Dakota

I’m the Founder and CEO of Boon, a gamified and AI-powered employee referral marketplace that engages and incentivizes your organization's existing talent pool to create the highest caliber pipeline of talent. Born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, I originally landed in Los Angeles to pursue stand-up comedy. The years I spent working grounds and staying quick on my feet help build both the framework and the flexibility for transitioning into entrepreneurship. After a decade helping Fortune 500 companies and hot new startups source top talent in industries like tech, healthcare, education, hospitality, aviation, and finance, I sold my successful recruitment firms and founded Boon to solve new challenges arising in the recruitment industry. With Boon, I see a faster, more human solution to many of our most pressing challenges in the evolution of work. Representation, productivity and corporate culture are all driven by talent. Boon helps you prioritize people. My proudest contribution to date is my daughter. Sure, having a kid isn’t a particularly unique skill but I’m still proud of it because it’s brought true meaning to my life. To know that I helped create something so amazing and wonderful that has such incredible potential - how could I possibly top that? I've had the privileged of enjoying some terrific success through many of my endeavors but I've also experienced some spectacular failures. Success is my preferred outcome however, in my experience, failure seem to be part of the foundation of success- much to my chagrin.