How She Got Her Start with Jerri Hemsworth—Annemarie Penny

Announcer 0:01
And now from the Echelon Studios in Los Angeles, California it’s the How She Got Her Start podcast. So let’s all get started with your host Jerri Hemsworth.

Jerri Hemsworth 0:15
Hi, again, this is Jerri Hemsworth with the Echelon Radio Podcast. And today we’re hanging out with Annemarie Penny. how’re you doing?

Annemarie Penny 0:24
Very good. It’s a sunny day.

Jerri Hemsworth 0:26
It is sunny. Thank God, we’ve had way too much rain this year

Annemarie Penny 0:30
True that. I’ve planted 50 trees though. So if they’re lucky

Jerri Hemsworth 0:33
50?

Annemarie Penny 0:33
Yes.

Jerri Hemsworth 0:34
What kind?

Annemarie Penny 0:35
Well, I worked with the forestry unit and the arbor society. So there’s a lot of native oaks and Sycamores. And then it’s also Annemarie’s home for wayward plants. So I’ve been gifted many fruit trees, and ficus trees that outgrew their pots,

Jerri Hemsworth 0:50
nice

Annemarie Penny 0:51
And then we put them in the ground, and then they get happy.

Jerri Hemsworth 0:53
And then you don’t have to water him every day with this kind of.

Annemarie Penny 0:57
You know, after the first year. That’s what I learned any vines or trees. Pay attention that first year and after that their rooted.

Unknown Speaker 1:03
let them fly.

Annemarie Penny 1:04
Yep. Taller than me.

Jerri Hemsworth 1:06
Oh, no. They do they do and then you have to let them go.

Annemarie Penny 1:11
Just stand under them.

Jerri Hemsworth 1:14
Shade me?

Annemarie Penny 1:15
Absolutely.

Jerri Hemsworth 1:16
your firm is called Dreamore?

Annemarie Penny 1:19
Yes.

Jerri Hemsworth 1:20
What is Dreamore?

Annemarie Penny 1:22
Dreamore is a new name for a recruiting company that I’ve had since the 90s. ApexDirect Search was founded in 1996. It was the first recruiting firm in Los Angeles to focus on tech startups. Everybody followed suit very quickly, of course, because of the dot com boom. But by the time it was all said and done, we were number 53 on the Forbes list of America’s best professional recruiting firms. Wow. And LA Business Journal nominated me for a Lifetime Achievement Award, which was a really awesome feeling except that I was too young. When this happened 20 years from now, yeah. But basically, just to give a little quick backstory, that all happen in 2018. The end of that year, the Malibu dream house burned to the ground in the Woolsey fire. And I had so much joy from these accolades and building so many tech companies and other firms that became unicorns and acquired by Apple and all this kind of stuff. I just realized, I need to take a break and heal and process from something that that drastic,

Jerri Hemsworth 1:59
yeah, that’s big.

Annemarie Penny 2:10
And so I did so by popular demand, a lot of clients that have been deep relationships and friends and people that mean a lot to me, they kept saying, please reach out to your recruiting firm. And it just felt like it was time for a new name. And I wanted to make sure that it was something that was purposeful and aspirational. We build businesses with people. And I’m female, I’m a founder. I’ve worked with many underserved groups, that it’s hard to get into technology. The STEM programs are much better, the venture community is working harder to elevate these kinds of folks. But that is something that I wanted to be much more purposeful with the new name, as well as this idea that you know, any kind of founder energy or creative energy or innovation, these are not people that sit in a box and just do the same thing over and over again. So another thing that I had learned from the postfire experience and the healing was embracing this idea of a growth mindset, which is you have challenges and obstacles we all do. And are you going to be a victim to that? And it’s a it’s a it’s a typical phrase oh I’m a fire victim, I’m a fire victim? Well, I can say that this terrible thing happened to me. But sure, what am I gonna do with that afterwards? It doesn’t have to destroy me. And this is very much a phoenix from the ashes kind of story.

Jerri Hemsworth 4:01
It’s interesting because I always find opportunity comes out of those type of things that you don’t even see. Don’t can’t even fathom what what is coming your way.

Annemarie Penny 4:15
100%

Jerri Hemsworth 4:15
kind of the Collateral Beauty as I say is, which is I ripped from the movie, but yeah, and it sounds like the opportunity that presented itself for you was pretty fantastic.

Annemarie Penny 4:27
It’s been a painful journey and I had a similar at the time, it felt intense. Now it seems like it was so easy, but the dot coms crashed and post 9/11 I had a lot of family back there. And I just remember laying on the living room floor and I had a little kitten. This kitten comes up to me starts licking my face and I was just like, I’m gonna lay here for the rest of my life because everything is just destroyed. And of course we came out of that and the tech industry actually recovered pretty quickly. Hmm. And I was much younger and healed pretty quickly, this time who could have predicted after the fire and other things that happen that year and then taking that year to really focus on healing and then COVID starts. And being in Los Angeles that first pandemic year was very intense. For those who might not have been in the city at the time, we had riots, we had curfews, the homeless population, you know, really unfortunately exploded, I had a landlord that went crazy on me, and I had to lawyer up, everything was just intense. Sure. So I had this 10 acre parcel that we had, on that year that we were in the 1%, feeling confident, I was gonna let it go. And that year, I just started sending people to the land, saying, Okay, you’re gonna get a ticket if you walk the beach in Santa Monica, but I have this private land, just go let your kids and dogs run around, feel free. And everybody kept coming back and saying, I feel like you saved my life

Jerri Hemsworth 5:59
really

Annemarie Penny 6:00
feel so much better to have been in nature. See the ocean and just breathe

Jerri Hemsworth 6:05
just by visiting that land?

Annemarie Penny 6:07
Yeah. So going through all of that journey of my own personal healing, thinking I was good. The beginning of 2020 I’m like, I’m good. I’m gonna relaunch I’m gonna take over the world and then got slammed down again.

Jerri Hemsworth 6:21
There’s a big smack and covid.

Annemarie Penny 6:22
Yeah, well, and the thing is that it took this personal pain that was still pain that a lot of people in the community experienced losing their homes in Malibu, but then it globalized it. And everybody has been affected by the pandemic, in one way or the other. Doesn’t matter your level of wealth, the country you lived in. Even the people in the small towns that figured they weren’t affected, eventually it got to them as well. So having this universal experience, really crystallized, you know, okay, let’s admit that this sucks. But that’s also decide what we’re going to do about it. And the story is not over. I still have a lot of peers that I deeply respect. And, you know, my company is not where it has been before. And that’s a real ego blow at times, and it’s exhausting. But again, it’s dreamore. And I remember my, you know, for myself and others, this isn’t fear more. This is dreamore. And it is also a reminder and a motivation to rise above. When it comes to the recruiting firm. We’ve always been the sort of search firm that doesn’t just throw resumes around and try to fill a job description and match keywords, we’re always looking at, what is the company looking to build? How do we solve that with people? How do we not only fill your job with what you asked for, but how do we attract the kind of talent that’s going to come in and elevate that job and do even more than you realized you needed. And doing more doesn’t mean working more hours, it really means coming in and having that commitment level. And that quality of character. And that resourcefulness. Again, that’s all growth mindset stuff, where you’re going to take challenges and obstacles, and you’re going to adapt and iterate. And, you know, grow from that in a way that, ideally is very special.

Jerri Hemsworth 8:16
Yeah, I think, quality over quantity in hours and the days that we have, you know, with how many days we don’t know how many days we have going around the sun. And I’m at the age and after COVID of really paying attention and being grateful for the opportunities that have come my way and trying to capitalize on Okay, let’s slow this down and make this a quality day. Instead of how much crap Can I cram into the day to get done? You know, it’s it’s pretty interesting. It’s I your outlook on things has really resonated with me.

Annemarie Penny 9:03
Thank you.

Jerri Hemsworth 9:04
Yeah,

Annemarie Penny 9:05
thank you. I appreciate it. It was always there. Sometimes. I’m asked Where did this come from? And you know, at a certain point in your life, you do the work and you go, Oh, when I was a little kid, there were these things that all make sense. It’s definitely crystallized with these experiences. Sometimes it feels like a midlife crisis. And other times it’s like, no, no, this is just this is just life’s journey.

Jerri Hemsworth 9:27
Right

Annemarie Penny 9:27
You don’t have to label it that way.

Jerri Hemsworth 9:31
And big picture,

Annemarie Penny 9:32
big picture,

Jerri Hemsworth 9:33
as I keep saying to our daughter who’s 24 Almost 24 big picture. You know, what your crisis is today is actually fairly puny compared to big picture.

Annemarie Penny 9:46
Definitely on that, you know, this is the thing. It’s taken this many years to point to that house fire, which was on NBC News and featured in Malibu magazine. We don’t do anything quietly around here.

Jerri Hemsworth 9:59
No, no, no. This is Hollywood

Annemarie Penny 10:00
oh my goodness, and so and by the way, the Malibu dream house was like my other homes, it was a place that we brought people together. It was business, it was fun, it was artistic expression, that home meant a lot to a lot of people. And so it was a loss beyond just me. But this many years later, I can point to that and go, I am grateful for the fire gets people’s attention. How could you possibly be grateful for this horrible thing? Well, because of going through this journey, and all of these experiences breaking me in ways that I guess I needed to break, and I’m not saying I liked it, not saying I would have chosen it. But the gratitude is really the only way to take all of this information and you know, get beyond it, and take some lessons. So to clarify, dreamore the new name, it’s intentional that I renamed the company Dreamore the recruiting firm and also named the land Dreamore because every time I’ve had a physical home, it has informed the marketing and the community for building the business. And every time I’ve had the business, it has informed the friends and the client relationships and the joy and the revenue streams to create that

Jerri Hemsworth 11:15
It’s all interconnected.

Annemarie Penny 11:17
It’s all interconnected. So this was the other thing since the dot com era, I realized, if you’re going to give me a job title, I’m a founder, I’m an investor, I’m a recruiter, if I go into a room and people say, what do you do? And I’ll say I rent a recruiting firm, and recruiter and headhunter. Those are words that are kind of charged, and sometimes people don’t really understand. And that’s okay. I mean, I got into the career because everybody’s had a bad expensive experience with a recruiter. I did. That’s what made me change careers. KPMG. Yeah, corporate finance into recruiting is like, oh, gosh, I would never intentionally do to a person what this headhunter did to me. But I digress. But yeah, I mean, ecosystem builder. And it has been told that having this environment, that the relationships are very much business and also personal and supporting each other. It’s certainly something that I appreciate about what I’m seeing with the people in Echelon. Yeah, it is a balance between who are you? And what do you do? And not just, what do you do? Right? I mean, transactional, right.

Jerri Hemsworth 12:28
I mean, it’s, it’s, I find professional labels of professions. You can tell me what your profession is, but it doesn’t tell me who you are as a person. And, and the members. I encourage all of them to get to know the people first. Absolutely. You know, that’s, that’s what’s utmost important here.

Annemarie Penny 12:52
Absolutely. And, you know, I’m a recruiter, as we’ve established, so I’m in the people business. And that becomes the shorthand to synthesize all of this information. If we’re making AI, job descriptions, and AI resumes that are just matching and processing, you know, I guess, but it feels a bit like noise. I love my AI tools. Don’t get me wrong, but synthesizing the humanity of it. You know, that’s where people like me are still very vital in that process of companies needing to grow their businesses and grow their revenue streams and meet their goals. Yes, no matter what your business or services, it’s still people behind it.

Jerri Hemsworth 13:31
Absolutely. And you got to get keep that human touch. Yeah. And humanity,

Annemarie Penny 13:35
And you can’t train attitude. So

Jerri Hemsworth 13:40
We can try.

Annemarie Penny 13:41
We can try. We can give them tools

Jerri Hemsworth 13:44
You can have tools, but it’s still what’s at the core.

Annemarie Penny 13:46
Only you know what’s in your soul when you wake up in the morning.

Jerri Hemsworth 13:50
That’s true, right? Oh, my God. Where did you grow up?

Annemarie Penny 13:54
I was born in Arkansas. I lived on 100 acres in the middle of nowhere. And I hated it. I thought the stork got drunk when he dropped me. Oh, I was convinced that that stork was headed west and somehow there was a mistake. So I ended up

Jerri Hemsworth 14:11
100 acres?

Annemarie Penny 14:11
Yes, pretty big. It was amazing. This is the thing like so many experiences. I did love being able to just go out with my bike and my dog and just run around and be free. So I ended up living in Israel as a teenager, my mom had a job. We were there for a while. And that was my first exposure to no kidding. New Yorkers, and Moroccans, and Russians and Middle Easterns. And, and everything. It was such a diverse country. It still is, but especially when I was a little girl, it was still a kind of a new country, and most people were immigrants from somewhere else. And that had a profound impact on my understanding and appreciation of diversity. And there’s so much in the conversation now around DEI, which I’m glad for or, and without getting too far down the tunnel of you know which part is talk and which part is due. But even the first time that I built my team with Apex back in the 90s, we had so much diversity that, you know, I was the founder choosing it. And I just felt like, first of all, I don’t know everything, I don’t need a bunch of people that look like me, right. And we have all of this different client base, I want to have people representing these companies that can relate in all different ways and bring new ideas. And I’m so grateful that on an instinct level I had that way before, you know, here we are talking about it and trying to elevate those needs now. So yeah, I came to California, when I was 19, I had a college degree and $200 and 5 days after graduation, I headed west and never looked back. So I’ve definitely anything that you would say about California Dreaming and the American dream. You know, this was all just hard work and bootstrapping and recognizing quickly the value of the relationships and mentorship and leaning in very hard on those topics to

Jerri Hemsworth 16:12
You talked about mentorship, did you have a good mentor when she got here to California?

Annemarie Penny 16:17
very grateful. I took a temp job Hughes Aircraft, and didn’t even know how vulnerable I was. But there was a an older gentleman who was my boss, and he was close to retirement. And he just took me under his wing. And it was a temp job. And he basically said, I want to get you a job here and the economy was was struggling. So this was a big deal to get a perm role. Hecomes back and says, Okay, I’ve got you an Executive Administrator role and Secretary role, basically. And I looked at him and I, I laugh now, but it’s this is your character in a horrible market where you desperately need permanent employment. I just looked at him and said, Well, I just got my college degree. And I didn’t work that hard to be clerical. You know, I’ll just, you know, I’ll just temp here and, and his eyes bugged. And he said, Oh, my gosh, can you please stay working here? Let me figure this out.

Jerri Hemsworth 17:16
Wow.

Annemarie Penny 17:17
And yes, I love working here. So he comes back three weeks later, as if he’s presenting me with some sort of prize. Thats when he says, okay, financial analyst, is that good for you? Will that work? I talked to this other department, and they’ve created a job for you. And they’re going to train you in that

Jerri Hemsworth 17:34
Holy smokes.

Annemarie Penny 17:35
And in that moment, I thought, well, I don’t know if I’m going to be an entrepreneur, or if I’ll climb the corporate ladder. But either way, it’s so important to understand how the numbers work. That seems like a great idea. So that got me to KPMG finance. And then KPMG wanted to move me to New York City. At the time, I was engaged and living on the street in Manhattan Beach. He was from there. It’s one of those glorious California days with the diamond sparkling on the ocean. I said, Hey, honey, do you want to move back to New York and be with your family? We look out at the ocean. And he goes, No. So I turned down the offer. And then that’s when I started working with recruiters. And my second mentor, since we took a bit of a journey to answer your mentor question. This woman this transformed my career in recruiting in that she didn’t place me, she got me great interviews. I took the job, which turned out to be a horrible job. She followed up six weeks later and said, How’s your new job going? It blew my mind. I said, Why are you calling me you didn’t make the money. And she just giggles and she says, Now this is about a relationship. This is what we do. We stay in touch.

Jerri Hemsworth 18:48
What a concept.

Annemarie Penny 18:49
Yeah. So she invited me to lunch. She must have smelled something. She invited me to lunch and she said, How’s your new job going? And I go, Oh, it’s going to go just fine. She asked me again, How’s your new job going?

Jerri Hemsworth 19:04
Oh, she asked you twice.

Annemarie Penny 19:06
It was like, converting to Judaism. She asked me a third time. And I said I hate my job. And I want to come work for you.

Jerri Hemsworth 19:13
Oh my gosh.

Annemarie Penny 19:15
And she said, Okay, let’s talk about that. And the rest is history.

Jerri Hemsworth 19:18
So she knew something. She she she saw something in you,

Annemarie Penny 19:22
I think so. This personality that I’ve developed, I was actually very, very, very shy. And part of going into recruiting was a desire to overcome this lack of understanding about people was book smarts were easy. People are complex puzzles, right? This is going to be a lot to figure out and I won’t get bored. And then the other piece of that was that I had wanted to come to California, growing up on 100 acres in the middle of nowhere, to be part of the world. And I was realizing I’m in corporate America and I’m still part of a very tiny world going into the office every day and going home. So being in recruiting and yes, absolutely how I ended up going into the startup world and just wanting to be in the room with people and have a reason to be there and talk to them.

Jerri Hemsworth 20:14
totally get that.

Annemarie Penny 20:15
Yeah.

Jerri Hemsworth 20:16
Wow, that’s very cool.

Annemarie Penny 20:18
And the 10 acres that I bought, of course, informed by the 100 acres in Arkansas, because all I wanted was that feeling with an ocean in front, right? And I worked really hard. And 20 some years later, I was able to have this thing that is very special to me and many others.

Jerri Hemsworth 20:36
That’s awesome. What do you do when you’re not working and not like, on the computer and emails,

Annemarie Penny 20:45
I am such a nature girl. There is a secret society actually, it’s not a very secret society of us, the secret society of the weed pullers.

Jerri Hemsworth 20:55
My Nightmare

Annemarie Penny 20:56
We love to go out and get our hands dirty, and just bend over like some Vanguards painting, and just dominate the planet. Wow. And it feels so good. But it’s my meditation. Even when I was a little girl, I used to just look at the ground and see all the bugs crawling around and just be fascinated by all the activity in this little piece of planet that we’re on. Sure. But now I take a more active approach. So this aha moment of I don’t have to just be the observer. I can actually affect it and plant things and grow things. I’ve also decided to be pretty good at a lot of things. So I took up violin when I hit 40. I do aerials circuit performance, and I was never a sport. So I’ll climb fabric 20 feet in the air and turn upside down.

Jerri Hemsworth 21:45
Holy moley.

Annemarie Penny 21:46
I spin fire because I met Burning Man people and the toys are fun.

Jerri Hemsworth 21:52
I can burn things.

Annemarie Penny 21:53
I can burn things and spin it around. Hopefully not myself though. And I’m a consummate host, I do anything from very large warehouse parties to very intimate catered wine dinners. To everything in between. It’s just joyful

Jerri Hemsworth 22:10
Violin at 40. I similarly, took up piano at 40 Yes, something I always wanted to do. Did you always want to do the violin or play the violin? Or was it just spur the moment?

Annemarie Penny 22:26
Since you’re asking, you know, my family, music was a way to annoy each other, which is really sad. My sister had a piano in her bedroom that she played quietly when nobody was around. And when I was a tiny little girl, I was just fascinated by that piano. So fast forward, I think it all came back around again. I have more stories, but I’ll spare the podcasts, we had an art project called entropy piano and we put a baby grand piano out in the garden as a project. So I’m telling you the story anyway, the concept was that entropy happens, we age we wrinkle, that we can affect it, we can be healthier, we can get more exercise. And so entro piano was intentionally a community project. This piano is going to be out in the garden and not even last year. But we can do things to affect this and then interact with it. And it ended up lasting so many years that we craned it out of the garden after everything had burned, it survived fire and it lives that Ereamore now. Wow. There was an orchestra pianist who played Rachmaninoff in the garden and had the most beautiful smile on her face. And she said, I never get to practice without having to practice quietly, even in my home, even in the orchestra, and I’m here in this garden on three acres, and I can do whatever I want. And I feel so free.

Jerri Hemsworth 23:53
Wow.

Annemarie Penny 23:54
Yeah. So yeah, the the music thing, the violin, I just wanted to feel what it felt like to run a bow over the string. And another orchestra friend of mine tried to give me two hours of violin coaching in two minutes so that I could just like no, I just I just want to do that once and then I’ve done well. I ran it over her Stratovarius and the sound was so beautiful, which apparently is not what happens on your first try.

Jerri Hemsworth 24:25
Not normally.

Annemarie Penny 24:26
She’s a good teacher though. And it felt like a drug. My violin pupils dilated, and I was just like, I have to have that feeling over and over again. It’s amazing.

Jerri Hemsworth 24:36
Do you still play?

Annemarie Penny 24:38
I do poorly. I mean, depending on the attitude there. There’s definitely people that think that you shouldn’t try violin if you’re past four years old. Ya know, that attitude made me

Jerri Hemsworth 24:51
Get over yourselves.

Annemarie Penny 24:52
So I have a Yamaha electric five string violin and I can put effects on it and people smile when They hear it I smile. What’s What’s not to like?

Jerri Hemsworth 25:03
Right? If it makes you happy? Why not.

Annemarie Penny 25:06
You know, somewhere in there, it’s just spread some joy, have some joy. Why not? Give

Jerri Hemsworth 25:11
Do you ever take it up to Dreamore and play out in the nature? All

Annemarie Penny 25:14
Oh all the time. Yeah. Oh, that’s the most we were down in Mexico. I didn’t have it plugged in. And I had a performance costume, which looks like a sea dragon. So there’s a picture of me with the violin as a sea dragon.

Jerri Hemsworth 25:30
Excellent. Excellent.

Annemarie Penny 25:33
Why so serious?

Jerri Hemsworth 25:34
Exactly. I think we all work so hard. And and it’s, we’re supposed to play. Yeah, we’re supposed to play. Because that’s what keeps us alive.

Annemarie Penny 25:48
We have it as children.

Jerri Hemsworth 25:49
Yes.

Annemarie Penny 25:50
And then we lose it quickly. Right. But here’s the thing, I’m not going to quote the science but what it does for our neurology, playful energy opens up creativity, it opens up collaboration, it opens up innovation. It is a very important part of us. And you know, for those of us who have pets, or you know, in zoo keeping, its animal enrichment. This is part of their program, they have food, they have water, they have community, they have animal enrichment, we don’t have people enrichment, we could condition that we’re supposed to be serious all the time and responsible, right. But play is as essential for us as sleeping and eating.

Jerri Hemsworth 26:32
Absolutely. And I think it’s a shame as people age, and they get into their professions, and it’s almost like they, they almost stopped playing. They, they they get so caught up in the rat race and and more and more and more and more, faster, faster. And, and then it’s over. And they’ve not played and it’s

Annemarie Penny 26:53
like a muscle. You got to exercise it.

Jerri Hemsworth 26:56
right.

Annemarie Penny 26:57
That’s very much informing everything that’s being created with dreammore, though, you know, the revenue stream is with the recruiting firm, and the land is real estate development. And then the canvas between the events, you know, we had art day and Music Day, circus day and dinners and all of those things with dream or the land those with the vision as we’re building.

Jerri Hemsworth 27:21
It’s beautiful.

Annemarie Penny 27:22
Yeah, you’re part of the story now, which is awesome.

Jerri Hemsworth 27:27
Annemarie, thank you so much for sitting with me today. This is so fun

Annemarie Penny 27:30
back atcha

Jerri Hemsworth 27:31
Take care.

Annemarie Penny 27:32
Bye.

Announcer 27:36
You’ve been listening to the How She Got Her Start podcast. Brought to you by Echelon Business Development. More than just networking. Way more.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai