Leading People Series: People First, Growth Always: Leadership Lessons on Culture, Feedback, and Scaling Organizations
Thu Jan 29 2026
On this episode of the Here@Haas podcast, meet Dave Alberga, a former Army officer and successful founder, CEO, and investor who sits on several boards.
Dave has assisted in the launch of numerous start-up organizations and in their growth into large companies, including leading The Active Network from pre-revenue to $480M in annual sales, and a $1B exit for investors. Prior to Active, Dave served as the COO of the CitySearch cityguide business from just after startup to a successful IPO and investor exit. Dave currently serves as a Board Director of GovX, Firestorm Labs, and Trimark Associates, ( A Renewable Power Controls Company). Dave has independently invested in a number of additional private companies including Peloton, Semantic AI, The Rise Festival, and Lennd, among others.
Dave joins Haas MBA students Lee Kantowski and James Takami to discuss the leadership lessons he’s learned throughout his career and give advice on driving organizational culture, giving feedback to employees, and how to best utilize professional networks.
Episode Quotes:
Prioritizing People for Greater Organizational Success
"I'm suggesting that if you focus on the success of your employees, you're actually going to deliver more effectively to your shareholders than if you don't."
The Leader’s Job in a Growth Organization
"I viewed my job as number one raising money, number two trying to do my best to paint a target for people and for the organization. And number three, which is the thing I spent more time on than any of the other two, was actually spending one-on-one time with as many people in the organization as I possibly could to understand how they define success for themselves."
Creating a Difficult-to-Replicate Work Environment
"It was my job as the CEO to make finding a better option really, really difficult. That was my job. To create an environment that was going to be very hard for people to replicate elsewhere in the form of professional development, satisfaction, feeling mission-driven, compensation..."
Transparency and Accountability in Performance Feedback
"The reality is if I always felt like if I'm delivering news in a formal performance review that I hadn't given informally multiple times before, that was on me. That was my screw-up... There should be no surprises in a performance review ever."
Show Links:
David Alberga LinkedIn Profile
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations
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On this episode of the Here@Haas podcast, meet Dave Alberga, a former Army officer and successful founder, CEO, and investor who sits on several boards. Dave has assisted in the launch of numerous start-up organizations and in their growth into large companies, including leading The Active Network from pre-revenue to $480M in annual sales, and a $1B exit for investors. Prior to Active, Dave served as the COO of the CitySearch cityguide business from just after startup to a successful IPO and investor exit. Dave currently serves as a Board Director of GovX, Firestorm Labs, and Trimark Associates, ( A Renewable Power Controls Company). Dave has independently invested in a number of additional private companies including Peloton, Semantic AI, The Rise Festival, and Lennd, among others. Dave joins Haas MBA students Lee Kantowski and James Takami to discuss the leadership lessons he’s learned throughout his career and give advice on driving organizational culture, giving feedback to employees, and how to best utilize professional networks. Episode Quotes: Prioritizing People for Greater Organizational Success "I'm suggesting that if you focus on the success of your employees, you're actually going to deliver more effectively to your shareholders than if you don't." The Leader’s Job in a Growth Organization "I viewed my job as number one raising money, number two trying to do my best to paint a target for people and for the organization. And number three, which is the thing I spent more time on than any of the other two, was actually spending one-on-one time with as many people in the organization as I possibly could to understand how they define success for themselves." Creating a Difficult-to-Replicate Work Environment "It was my job as the CEO to make finding a better option really, really difficult. That was my job. To create an environment that was going to be very hard for people to replicate elsewhere in the form of professional development, satisfaction, feeling mission-driven, compensation..." Transparency and Accountability in Performance Feedback "The reality is if I always felt like if I'm delivering news in a formal performance review that I hadn't given informally multiple times before, that was on me. That was my screw-up... There should be no surprises in a performance review ever." Show Links: David Alberga LinkedIn Profile Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/here-at-haas/donations