In this episode of Whispered Hiring, Andy Mowat speaks with Adam Kuznia, SVP of Client Services at Invisible, about the habits and frameworks behind his approach to GTM hiring. Adam has led teams across customer success, sales, marketing, and revenue operations at companies including DataCamp, Opal, and Sales Impact Academy. His philosophy on network maintenance, candidate evaluation, and psychological safety challenges nearly every default in how senior leaders think about hiring.
Topics discussed:
- If you write the JD and go to market, you are ten years too late. The actual work of hiring happens long before a seat opens, through relationships built continuously over time.
- Adam holds monthly 1:1s with most of his former direct reports, maintaining a live talent map so when a role opens he already knows who is ready, who can refer, and who is heading somewhere relevant.
- The gift in July principle: do not reach out only when you need something. Send value year-round. He takes recruiter calls even when not looking because that investment compounds both ways.
- He does not help people. He helps people help themselves. Whether career advice or a job ask, his move is to ask questions until they can think through their own problem.
- His interview method centers on productive disagreement. He creates space for fun, probes for strong opinions, and will argue a position he does not hold just to see whether a candidate pushes back and whether that disagreement makes forward progress.
- The attribute he screens hardest for: unwillingness to let inertia or bureaucracy get in the way. Someone who bends rules thoughtfully and can defend exactly why.
- High leverage over individual heroics. A CFO once told Adam he would fire him for being too good, because everyone came to him for answers. He now screens for whether candidates make everyone around them better, not just whether they can carry the load.
ABOUT YOUR HOST:
Andy Mowat has built GTM engines for top companies throughout his career. He led Revenue Operations and Demand Gen at four unicorns, including scaling from $10M to $100M ARR at both Upwork and Culture Amp, and helping guide Box and Carta through IPO scale. With a passion for connecting people, Andy has advised executives on their careers for years and launched Whispered to make searching for executive roles less intimidating.
Learn more about Whispered: www.whispered.com