Life at Transcend: Nancy Thomas Shares Her Inspiring Journey

Welcome to the first of our ‘Life at Transcend’ stories, where we spend a couple of minutes getting to know members of the Transcend family, and their respective journeys to getting here. In our inaugural post, meet Nancy Thomas, Transcend’s People Operations Manager.

As we adjust to remote work, Nancy has been instrumental in keeping our culture strong and healthy. She’s also a ruthless judge of our team events—we haven’t quite worked out her methodology, but it always ends in laughter.

I was born and raised in Mexico City. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Sciences from Universidad del Valle de Mexico.

I moved to the U.S. in 2015 to be an au pair in San Francisco. My plan was to slowly immerse myself in the city and society I’ve always dreamed of living in, and use my au pair salary to pay for my studies in the U.S. Plus I got to be the au pair of one of the most beautiful families, and got to be mentored by a very successful VP of Product. At the same time, I obtained two certificates—one in Human Resources management from UC Berkeley, and Business Management from City College of San Francisco. I’ve also just been certified as a HR professional by The Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM).

I remember when I used to take my host kids to the Museum of Creativity in downtown San Francisco, and saw all these professionals, going out for lunch, or biking to and from work. I could only focus on one thing at that time—their work badges. I told myself I was going to have one one day.

That day came in June 2018, when a recruiter reached out to me for an opportunity to work as an Office Manager at a videogames startup. That’s when my People Operations journey began, and I finally saw my dream start taking shape.

After that role, I was at an employment agency, managing contracts for contingent workers employed at a variety of start ups. But, I wanted to join a startup myself and focus solely on People Operations.

I saw a job posting for a role at Transcend, and applied, interviewed, and joined in March of this year! When I applied to Transcend, I had a job offer already from another company, but it was missing that special feeling that I felt at Transcend, and from meeting the team.

As I am making progress towards my goal of being an informed, skilled, and autonomous People Operations professional, Transcend is the place where I believe I will see my dream come to life to grow further as a leader.

At Transcend, I run People Operations, which involves managing new hire onboarding, events, culture initiatives, and more.

I am genuinely very curious about tech and the science of people. My main goal as an HR professional is to help navigate and direct a company’s greatest asset to success—their people, and their leaders.

The opportunity to work with brilliant people that all have one shared mission in common, bringing data rights to everyone.

Nancy at work with her assistant, Oso.

Autonomy, because each individual at Transcend has something unique to offer that makes Transcend special. I can’t tell you how gratifying it is when you are trusted as a skilled individual.

On a regular day, you can find me running with my 7-month-old Golden Retriever pup, Oso. Or being outdoors in general— from hiking, biking, skiing and socializing with friends.