Isabelle Mendoza

Head of Talent

Singapore, Singapore11 yrs experience

Highly Stable

Key Highlights

Built talent functions from scratch in multiple regions.
Successfully recruited over 1200 technical professionals.
Led significant fundraising efforts for Entrepreneur First.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Talent Acquisition Leader in the Tech Startup ecosystem.

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Skills

Other Skills

BudgetsCommunicationCustomer ServiceHuman ResourcesLeadershipManagementMarketing CommunicationsPublic SpeakingResearchSalesSocial MediaSourcingTalent ManagementTeam LeadershipTeamwork

About

Working with technology companies at different stages: early stage deep tech startups & pre-seed investing on the VC side at Entrepreneur First, Seed & Series A with theAsianparent, and Series H and beyond with pre-IPO companies such as Stripe and Zomato. I've done the 0 to 1, 1 to 100 and 100 to 1,000. Employee #2 at Entrepreneur First in Asia, helping us launch across Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangalore. Built out our talent function in APAC from scratch, leading and growing the team from 0 to 11 across the region, and recruiting over 1200 software engineers, computer scientists and researchers across 4 years. I saw us through our Singapore Core Fund ($16 mil) raise, our $12.4 mil raise into our fund management company led by Reid Hoffman, Greylock Partners & Founders Fund, and finally our new $115 million Global Fund in 2019.

Experience

Openai

Member of Recruiting Staff

Apr 2025 – Present · 11 mos

Building & launching OpenAI in APAC as the region's first recruiter

Stripe

2 roles

Growth Partner Development Manager (Channels & Alliances)

Jul 2022 – Dec 2022 · 5 mos

6 month rotation. After hiring our entire Partner team in APJ, I got the opportunity to work with the very team I helped build from scratch.
I worked on scaled partner programs and enablement for our brand new Stripe Partner Ecosystem.

International Recruiting

Jan 2021 – Mar 2025 · 4 yrs 2 mos

Building new, first in-region teams from the ground up, almost always starting with senior leadership hires through to individual contributors. Built technical, operations, and GTM teams from 0 to 1.
I recruit across all of our markets Stripe is present in - the US, EMEA, and APAC, including Greater China and Japan.
https://stripe.com/jobs

Entrepreneur first

3 roles

Expansion Lead

Jun 2020 – Jan 2021 · 7 mos

Scoping out new markets for EF, launching our talent operations in Canada

Head of Talent Acquisition, Asia

Promoted

Nov 2018 – Jun 2020 · 1 yr 7 mos

After building our talent acquisition function in Singapore from scratch, I now do the same with our new offices in APAC and lead our regional talent team. We're responsible for recruiting over 400 technical individuals (computer scientists and engineers) yearly for our programmes in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Bangalore, turning them into founders who build globally impactful technology startups.
Managing a team of 6 in Singapore, total 11 regionally.
I sat on our Investment Committee for our pre-seed investments in Hong Kong

Talent Acquisition Manager, Singapore

Oct 2016 – Nov 2018 · 2 yrs 1 mo

Building EF Singapore’s talent function from the ground up as employee #2 & first hire for Talent Acquisition in APAC.
Invested in 400 computer scientists, hardware & software engineers, and academic researchers on the Entrepreneur First SG programme between 2016-2018.
Scaled the number of people we invested in Singapore by 4x, between 2016-2017, from 50 a year, to 200.
Built a talent ops model that scaled across our new expansion locations (Berlin, Paris, Bangalore, Hong Kong), including our HQ in London.
Entrepreneur First brings together extraordinary people to build startups from scratch in London and Singapore. We fund individuals and help build cofounding teams, develop ideas, and accelerate through fundraising from the world's best investors.
To date we have helped over 350 individuals build 80 companies with a total valuation of over $1 billion. Our major exits to date include Magic Pony, led by Rob Bishop and Zehan Wang, which was acquired by Twitter for a reported $150m only 18 months after the Founders met on the EF programme.

The parent inc.

HR & Operations Manager

Feb 2016 – Oct 2016 · 8 mos · Singapore

Southeast Asia’s top digital content and community platform, publishing theAsianparent.com, Kidlander.com and Pregnant.sg, reaching over 6 million readers every month. One of Singapore's earliest startups, Tickled Media has raised over US$30mil from Vertex Ventures and from Chinese heavyweights JD.com and Fosun International.

Zomato

Regional Account Manager

Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 · 1 yr · Auckland, New Zealand

Ate my way through New Zealand's food scene. Managed a portfolio of over 100 clients who were advertising on Zomato across Wellington, Hamilton & Christchurch.
Zomato is the world's largest food and restaurant aggregator with presence in 24 countries and 10,000+ cities. It's one of India's most successful startups, currently at unicorn status, valued at $3bn USD & is funded by Sequoia Capital, Temasek and Ant Financial.