
Meet the Team
Our team is made up of seasoned operators—talent acquisition experts and former in-house leaders—who have built and scaled global hiring systems and teams from the ground up. We don’t show up with generic frameworks. We roll up our sleeves and work alongside your team to solve real problems fast so you can hire smarter, move faster, and scale with confidence.
-
Paria Rajai
Founder and CEO
Paria founded ModelExpand to transform hiring into a more balanced, skill-based, and high-impact process—one that opens doors for exceptional talent and strengthens organizations. For nearly 15 years, she has partnered with industry leaders, HR executives, and TA teams across industries from fast-scaling startups to Fortune 500 enterprises—designing structured, data-driven recruiting strategies that improve efficiency, scalability, diversity, and quality of hire. Her work and thought leadership have been featured in Harvard Business Review, Culture Amp, and Forbes.
Over the years, she has grown ModelExpand into a team of Talent Acquisition experts who share this vision and bring innovative, practical solutions to organizations worldwide.
Paria lives in San Francisco with her husband, two kids, dog Luna, and cat Timber. Her first concert was Boyz II Men, Tevin Campbell, and Babyface—proof she may have peaked in the 90s.
-
Julie Gonzalez
Managing Director, TA Executive Leadership
Julie is a seasoned Talent Acquisition leader with 25+ years in high-tech and biotech. Her work has included scaling eight start-up companies and she has held senior roles at Amazon and Google. At Amazon, she was recruited to lead hiring for stealth initiatives in emerging products, technology, and services—supporting software, hardware, robotics, aerospace, and clinical laboratory hiring. She enabled rapid growth by designing and executing TA strategies, building high-performing teams across the U.S., and partnering with global teams in Europe and Asia. Since then, she has led talent acquisition functions at high-growth companies, guiding teams through rapid scaling after multiple funding rounds and steering late-stage growth during global expansion.
Julie now drives hiring transformation for clients, creating strategies that accelerate growth, increase hiring velocity, and drive operational excellence.
Julie lives in the Bay Area and loves to travel internationally (20 countries and counting), attend concerts and music festivals, and bake homemade desserts for friends and family.
-
Daniel Grove
Managing Director, TA and People Operations Leader
Daniel is a seasoned Talent Acquisition and People leader with deep expertise in scaling startups. He has led recruiting at high-growth companies like Alma and Policygenius, guiding teams through rapid headcount expansion.
A specialist in ATS vendor evaluation, RFP management, and end-to-end system implementation, Daniel has built and optimized recruiting tech stacks to improve workflow automations, data integrity, and reporting. Prior to their in-house leadership roles, Daniel advised early-stage companies on developing scalable TA infrastructure: designing processes, analytics, and tools that drive efficiency and data-driven hiring decisions.
With a strong operational and technical foundation, he brings the rigor of systems thinking to every engagement, ensuring TA functions can scale efficiently and deliver measurable business impact.
Daniel lives in New York and is a devoted live music fan. He’s seen Carly Rae Jepsen perform 12x (and counting).
-
Matt Tague
Principal, AI and HR Tech Advisory
Matt has worked at the forefront of Talent and HR technology for 15+ years, with expertise in recruiting operations and technology. He scaled Gem’s Professional Services function from the ground up and led their Customer Success team, helping clients integrate ATS platforms, deploy automation, and design hiring processes that improve efficiency.
He has held leadership roles at Lyft, Microsoft, and LinkedIn, where he led global talent sourcing and talent intelligence teams, and earned four U.S. recruiting technology patents.
Matt is recognized for his skill in AI talent acquisition roadmapping: identifying where AI delivers the greatest impact, selecting and implementing the right tools, and ensuring adoption, compliance, and measurable ROI.
Matt lives in San Mateo with his wife and two sons. Outside work, he enjoys coaching, traveling, and planning new life quests.
-
Stephanie Constant
Principal, Interview Training
Stephanie specializes in structured hiring and interview training. She has led Learning and Development programs at Amazon, Adobe, and United Airlines, and now partners with startups through ModelExpand to help teams stay aligned and maintain hiring excellence through periods of rapid expansion.
As ModelExpand’s lead for interview training, she builds interviewer capability—equipping managers with the skills to run consistent, effective, and fair interviews.
Drawing on her experience leading Amazon’s Bar Raiser program during hypergrowth, she has helped clients strengthen interviewer effectiveness and elevate hiring outcomes across their organizations.
Outside of work, Stephanie loves traveling, hiking, reading, and spending time with her grandkids. She has explored 74 countries so far, and she’s only just begun.
-
Olivia Shen Green
Senior Consultant, HR and Culture Specialist
Olivia brings 20 years of experience in leading fast-paced, inclusive change across human resources, engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, and talent acquisition integration internationally. She taps academic research, pop culture, military strategy and more to inspire leaders to integrate equity, inclusion and happiness into their leadership practices, people processes, and business products and solutions.
Olivia has held global executive leadership positions, including Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, at a Fortune 200 technology company. She has led teams in spaces ranging from enterprise computing and video collaboration to consumer-facing music, gaming, streaming, podcasting, and sports.
Olivia’s love language is tech gadgets and tiny tea sandwiches. Talk to her about Broadway musicals and sports photography!
-
Ben Wong
Principal, Technical Recruitment and Sourcing
Ben is a seasoned Principal Technical Recruiter with over 15 years of high-tech recruiting experience. He has built and executed sourcing strategies for some of the most competitive talent markets, holding roles at Fortune 500 companies like Amazon and Google as well as high-growth startups such as Coupang.
Known for solving hard-to-fill hiring challenges, Ben has a track record of identifying scarce technical talent, building targeted sourcing campaigns, and enabling teams to consistently meet ambitious hiring goals.
Ben is a Bay Area sports fan, which means his mood is directly tied to the 49ers, Giants, and Warriors’ win-loss records. He loves traveling abroad, partly to explore new cultures, mostly to find creative ways to explain what a garlic fry is.
What can we help you achieve?
Featured Advisors
-
Ana Recio
VP, Global Talent Acquisition
UBER
-
Alvin Tillery
Social Scientist and Director
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
-
Beth Steinberg
Chief People Officer
CHIME
-
Marlette Jackson, PhD
Head of Talent Engagement
FRONTIER COMMUNICATIONS
-
Minoo Ayat
Head of Global Talent Acquisition
JUNIPER NETWORKS
-
Ulysses King
Executive Vice President
ARCHETYPE
-
Michelle McHargue
Talent Partner
COSTANOA VENTURES
-
Maura Theriault
Advisor
OK CORP