Chief Change Officer
#259 Rahshea Cardiff: From Starbucks to Startups—Serving Joy at Work – Part One
Thu, 27 Mar 2025
Part One. Joy at work? Sounds suspicious. But Rahshea Cardiff is making it happen.As VP of Partnerships at Happy Companies and a corporate veteran of Microsoft, Starbucks, and Best Buy, Rahshea has serious street cred. But her story isn’t just about big names—it’s about big life lessons.In this episode, she gets real about love, loss, and career reinvention—plus why she believes your workplace should feel a little less like a chore and a lot more like a choice. Join us as she shares how her personal journey brought her to a company with “happy” in its name—and how she plans to make that more than just branding.Key Highlights of Our Interview:Conditioned Ambition: The Corporate Ladder Wasn’t the Life I Wanted“As we’re growing up, we go to school, we get good grades, we go to college, we get married, buy a house. Climb the corporate ladder—it’s what we’re taught, what we see. But in 2016, everything shifted—I realized I was chasing something that no longer felt right."Loss and Legacy: Realizing We’re Not Promised Tomorrow“Losing my mother and going through a divorce within a year taught me that we all fall into this trap of thinking there’s always tomorrow. I began asking myself, ‘If today were my last day, would I be at peace with how I spent it?’ Too many times, the answer was no. I knew it was time to recalibrate.”Choosing Purpose Over Position“I walked away from corporate stability and took a leap into entrepreneurship. And now, working with Happy, I’m able to stay close to my family and focus on meaningful work that aligns with my values.”The Gift of Presence: Living in the Moment“When we are able to shift our mindset and perspective to live in the present, it really is such a gift.”Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Rahshea Cardiff --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.12 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>140,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: What is the main focus of Rahshea Cardiff's career journey?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. who couldn't use a bit more happiness? This episode and the next dives deep into what it means to find joy and resilience in both work and life.
I'm thrilled to introduce Rishia Cardiff, the VP of Partnerships at Happy Companies. Happy Companies is a venture focused on building happier, healthier workplaces. Rochelle brings over 20 years of experience in people management across major brands like Best Buy, Starbucks, and Microsoft. And she's deeply passionate about talent development and employee experience.
As we all know, bureaucracy, corporate politics, and constant changes like layoffs and digital transformation can make it tough for employees to thrive and survive. Richier herself has navigated intense transitions. leaving a corporate role at Microsoft to pursue entrepreneurship, experiencing the loss of her mother, facing divorce, and raising her first child.
In this two-part series, she shares her journey of resilience, why she joined Happy Companies, and how she's working to enhance employee experience using technology, but without losing the touch, the human touch. In today's episode, we'll focus on Rishia's personal story and career transitions. On Tuesday, part two, we'll explore her role at Happy Companies,
and her vision for transforming the workplace, balancing tech innovation with genuine care for people. Let's dive in and find some happiness. Rishia, welcome to Oshua. Welcome to Chief Change Officer. Good evening to you.
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Chapter 2: How did personal experiences shape Rahshea's professional decisions?
Good evening. Thank you for having me, Vince. I'm so excited to connect with you this evening and dive into some great, thoughtful discussion. My name is Rishia. I currently serve as VP of Partnerships at Happy Companies. and went through some significant life experiences over the past several years that for myself really placed me in a deeply reflective space in terms of
what is my purpose in my time here what are the intentions and the things that i want to accomplish and the positive impact that i want to have on other people on the world and then ultimately really positioned me to consider what is most important in life and on this journey and that positioned me to make some shifts in life.
As I reprioritized my family, I reprioritized the things that bring me joy and purpose in my personal life. And going through that journey is then something that cascaded to my career journey and really positioned me to take some different perspectives towards doing meaningful work in the world and really wanting to connect that to the positive impact that I seek to have.
So that's just a little bit about that personal and professional journey that I've been on.
You spend over 20 years in corporate America with some powerhouse names. Best Buy, Starbucks, and Microsoft, all in different industries. Could you walk us through a bit of that journey? How did your role and approach evolve across these big firms, especially since you've always been focused on people management and leadership?
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Chapter 3: What lessons did Rahshea learn from working at major corporations?
Yes. I have so much passion towards people leadership and just as a whole, the people component of teams and organizations. I'm very passionate, you know, that people are truly the heart of what propels an organization forward. They are the heart of what propels growth and success. And so that people first ethos has always been a very integrated part of my foundation and leadership.
I started out my journey in Best Buy and I was with Best Buy for over a decade in multiple people leadership capacities. and ultimately had additional wonderful opportunities within Starbucks. And most recently, prior to my journey with Happy, I was with Microsoft for almost a decade.
Within each of those opportunities that I've had, I always maintained the mindset that if I put my people first, if I hire the right talent, if I give them a thorough impact structured onboarding experience that sets them up for success, and I then follow that up with consistent talent development,
Chapter 4: How does Rahshea approach leadership in people management?
just understanding their individual goals, both personally and professionally, understanding their strengths and the things that they're passionate about. If I kept those things as a priority,
and I ensure that anybody within my team truly enjoys coming to work, truly has the opportunity for their talents and passions to have the greatest impact to our clients, to our collective vision and goals, then the results will follow.
And really, truly, that is what I attribute to the success that I experienced in my corporate career and reasons that I feel I've had such amazing opportunities was really keeping that people first mindset and trusting that the results and the growth would follow. That has ultimately
led me to many wonderful chapters in my career, and ultimately that passion is what has connected me to where I'm currently serving in my role with HAPI.
You've worked at big names like Best Buy, Starbucks, and Microsoft, each with their own well-defined structure, policies, and, dare I say, bureaucracy. I can relate because during my 15 years in large corporations, mainly in finance, I experienced a similar environment. On the one hand, as an employee, I appreciated the structure, the resources, and the weight that comes with a big brand.
But when it came to handling people issues, especially from the employee's side of things, I often felt disconnected from HR. Many times, it felt like they were more focused on enforcing policy rather than truly helping employees. that KPIs seemed more aligned with executing company policies rather than supporting employee needs.
Given your extensive experience in people function within large companies, I'd love to hear how you managed this balance. How did you reconcile your personal passion for putting people first with the reality of representing and implementing firm policies, which sometimes don't always feel like they are in the workforce's best interest?
That's a really great topic to bring to the table, Vince, because you're absolutely right. We encounter that in corporate America often. And there's a myriad of factors within those situations. But what I will say is things that come to mind within that. Yes, in corporate America, we have that structure. We have those guidelines. And there's one thing that was reiterated throughout my career.
Fair and consistent. We have to be fair and consistent. Well, yes, that structure plays a role, right? And it's necessary. It is a necessity in many ways. It's also... there's a role of a leader to demonstrate leadership courage. And there are times when that should come into play. And so to provide an example there, if
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Chapter 5: How can leaders balance company policies with employee needs?
I took over a market and prior to taking over that market, I was informed that these members of the team are currently on performance improvement plans and we would expect that they would likely be making changes soon, right? And so I came in and I said, I can appreciate that insight. I can appreciate where the process currently is.
However, as the new leader coming in, what I will ask for is the opportunity to observe the dynamics and the specific circumstances with these individuals and to gain further insight about their opportunities. and then have the opportunity to assess from there. And that's demonstrating leadership courage.
And I think it's super important that, yes, we have structure and we have policies and they do give us a guideline to work within and by, and create those standards to be fair and consistent. But there's also times that a leader needs to exercise discernment and exercise courage in navigating a conversation or a situation. For example, within that story I was sharing,
One of those individuals, I sat down, anytime I take over a team, one of the very first things I do is I schedule one-on-ones with every single person on my team. And I just seek to understand one more about them as an individual. What are they passionate about? What do they feel their strengths are in their specific areas that they bring superpowers to the team?
I like to understand a bit more about their strengths and opportunities in their performance and what plans they may have in place around that. And in general, just get a feel for what's going good. What do we say? This is awesome and we want to keep this going. And what are some of the pain points? What are some of the things that we really need to address?
and consider making some changes around moving forward. So within having those honest conversations with my team, these two individuals whom I had been shared this information with coming in to take on this team, I had heart to heart with them. We looked over their performance trends. We looked over their deliverables and what had consistently been shown over a specific period of time.
One of those individuals was able to really do some great reflection, some deep inward reflection, and accept some responsibility in those areas and said, Rashi, if I can have your support, if you and I can develop an action plan moving forward and I can turn this ship around, I would really appreciate that because these are the long-term goals I have that I'd like to accomplish.
And if I have the right leader working with me and the right support, I believe I can still do that. So I said, absolutely, let's make it happen. And just to share, that individual did just that. They turned that ship around. They became one of the top three performers in the nation in their deliverables. And that person is now serving in a corporate management role at our corporate campus.
And now on the other token of that, the other individual, it didn't end up being the right fit for them. It just wasn't the right role. And we did ultimately have to take that path, but they ended up making their own decision to find an opportunity that was better suited for them. But within that, you're given the context coming in. You're given the expectation coming in.
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