IC Spotlight: Liz Beggs Receives NJBiz’s 2018 Best 50 Women In Business Award by Finding Her Way
On March 19th, Internet Creations’ HR Business Partner, Liz Angelucci Beggs, was awarded recognition as one of the Top 50 Best Women in Business by NJBiz. Beggs has carved a dynamic career path navigating high-growth entrepreneurial environments where she has demonstrated success creating and executing strategic programs to enhance internal communications, talent acquisition, company culture, employee engagement, and media relations. Today at IC, she leads talent acquisition and employer branding efforts. She spends her days speaking with technology, sales, and other business professionals in the Salesforce ecosystem across the tri-state and Dallas/Fort Worth area, to identify candidates to work at Internet Creations. While her objective is to find top talent to join the IC team, she leads every conversation with the intention to understand each candidate’s professional story and to help job-seekers understand what they want from their careers and where they truly add value, in an effort to connect people with opportunities.
“It’s no coincidence that I’ve landed at a dynamic and forward-thinking technology company like Internet Creations that is positioned for growth,” said Beggs. “IC puts its people first, so driving people-related initiatives for the HR team here is very fulfilling. It’s an exciting and natural career progression to apply what I’ve accomplished through my corporate communications experience into the talent acquisition and employer branding space. Also, cross-team collaboration is encouraged here, and that’s where I excel when I can truly integrate into an organization.”
IC puts its people first, so driving people-related initiatives for the HR team here is very fulfilling.
Finding The IC Way
Liz had the perfect opportunity (shortly after she started) to genuinely understand the Internet Creations organization and all of the people that make it a great place to work, when the company made the decision to invest in the development of The IC Way: an aggregate of 29 behaviors/fundamentals that result in high performance. She was instrumental in driving the program’s development and seeing it through to completion. The company derived these fundamentals (including Do The Right Thing Always, Have Each Other’s Backs, and Attack Challenges) by observing its employees’ strengths, and looked beyond its office walls to identify additional positive behaviors that aligned with its core values.
“I’ve always enjoyed getting to know the people inside of a company – understanding their experiences and how they operate, and supporting the advancement of their initiatives by filling in the gaps. This lends itself directly to how I partner with hiring managers on staffing objectives. What skills, traits or insights are going to drive their teams, and ultimately the company, to further success?”
Beggs is no stranger to the values and concepts put forth in The IC Way. In fact, the Fundamental that speaks the most to what got Liz to where she is today is #27, Find a Way:
Take personal responsibility for making things happen. Respond to every situation by looking at how we can do it rather than explaining why it can’t be done. Be resourceful, own it, and show initiative.
While Liz was canvassing the employer landscape to make her next career move, she discovered Internet Creations in an article published by NJ Tech Weekly highlighting the Best Places to Work in NJ. Liz proactively reached out to IC, successfully engaging the Director of Talent, Glen Wilson. “Having recently transitioned back to NJ from the San Francisco/Bay Area, I knew I wanted to work at a local technology company,” said Beggs, “but I didn’t quite realize how special Internet Creations was until I went through the interview process.” While there wasn’t a pre-determined role defined at IC that aligned with Liz’s background and expertise, there was a need for what she offered and through a few collaborative conversations with Glen, as well as Chad Meyer, CEO, the HR Business Partner role was defined and created, and Liz got to work.
How did Liz know that she could work beyond the limits of a traditional job search to get what she truly wanted, where she knew could add impactful value? She’s had several professional mentors who have proven that paving your own way is the only way to go.
I’ve had mentors that inspired me to reach for greatness, to surge beyond the status quo, to be flexible, and most importantly, that tenacity matters and most rules have yet to be written.
“I’m fortunate to have had the opportunities to work with several compelling companies throughout my career. Within those companies, I’ve had entrepreneurial mentors that inspired me to reach for greatness, to surge beyond the status quo, to be flexible, and most importantly, that tenacity matters and most rules have yet to be written. I learned most of what I know about the business world (and the variety of personality types who work within it) in a very hands-on way, by doing. Today, I try my best to share the knowledge with my colleagues that I’ve acquired through my experiences as I continue to grow my own career. I feel especially lucky as a mom of two to have this perspective on work and on the business world, and I aim to inspire my kids with the same kind of ambitious and creative thinking.”
A Versatile Career Path
Liz’s career progression spans several corporate functions including Corporate Communications & Marketing, Human Resources, and Administration. Prior to her time at Internet Creations, Liz was a Senior Strategist at PR and Marketing firm Zer0 to 5ive, where she led several account teams and oversaw brand development, corporate marketing projects, media relations programs and go-to-market strategies for B2B technology companies across industries including tech services, hospitality, and pharmaceutical. As a consultant, she developed a comprehensive go-to-market communications plan for a budding social VR music company based in Montclair, NJ, (Endless Riff) to promote brand visibility around the company launch and to support its initial funding initiative.
Liz spent the earlier part of her career as Sr. Director of Corporate Communications and Human Resources for San Francisco-based media/technology company Ingrooves Music Group. As a trusted “Chief of Staff” to the founding CEO, Liz built out the Corporate Communications and Human Resources functions of the organization where she led internal and external company messaging, brand development, talent development and administration. Beggs was a core corporate team member who facilitated the company’s rapid growth from just 15 people in one office to 250 people across 6 global offices, and she successfully executed several employee engagement programs while keeping executives, shareholders and other stakeholders connected around various corporate initiatives and transactions including a major strategic investment from Universal Music Group, and later, Isolation Network’s acquisition of Fontana Distribution (a division of UMG).
Throughout her career, Liz has developed PR programs and marketing projects for over 10 companies spanning several industries. Beggs has built strong media relationships in the technology and music space, and as a result has secured executive interviews and corporate coverage for her companies and clients in both trade and national publications including Forbes, InformationWeek, New York Times, eWeek, Billboard, and Music Business Worldwide.
All of that experience has ultimately led Liz to Internet Creations. A place where she has been able to make an immense impact in her short tenure here and is doing so each and every day.
“I’m thrilled to come to work at Internet Creations every day because the people who work here are smart, talented, compassionate and fun to be around. The fact that I get to contribute to building the company brand and telling its story while finding more incredible people to add to this amazing team, is such a fulfilling way to spend my days at work. I’m excited about what we are all going to accomplish together as IC revs into an energetic stage of company growth.”
