Chris Tobin in

Chris Tobin

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Chief People Officer at Zūm
📍 San Francisco, California, United States

Chris Tobin is the Chief People Officer at Zūm, specializing in creating human-centered organizations that drive business outcomes. With a Ph. D. in Organizational Psychology, he has extensive experience leading People, Talent, and Workplace functions at high-growth startups like Intercom and Affirm, often as the first global head of people.

As a parent, Chris is motivated by Zūms mission to provide safe transportation for children and its positive environmental impact through bus electrification. He values resilience, hard work, and maintaining a learning mindset, traits he attributes to his career success in the chaotic and ambiguous startup world.

Unique fact: Chris was the first global head of people at four different startups, where he built the People function from the ground up during periods of aggressive growth.

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Experience
7 Years
Current Role
Chief People Officer
Job Level
Leadership
Location
San Francisco, California, United States
Personality Overview

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Priorities

Topics Chris cares about

Scaling Startups
He has a specialized career in joining high-growth startups like Zūm, Intercom, and Affirm as the first head of people to build and scale the HR function.
People Technology
Serves as an HR Venture Advisor for SemperVirens Venture Capital and PeopleTech Partners, focusing on product feedback, positioning, and go-to-market strategy for HR tech startups.
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Career

Work history

4-2024
Chief People Officer
Zūm
10-2022
CxO Advisory Board
Menlo Ventures
7-2022
HR Venture Advisor
SemperVirens Venture Capital
9-2018
Advisor
PeopleTech Partners
4-2018
Advising Entrepreneurs and People leaders in high growth start-ups
Chris Tobin Advisory
In the press

Media appearances

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Education
B.A.
University of Colorado Boulder
Ph.D.
Alliant International University-San Francisco Bay
Social presence
in
Behavioral profile

DISC profile (public)

DISC behavioral profile

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