how i got here.

i.

a curiosity about people.

i’m assyrian, born in america and raised in farmington, connecticut.

at home, i grew up surrounded by our language, traditions, and a culture with thousands of years of history. outside of home, things looked a little different. there weren’t many people who shared my background, and i often found myself navigating between two worlds.

growing up that way taught me a lot about belonging. about wanting to be understood, and how meaningful it feels when someone truly sees you for who you are.

i think that’s where my curiosity about people began.

i’ve always wanted to know what makes someone tick. what they love, what they’re good at, what drives them, and what they might be capable of that even they haven’t discovered yet.

i’ve met so many people throughout my life who have something remarkable to offer. sometimes all it takes is the right person, the right opportunity, or a little encouragement for that brilliance to come through.

that belief has stayed with me, personally and professionally.

ii.

learning the business of people.

my mother was a chief human resources officer, so i grew up with a pretty good understanding of what hr was. when i was figuring out my career, she encouraged me to try recruiting.

it wasn’t exactly love at first sight.

but recruiting taught me how to understand businesses, ask good questions, build relationships, and recognize potential in people.

i knew i wanted to do more than help companies fill positions. i wanted to understand what made those companies successful in the first place.

my opportunity came through a construction client.

i was recruiting for the company when one of its leaders suggested i come work for them instead. before i knew it, i was taking on the responsibility of building their hr function from the ground up.

it was a big opportunity, and i was excited to figure it out.

over the next three years, i helped build the onboarding, policies, performance management practices, and people systems the company needed as it grew. during that time, the business roughly doubled in size.

i learned more in those three years than i could have imagined.

construction is an incredible industry because you see so clearly how every part of a business depends on the others. the people in the field, the project managers, the office teams, and the executives all have different responsibilities, but their success is connected.

i learned that good hr doesn’t begin with a handbook or a policy.

it begins with understanding the business and the people who make it work.

i later went on to lead hr at a clinical-trials technology company. it was a completely different environment, but the same principles applied.

every business has its own personality, challenges, strengths, and ambitions.

the work is to understand those things first, then build the systems that help the organization become what it’s capable of being.

iii.

discovering the builder.

in 2023, i traveled to iraq on an assyrian birthright trip.

having grown up without a large assyrian community around me, the experience meant more to me than i could have anticipated.

i was surrounded by people who shared my language, my culture, and a history that had always been such an important part of my identity. there was something incredibly special about feeling at home among people i’d only just met.

i returned to boston wanting to create more of that connection for others.

and somehow, that turned into a matchmaking business.

i co-founded mesomatchmaker, which grew into hundreds of matches around the world and live blind dating shows that brought together audiences of 500 to 600 people.

i found myself doing a little bit of everything. building websites, creating content, hosting shows, planning events, finding vintage furniture, and dreaming up ways to make each experience feel special.

i remember one show in los angeles where we sold so many tickets that we had to find a bigger venue. i was sourcing decor, putting together the room, and playing old assyrian music videos on the walls.

it was a lot of work, a little chaotic, and so much fun.

and somewhere in the middle of all of it, i realized how much i loved creating something from nothing.

i loved the possibility of an idea. i loved bringing people together around it. and i loved the process of figuring out how to make it happen.

then i’d return to my corporate job on monday, and i couldn’t ignore how differently those two parts of my life made me feel.

i still loved hr. i loved solving problems, working with leadership, and helping businesses grow.

but i had discovered something else about myself.

i wanted to build something of my own.

iv.

“this is your time.”

as i started thinking about what came next, i realized i didn’t want another traditional hr leadership role.

i wanted to work with founders and ceos, understand what they were building, and help them make the decisions that would shape their companies.

i wanted to bring everything i’d learned from construction, life sciences, leadership, and entrepreneurship into one place.

and i wanted the freedom to do it my way.

so i called my mom.

she’d spent her career in hr leadership, and she knew both the opportunities and the challenges that came with starting a business.

we talked through the idea, and she said something i’ll never forget.

“this is your time. you are the brand. your energy is your edge.”

she was also the one who suggested the name hailey george human resources.

it felt right.

i registered the business, secured the domain, and scheduled a photo shoot.

then, just before that shoot, came an unexpected career transition.

it became an opportunity to build something of my own: a human resources firm rooted in the belief that people and organizations do their best work when they have the right support, structure, and resources.

and hghr began.

not long after, i was back in a room full of people starting over. this time, i was the one who brought them together. hghr hosted career confidence in the seaport, an empowerment session for people who had recently lost their jobs, and i shared what that moment taught me.

v.

built for human brilliance.

over the years, i’ve learned that the most successful businesses aren’t necessarily the ones with the most talented people.

they’re the ones that know how to bring out the best in the people they have.

they have leaders who know how to lead. expectations that make sense. accountability. good systems. and the ability to make thoughtful decisions, even when those decisions are difficult.

i’ve also seen the other side.

i’ve watched growing companies struggle because their infrastructure couldn’t keep up. i’ve seen good managers overwhelmed, executives pulled into problems they shouldn’t have to solve, and small issues turn into expensive ones.

and i’ve seen what a difference it makes when someone takes the time to understand what’s happening and helps put the right structure in place.

that’s the work i love.

and that’s why i started hghr.

we work alongside business leaders to identify risks, improve operations, develop stronger managers, and build the people infrastructure their organizations need to grow.

we ask questions. we pay attention. we tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. and we help turn good ideas into systems that actually work.

because to me, hr has never just been about policies, paperwork, or compliance.

it’s organizational architecture.

it’s understanding the people, the leadership, and the business, and making sure all three are working together.

i believe that when businesses create the right conditions for the brilliance in their people to emerge, extraordinary things can happen.

that’s what we’re here to build.

built for human brilliance.

connecting humans to the right resources.

hailey