In this episode of the Unicorn Leaders podcast, Fahd Alhattab sits down with Penny Farinha, former VP of People at Ecobee, to unpack what it takes to scale a mission-driven startup—without losing your soul or your best people.
Penny shares how Ecobee grew from 75 employees to a billion-dollar acquisition while competing with Google Nest. She explains how values-based hiring helped build a strong culture and how she approached team design through each growth phase—from scrappy startup to post-acquisition.
They explore the messy reality of evolving people systems, the leadership lessons from staying nine years, and how founders can avoid outgrowing their own culture.
Whether you’re navigating hypergrowth, rethinking org design, or trying to lead a team that outlearns the competition—this episode is full of sharp insights on people, purpose, and scale.
Find Penny Farinha here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pennyfarinha/
Penny Farinha
Penny Farinha is the Senior Vice President of People at Cordelio Power, where she leads the company’s people and culture strategy — helping build high-performing, highly engaged teams in the renewable energy space.
She’s known for scaling people operations in fast-growth environments, and spent nearly nine years leading the people function at Ecobee — where she played a key role in one of Canada’s largest tech acquisitions.
In this episode, we talk about stepping away after nearly a decade, leading with the long view, and why not everyone can — or should — be saved.
