Most companies define culture as their values statement, their Friday drinks, their Slack emojis. Teresa Lilly, founder of Culture Pilot Co and a 2026 HR Influence Awards Top 12 member, defines it differently: culture is who you promote, who you hire, and who you don't hire. The rest is frosting.
In this article:
- Teresa Lilly argues that real workplace culture shows up in promotions, hiring decisions, and how people are treated when things get hard, not in events or values walls
- After scaling fintech GROW Inc by 60% in a single year (to 470 employees), she founded Culture Pilot Co to help startups build people foundations before they break
- Her "times it by 10" hiring rule: whatever behaviour you see in the interview process, multiply it by ten, because candidates are on their best behaviour
- She advises founders using hypotheses rather than directives, framing every recommendation as a point of view that can be challenged
Lilly has spent years asking people what they want from workplace culture. The answer almost always starts with events.
"They often talk about events, just like I was talking about events and the happenings," she says. "It's kind of like the frosting of culture. But ultimately, it's really around decision making. It's promotions. It's who you hire. It's who you don't hire. That's your culture."
The metaphor is sharp. Frosting looks good. It photographs well for the careers page. But if you promote someone who treats people badly, that's the culture everyone actually experiences. No amount of karaoke nights (and Lilly has run plenty of those, from her days managing a pub at Harvard) will fix it.
When culture and strategy fall out of alignment, she says the diagnostic is usually straightforward: you're not getting the results you need. And the fix usually traces back to leadership behaviours or hiring misalignment, not systems.
For HR teams trying to measure whether their culture matches their stated values, tools like Compono Engage can surface engagement and culture data.
But as Lilly would put it, the data only matters if you're willing to act on what it tells you about who you're promoting and why.
Lilly admits she's made a bad hire. She let her biases win. She wanted a specific type of person for the role and ignored the warning signs that the fit wasn't right for the business.
The lesson became a rule she now shares with every founder she advises.
"Whatever happens in an interview process, and that can be not just the interview but the communication in between and showing up on time, whatever is happening, times it by 10 and that's the person you're going to get. Because they are on their best behaviour right now."
It's a simple framework. If someone talks over you in the interview, they'll do it in every meeting. If they don't prepare, they won't prepare for work either. If they don't ask a single question about the role, they won't ask questions once they're in it.
Most hiring processes focus on skills and experience. Lilly is saying the behavioural signals in between the formal questions are where the real information lives.
Before Culture Pilot Co, Lilly led the people function at GROW Inc, an Airtree-backed fintech that grew 60% in a year to 470 employees. She designed a full-company ESOP covering every person on the payroll. She was named to the B&T Best People & Culture Leaders list in 2024 during her time at Harrison.ai.
Now she works with startups between 30 and 250 people, typically at the stage where they're growing fast enough to need a senior people leader but not quite big enough to justify a full-time hire.
Her approach to advising founders is deliberate. She doesn't come in with answers. She comes in with hypotheses.
"I usually don't say anything that I am not 80% or more confident is the right thing," she says. "But I think there's that caveat of, I might not have all the information. You might know more about this than I do."
One founder told her: "I can't unsee what you shared." That, she says, is the job. Not making the decision for them. Shortening the time it takes them to make the hard call themselves.
This post covers the highlights. The full feature article goes deeper into Lilly's journey from French teacher and classical pianist to startup HR, her honest take on what 60% growth actually feels like from the inside, and the CEO advice that changed how she handles difficult people.
Read the full feature article on HR Influence Awards
Watch the full conversation on YouTube
Compono Engage helps mid-market teams measure whether the culture they think they have matches the one their people actually experience.
See how Compono Engage works – no commitment, just a look at what real culture data can tell you.
It means that real workplace culture is defined by the decisions an organisation makes about who gets ahead and who gets hired, rather than by stated values, office perks, or social events. Teresa Lilly calls events and perks the "frosting of culture" and argues that the real culture shows up in promotions, hiring, and accountability for behaviour.
The times-it-by-10 rule is a hiring principle from Teresa Lilly, founder of Culture Pilot Co. It states that whatever behaviour a candidate displays during the interview process (including communication and punctuality), you should multiply by ten, because that candidate is currently on their best behaviour. The amplified version is closer to what you'll actually experience once they're on the team.
The HR Influence Awards recognise the most influential people and culture leaders across Australia and New Zealand. The 2026 Top 12 winners were selected based on their voice, impact, community contribution, and influence across the profession. Teresa Lilly was selected for her work scaling GROW Inc and founding Culture Pilot Co to work upstream of the people problems that break fast-growing companies.
Teresa Lilly is the Founder of Culture Pilot Co, Sydney. She is a 2026 HR Influence Awards Top 12 ANZ winner, B&T Best People & Culture Leaders 2024. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
The HR Influence Awards are presented by Compono.