Decoding the People function
Partnering with startups and teams in transition to reimagine talent and organisational growth.
We focus on simplicity and agility.
Our Mission
We support our mission of Decoding the People Function through four dimensions:
Fractional People Team: We remove daily friction with HR touchpoints, enabling you to focus on core operations and rapid growth by delivering agile foundational and strategic HR functions.
Coaching & Succession Planning: We eliminate chaos, low morale, knowledge loss, and missed talent opportunities by facilitating thoughtful succession planning, leadership insights and coaching journeys.
Organizational consulting: We unblock obstacles to change and growth by providing expert HR consultancy on organizational design, talent strategies and change management to deliver actionable changes.
Social impact: We support the next generation of talents and people leaders through education advocacy, internship, scholarship, and angel investments.
How we started....
co:grow started with a social impact mission to make strategic HR more accessible to start-ups and scale-ups. We aim not only to provide sound transformational advice but also to support the execution for impact.
co:grow officially kicked off in 2023 with the deep-rooted optimism for the People function and start-up ecosystem. co:grow embodies the spirit of co-creation and growth, with the colon symbol (:) serving as the reminder of how we must challenge ourselves and client partners to think about the direct relationship between co-creation and sustainable organisational growth.
Inundated by the shifts in the post-pandemic world and through in-depth conversations with various business leaders, we felt the sense of urgency and need across the industry to support our client partners to prepare for that future.
Dr Susan P. Chen
Founder and Managing Director
For nearly two decades, Susan has worked with teams and leaders to develop talent strategies and interventions that build capabilities for sustainable growth across a broad range of companies. Susan has worked and lived in Taiwan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Norway, Singapore, and Indonesia.
Susan received her PhD with a focus on knowledge management from the University of Stavanger, Norway, and has a Masters in International Human Resource Management from London School of Economics and is currently pursuing her Masters of Digital Education. Her most recent publication is a book on "The Death of Best Practice".
Susan believes in the power of human resources as a function to transform business outcomes and people's experiences. Susan has worked with diverse companies, including a health care startup in Indonesia, the first decacorn technology platform in Indonesia that went public, a fintech multinational company in Singapore, a national energy company in Norway, and a gaming and entertainment company headquartered in the United States.
Susan holds the people investment thesis that the fundamental growth of human potential can only be unlocked and amplified through a growth mindset. Susan is also a strategic advisor and angel investor in various education and people technology startups searching to transform learner impact and learning and career outcomes.