Founder Friday with Kelsey Hahn of Monark
Founded by Kelsey Hahn and Amanda Julian, Monark ventures into new frontiers of leadership performance, development, and optimization. The proprietary on-demand learning and performance optimization tool with integrated engagement activities and reminders helps new and emerging leaders unlock their potential.
We caught up with Kelsey to hear what’s new for Monark, what’s coming up next, insights into what’s happening in the industry, and advice she would give to her past self and up-and-coming women founders.
What’s New
The first notable achievement on their impressive list of recent accomplishments was Monark's inclusion among the 11 North American startups selected for Google for Startups’ Women Founders class of 2023. Graduating in November 2023, Kelsey and the team underwent a ten-week virtual boot camp, benefiting from technical mentorship provided by Google experts and participating in deep dives and workshops focused on product design, customer acquisition, and leadership development.
Starting the new year on a similarly positive note, Monark celebrated their selection to be part of the Department for Business and Trade's AI-based UK/Canada AI Inward Mission. In March 2024, a delegation of innovative Canadian technology companies crossed the pond to meet key contacts, explore the UK technology ecosystem, and learn about the support and opportunities within the UK market.
As the only Alberta-based company in the group, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer Amanda Julian showcased how Monark is transforming leadership development with cutting-edge AI-driven role play simulations and coaching.
Monark has collected data around how leaders are applying and retaining content—the pinnacle of what Monark is trying to achieve. The results?
Leaders are consuming content regularly: 87% completion rates among all leaders (average of 2–3 logins/week, for 10 minutes at a time)
Leaders are putting in the work and seeing the change: 80% of leaders experience positive behavior change (as rated entirely by others in pre and post 360 assessments)
No simple feat, they have published recent whitepapers that provide deeper insight into the work they’re doing, trends the team is staying ahead of, data points and discoveries learned, and where they plan to go next. Read more in ‘Why Middle Managers are the True Drivers of Company Success’ and a forthcoming article by Amanda in the Association for Talent Development (ATD) Journal in May 2024.
On top of this all—and to make it all happen—the Monark team has been growing and adding key players to their team to support their scaling efforts. They have also launched into a few big clients that they are looking forward to sharing more about in the future.
What’s Next
With their recent successes in the Google startup and UK mission programs under their belt, it should come as no surprise that Monark is working on their expansion into the US and UK. Already setting up booths and panel spots locally and across the border in 2024, Kelsey and the team are looking forward to spotlighting Monark at training conferences throughout the US.
Along with that excitement of gaining international traction, they will soon be rolling out AI-based real-time assessment and Super Leader scoring to their platform. Keep an eye out on their website and social media for more details around this development.
While not currently raising capital, Monark is looking to build relationships with HR, education, and future-of-work-focused investors who would potentially be interested in Series A investment in early 2025.
What’s Going On in the Industry
Like nearly every industry, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are major trends Kelsey and the team are watching for.
The rise of AI and ML is revolutionizing industries worldwide, including leadership development. Despite the lag in embracing new technology, AI and ML offer immense potential to transform leadership training by providing real-time feedback and personalized programs.
Monark’s white paper, Leading into the Future: How AI is Revolutionizing Leadership Development,’ explores how integrating AI and ML can revolutionize leadership training, paving the way for more adaptive and effective leadership development strategies.
Another topic the team aims to challenge misconceptions of is Mark Zuckerberg’s view on eliminating middle managers. To say, “I don’t think you want a management structure that’s just managers managing managers,” misaligns with numerous amounts of data that proves nothing but the power of the middle layer.
Effective managers significantly impact:
Recruitment: Attracting top candidates is mission-critical to an organization, and having great managers that prospective employees want to work with can help attract and close the deal with top candidates.
Business outcomes: 77% of senior leaders see managers as important to help achieve business goals. Further, great managers can help drive significant business outcomes by motivating high performance from their teams and direct reports—increasing employee performance by 25% and retention by 40%.
Retention: Studies have found that the number one reason employees quit their jobs is because of a poor quality relationship with their direct manager. 50% of people have quit a job at some point in their career to “get away” from their boss.
Advice to Your Past Self & Other Women Founders
“Stay true to the original conviction or insight that led you to take a risk,” Kelsey says. “Don't quit.”
There are countless ways to scale a business, and Kelsey mentions how she wished she had more of this conviction from the get go. Investors, advisors and non-entrepreneurs will tell you what to do and the blueprint to follow, but if the crash in tech markets last year taught us anything, it's that there is no blueprint.
Anyone can do things when they are easy, but most people drop out the minute the easy work stops. And it's no different when it comes to startups. You’ll see the highlight reel on LinkedIn and other social media platforms but you don't see the daily struggles or hard work that's gotten them to the milestones.
You need consistency and the grit to stick with it when things get hard. These have been key driving factors to why Monark is where it is today.
The51 is proud to partner with the National Angel Capital Organization (NACO) in telling founder stories to accelerate the representation of women within Canada’s innovation economy.