Savana Tejada

Savana embeds with growing companies that are hiring faster than their current people infrastructure can keep up with: a recent funding round or acquisition, new hires starting every month, policies living in one person's head, and onboarding that changes depending on who happens to run it that week. She steps in alongside leadership or the existing HR team to build what is missing, from offer letters, handbooks, and welcoming onboarding to an end-to-end recruiting pipeline and the everyday compliance foundation a founder has been carrying informally. At a 100-person private equity-backed beverage brand, she stepped in to cover the entire HR function during an internal HR manager's maternity leave without missing a beat, closing long-standing process gaps along the way; at a growing nonprofit SaaS company, she backed up the Director of People and Culture by owning talent acquisition from job scorecard to signed offer until headcount stabilized. Whether she is supporting a small family business or a 100+ person private equity-backed company, her goal is always the same: build the lasting structure that prevents the fire rather than spending every week putting the same one out.

What Savana Does Best

• Building HR from the ground up: For companies where HR has been handled informally by default, she builds the core foundation (offer letters, employee handbooks, onboarding workflows, and compliance essentials) so the founder can stop acting as the backup HR department.
• Scaling the recruiting engine: When a business is hiring faster than its current process can handle, she builds a repeatable recruiting pipeline from job scorecards and candidate screening through interview coaching and offer negotiation, keeping hiring both fast and consistent.
• Creating a consistent employee journey: From a candidate's first interview to an employee's final day, she puts clear, caring structure around onboarding, 30/60/90-day check-ins, performance conversations, and offboarding to close the gaps that drive turnover and compliance risk.

Recent Engagements

• 100-person PE-backed CPG beverage brand, high-growth consumer • Extend HR • 5 months: When the company's internal HR manager went out on maternity leave, leadership needed an experienced embedded partner to keep the function running smoothly. Savana stepped in to manage all day-to-day and strategic HR: onboarding and offboarding, payroll setup and audits, 30/60/90-day check-ins, employee relations and conflict resolution, engagement surveys, manager coaching, compensation benchmarking, pay equity analysis, and open enrollment. The HR function did not miss a single cycle over five months, and she closed several lingering compliance and process gaps so the internal HR manager returned to a stronger foundation.
• 100 to 115 person PE-backed nonprofit SaaS company, $15M to $17M ARR • Extend HR / Total HR • Ongoing: During a stretch of heavy hiring and turnover, the company needed senior talent acquisition backup and a strategic partner to work alongside their Director of People and Culture. Savana took ownership of recruiting end to end (building job scorecards, writing job descriptions, coordinating interview panels, and closing offers) while collaborating on broader retention and scaling initiatives. Turnover stabilized, open seats filled with strong-fit hires, and the internal HR leader gained the capacity and sounding board needed to get ahead of rapid growth.
• 11 to 50 person privately held pediatric therapy practice (OT, PT, SLP, and ABA), growing 16% annually • Total HR • Ongoing: A growing clinical practice needed full-scope fractional HR led by someone who understood the daily realities of behavioral health and clinical staffing. Savana manages recruiting, onboarding, payroll, employee relations, multi-state compliance, workers' compensation, benefits enrollment, leave administration, compensation benchmarking, career pathing, and leadership training. The executive team gained industry-specific HR expertise, confidence in their legal compliance, and retention-focused people practices built for clinicians.

Experience

• Senior Clinical Talent Advisor • Multi-State Autism and Behavioral Health Provider (5,000 to 10,000+ employees across 200+ locations in TX, AZ, CO, IL, NC, and MN): Led clinical talent acquisition strategy and recruiting operations across a multi-state healthcare organization.
• Senior Operations Manager • Multi-State Autism and Behavioral Health Provider: Oversaw clinical and business operations across multiple Austin-area clinics, coaching clinic leaders, managing staffing and workflows, and leading regional onboarding and training for new operators.
• Clinical Operations Manager • Multi-State Autism and Behavioral Health Provider: Managed day-to-day clinic staffing, employee relations, and business operations for an Austin-area healthcare clinic.

Education

• M.S., Psychology, Pepperdine University
• B.S., Environmental Sciences and Human Development, University of Alabama

Outside Work

Savana is a proud homebody who loves spending time with her husband and daughter, taking long neighborhood walks with her dog Koda Bear, and cooking at home. On weekends, you can usually find her meeting up with family and friends at local farmers markets and favorite neighborhood restaurants.