culture who was just learning the HR components. Jennifer needed additional help not only training the new HR hire, but building out policy manuals, evaluating job descriptions, conducting a salary reassessment, and making sure they were following best practices while navigating some of the new issues related to COVID.

SOLUTION

In June of 2021, Visit Park City needed someone quickly. With Ampleo’s smooth onboarding process, the Ampleo consultant was able to get up to speed and start training and mentoring their new Director of Operations and Culture. Ampleo acted as Visit Park City’s contracted HR manager, which gave Visit Park City a lot of flexibility and credibility within and outside the company. Ampleo also helped with rewriting all of the job descriptions, updating the organizational chart, performing salary reassessments, and since Covid, making sure there were mental and physical wellness resources and policies around Covid and remote working. Jennifer said, “Bringing Ampleo on as a new set of fresh eyes has allowed Visit Park City to rethink all of its policies and procedures and make sure we are in alignment with the newest laws and the newest HR standards. As a CEO it was incredibly helpful to have someone outside of the organization who could serve as an unbiased representative to say, ‘Have you thought about this?’ and to help ensure that we were doing right by our employees.”

CONTINUED SUCCESS

With Ampleo’s help, Visit Park City plans on evaluating and recreating its entire employee handbook. Additionally, Ampleo will continue to provide one-on-one customized training to Visit Park City until they are confident they can manage all of the HR components. Ultimately, Visit Park City will be given all the tools necessary to be able to transition from Ampleo to their own in-house staff person.

EMBEDDED HR THAT ACCELERATES SCALE
SkyFi boosts hiring velocity and operational maturity with Ampleo HR

INTRODUCTION

SkyFi is an Earth intelligence company delivering satellite imagery and AI-driven geospatial analytics to government and commercial clients worldwide. As a fast-moving pre-Series A startup, SkyFi needed to scale rapidly—but without the overhead and delay of hiring a full-time HR team. That’s where Ampleo came in.

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CHALLENGE

As SkyFi approached a critical inflection point in its growth, CEO Luke was faced with a classic startup dilemma: hire a full-time HR team or stay lean and outsource to a trusted partner. The business needed structure, talent acquisition, and onboarding—fast—but without the overhead of full-time salaries, equity, and training.

The internal team didn’t yet know if they needed one person or five, but they knew they needed expert help right away.

SOLUTION

Ampleo HR embedded directly into SkyFi with Leslie, a hands-on HR expert who operated like a true team member from day one. She joined team Slack channels, integrated into day-to-day operations, and immediately earned trust.

Leslie handled:

• Candidate sourcing and interview coordination
• Job description development
• Onboarding and offboarding processes
• Structuring HR systems to support scale

She even introduced a structured onboarding experience across departments—helping elevate SkyFi’s people ops from early-stage chaos to a repeatable, professional experience.

RESULTS

Faster hiring: HR systems optimized to attract and onboard top talent
Stronger product velocity: Faster hiring led to faster delivery for customers
Team integration: Ampleo felt like part of the team, not an external resource
Capital efficiency: Expert support without the cost of full-time hires

CONCLUSION

For a startup scaling at speed, Ampleo HR delivered exactly what SkyFi needed: expertise, efficiency, and execution. By embedding directly into the team, Ampleo helped SkyFi stay lean, scale fast, and build the people infrastructure needed for long-term success.

EMBEDDED HR SUPPORT THAT EVOLVED WITH THE BUSINESS
Listen Technologies transforms HR from reactive chaos to strategic clarity

Download the full PDF here: Listen Technologies Case Study

INTRODUCTION

Listen Technologies is a global leader in assistive listening and audio communication systems, helping people overcome barriers related to hearing loss, language, and noise. As the company scaled, CEO Maile Keone knew HR couldn’t be left to chance. After more than 18+ months without dedicated HR leadership and evolving hiring needs, President & CEO Maile Keone turned to Ampleo HR for support.

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CHALLENGE

During a period of growth and organizational transition, Listen Technologies operated without internal HR leadership for over a year. With no dedicated HR leader in place, Maile was managing benefits questions, compliance risks, and employee issues on her own—while driving a fast-growing product strategy. The result: HR was reactive, fragmented, and pulling her away from higher-impact work.

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SOLUTION

Referred by Ampleo Finance, Maile reconnected with Abby Martin and quickly saw a difference. Abby’s deep expertise, empathy, and flexibility stood out. The engagement began with a search—then evolved into a part-time placement with Chris Lynford, who proved to be such a strong fit that the company ultimately hired her full-time.

Chris integrated quickly, bringing structure and professionalism from the start:

RESULTS

Rapid risk reduction: Legal and compliance gaps surfaced and prioritized within weeks

Increased leadership bandwidth: Maile shifted HR tasks off her desk and back into the right hands

Clearer HR roadmap: Defined the right level of support needed—including a transition to full-time HR

Employee confidence restored: Chris became a trusted, in-house-level presence

Strategic shift: From reactive firefighting to proactive HR planning

CONCLUSION

Ampleo HR helped Listen Technologies move from HR uncertainty to confidence and clarity. What started as a flexible solution quickly became essential—so much so that the part-time resource became a full-time hire. With a trusted HR foundation in place, the company is scaling forward with focus, backed by a partner that delivers just-right support at every stage.

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Introduction

A mental health company specializing in the treatment of OCD and anxiety faced major challenges in recruitment and HR infrastructure. With clinical hires central to its business model and the founder deeply involved in hiring, the company needed more than just a staffing agency—it needed a partner.

Enter Ampleo HR. Through an embedded recruiting model, Savana Tejada, an experienced HR consultant, seamlessly integrated into the organization, building its talent acquisition foundation from the ground up.

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Challenge

Before Ampleo HR’s engagement, the company’s hiring pipeline was sparse and lacked strategic direction. Recruitment efforts were reactive, with no structured process in place. The company had never collaborated with a recruiter who could offer both strategic insight and execution support.

Key challenges included the following:

• Slim Talent Pipeline: Few applicants and limited visibility on major platforms
• No Standardized Processes: Lack of scorecards, structured interviews, and offer templates
• Decentralized Candidate Information: No system to track or organize applicant data
• Founder-Led Hiring: Needed a deeply tailored and high-touch recruitment approach due to the founder’s personal involvement

Given the founder’s dedication to maintaining quality and culture, traditional external recruiting lacked the depth needed to deliver the right candidate experience.

Solution

An Embedded, High-Touch Approach

Recognizing the need for a partner, not a staffing agency, the mental health company brought in Ampleo HR to serve as an embedded recruiter and HR manager. Savana Tejada became an extension of the company’s team—learning its culture, collaborating with leadership, and operationalizing HR from the inside out.

Building from the Ground Up

Savana overhauled and professionalized every aspect of the hiring process:

• Job Descriptions: Collaboratively developed descriptions using Ampleo HR templates and refined them through live editing sessions with hiring managers
• Compensation Benchmarking: Tailored benchmarking to the company’s out-of-pocket billing model using tools like OpenComp, Glassdoor, and Salary.com
• Sourcing Strategies: Leveraged LinkedIn, Indeed, and niche state licensure databases for highly targeted outreach
• Interview Process: Joined every interview early on, modeling expectations and gradually empowering the internal team to take over
• Offer Management: Created role-specific offer templates, structured compensation bands, and implemented preapproval processes
• Onboarding and Compliance: Focused on New York employment law compliance, prestart checklists, and a transition to electronic systems for onboarding and timekeeping

Integration into the Team

Operating in a largely in-person environment, Savana quickly built trust with the CEO and worked closely with clinical and administrative staff. Her communication style and proactive involvement led to Ampleo HR being seen as more than a consultant—it became a core partner in business operations.

Results

The embedded partnership between Ampleo HR and the mental health company produced tangible, lasting results:

• Boosted Pipeline: Increased applications from 17 to 54 in a recent hiring cycle
• Efficient Hiring: Reduced time-to-fill to just 25 days from job posting to accepted offer
• Process Standardization: Introduced hiring scorecards, a recruitment dashboard, structured interviews, compensation guides, and offer templates
• Improved Maturity: Created a centralized people folder, digitized onboarding, launched auditing tools, and implemented compliance training
• Long-Term Value: Delivered a hiring guide, documentation templates, and coaching for managers—assets that will continue to elevate HR operations

Conclusion

This engagement showcases Ampleo HR’s strength in embedded recruiting, especially within specialized industries like healthcare. By assigning a dedicated, knowledgeable consultant, Ampleo provided strategic HR support that was customized, culturally aligned, and operationally integrated. The result was not just better hiring—it was a more mature, compliant, and scalable HR function.

Background

In 2013, Mary Moody was a new mom navigating life with a sweet baby and seeking a new routine and purpose. Drawn to the idea of creating jewelry to represent pivotal moments in life, she created Made by Mary, a handcrafted jewelry company. As the business grew, her husband, Taylor Moody, joined the team full time as chief operating officer (COO), helping to scale the company.

Challenge

In 2018, Made by Mary experienced a period of hypergrowth. While it was exciting, Mary and Taylor found themselves overwhelmed by the growing pains that came with rapid growth. Issues like hiring and keeping high-quality employees, managing funds, and making strategic investments in the business were daunting tasks for the leadership team.

“There were things that we didn’t know such as how do we manage our funds and what investments do we make in the business?” Taylor says. “We needed support and advice to help us grow as a company.”

To overcome these challenges, they reached out to Ampleo for finance, marketing, and human resources support to help guide and navigate them through this next phase of growth.

Engaging with Ampleo

When Ampleo’s fractional CMO and HR executives joined Made by Mary, they became more than just advisors: They became an integrated part of the executive team, collaborating closely to address key business gaps, make informed decisions, and execute on strategy.

“Even though we are a fractional resource, we fully integrated into the team,” says Joe Grover, fractional CMO at Ampleo. “We had Made by Mary email addresses, we attended leadership meetings weekly, we led teams, and had direct reports.”

Ampleo CMO

Ampleo’s fractional CMO brought strategic focus and operational clarity to Made by Mary’s marketing efforts. By establishing clear goals and KPIs, the CMO provided a roadmap that unified the brand and growth functions with stronger collaboration, accountability, and alignment.

Operationally, the CMO led the relaunch of the Shopify store back end, significantly improving site speed and enhancing the customer experience. They also worked closely with the leadership team to refine and roll out new company values, fostering a culture of alignment and shared purpose.

The CMO also collaborated with the CFO to create more robust reporting and models to increase transparency and keep stakeholders informed. With more visibility, they were able to optimize paid media strategies, prioritize profit metrics over ad efficiency, and improve agency management. Additionally, the introduction of customer satisfaction flows provided actionable insights into client happiness.

These comprehensive efforts equipped Made by Mary with the tools and strategies to scale effectively, ensuring that marketing became a driving force for sustainable growth and customer connection.

Ampleo CHRO

Before bringing in Ampleo CHRO, Made by Mary lacked a people strategy, which made hiring and retaining high-quality talent a struggle. Ampleo’s CHRO was able to develop an employee engagement survey and gather feedback to better understand the company’s strengths and gaps. This survey helped create a people strategy informed by the needs and insights of the employees.

Based on the feedback, Ampleo helped Made by Mary develop a clear roadmap of people programs, outlining expectations for both employees and the company. They also conducted a robust organizational design process, ensuring that the company had the right structure to support its goals. The process resulted in a more future-proof organizational structure, improved role clarity, and increased leadership expertise through the creation of new leadership positions.

Once roles were defined and expectations set, Ampleo revamped Made by Mary’s existing performance management process to be more action-oriented and trained managers in how to provide productive feedback. This led to improved managerial capabilities, better performance data, and streamlined processes through implementing an HR platform.

As the company continued to grow, Ampleo’s HR team also streamlined the recruiting process, helping Made by Mary hire high-quality talent to meet their needs.

Results

“I couldn’t believe how much frustration and stress I was living with as an owner before Ampleo’s marketing and HR help,” said Mary, “Ampleo came in, saw the gaps, addressed them, and created a timeline for execution and decisiveness. The confidence all came when they came in to help shoulder these existing problems.”

With Ampleo’s help, Mary and Taylor are now focusing on what they do best—creating meaningful jewelry that celebrates life’s most important moments—while knowing that their HR and marketing are in capable hands. “There are many moments when operating a business that will shake you to the core and you need someone sitting next to you and that is what Ampleo has done for us,” Taylor says.

EMBEDDED HR SUPPORT AT A CRITICAL MOMENT
Comprehensive Mobile Care enhances control and shifts from HR firefighting to long-term strategy

INTRODUCTION

Comprehensive Mobile Care is a family-owned provider of onsite dental, podiatry, optometry, and audiology services. For over 25 years, the organization has delivered ethical, compassionate care to senior and veteran communities. When a sudden internal leadership gap left the business without HR support, management needed help—fast.

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CHALLENGE

The unexpected departure of an HR lead created an urgent need for HR and finance support. With no one to handle onboarding, payroll, compliance, or employee relations, the management team was left shouldering the work themselves on top of leading the business. Already stretched thin, they needed a partner who could step in immediately, bring clarity, and rebuild the HR function from the ground up for a company growing 50% a year.

SOLUTION

Referred by a trusted investor, Ampleo HR responded quickly. Within 48 hours, Alexis was embedded as a dedicated HR partner, fully integrated into Comprehensive Mobile Care’s systems, team, and daily operations.

Alexis brought both structure and strategy, taking on:

• Onboarding, I-9s, payroll, and benefits administration
  
• Compliance tracking and reporting across multiple states
  
• Manager support and resolution of day-to-day employee requests
  
• The foundation for longer-term HR planning and measurement

Three months into the engagement, the nature of the work began to evolve—from reactive admin tasks to proactive people ops. Alexis helped the team measure attrition, assess labor costs, and support manager development.

RESULTS

• Time saved for leadership: 20 to 40 hours a week reclaimed by executive team
  
• Compliance reestablished: Multi-state reporting, insurance filings, and onboarding brought back online
  
• Transition to strategy: Moved from admin execution to people metrics and manager enablement
  
• Stronger internal trust: HR embedded in daily operations and employee problem-solving

CONCLUSION

Ampleo HR delivered more than a quick fix. By embedding directly into the business, we helped Comprehensive Mobile Care enhance operations, increase confidence in HR in a people focused business, and build an HR function that supports their mission. With day to day fires behind them, the team is now focused on long-term people strategy for its valued field assistants, and organizational health.

Introduction

Cohn & Schwartz, a well-regarded personal injury law firm in Orange County, CA, faced a persistent hiring challenge: filling a critical paralegal role with the right blend of experience, professionalism, and cultural fit. After internal recruiting efforts and partnering with a legal-industry-specific recruiter fell short, the firm turned to Ampleo HR.

Jessica Acosta, an HR consultant with Ampleo, brought a fresh, consultative approach—leveraging modern sourcing tools, deep screening expertise, and a commitment to quality over quantity. What followed was more than just a successful hire: It was a model for how recruiting has evolved in today’s competitive talent landscape.

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Challenge

The firm needed to hire a qualified paralegal in a highly competitive, localized talent market. Unfortunately, internal recruiting efforts had stalled, and a prior engagement with a legal-specific recruiter produced underqualified candidates. Cohn & Schwartz expected a high volume of candidates but instead received low-quality resumes from candidates who lacked critical soft skills, relevant experience, and cultural alignment.

Solution

Ampleo HR led a detailed intake process to understand the role, firm culture, and what success looked like in the position. Instead of overwhelming the client with resumes, the partner took the following course of action:

• Adopted a proactive outreach strategy using LinkedIn and tapped into local paralegal groups—beyond the reach of traditional recruiters
• Focused on presenting only the best-fit candidates, resulting in just three on-site interviews but two solid offers
• Coached the client to rethink selection criteria to avoid disqualifying viable candidates prematurely

Throughout the process, communication was constant—Ampleo HR regularly met with the client to align on feedback, recalibrate expectations, and ensure transparency throughout the search. This ensured that the relationship became a true partnership built on trust, responsiveness, and expertise in both sourcing and advising.

Results

The engagement highlighted how Ampleo’s holistic, modern recruiting model outperforms traditional industry-specific approaches by delivering the following results, all within a three-month period:

• 3 candidates brought on-site
• 2 offers extended
• 1 successful hire of a paralegal, who remains a high-performing team member more than seven months later

Cohn & Schwartz rehired Ampleo HR for a second paralegal search due to its satisfaction. The firm even went so far as to refer Ampleo to other attorneys, underscoring its trust in the process and results.

Conclusion

Cohn & Schwartz’s experience shows that relying solely on industry-specific recruiters can limit outcomes. With the talent landscape constantly shifting, firms need recruiting partners who understand both the tools and the strategy behind great hiring. Ampleo HR delivered more than just a hire—it delivered peace of mind, long-term value, and a better way forward.