Stride empowers self-employed people to build lives they love. For our first Spotlight, we chatted with Astrid, our Director of Member Experience, about her love for our team and the great outdoors!

Can you introduce yourself and your position?

I’m Astrid, Stride’s Director of Member Experience.

How would you describe your job to a 5 year old?

My job is to make our members happy by making the people who talk to our members feel happy, fulfilled, and challenged at their jobs every day.

When it’s a beautiful weekend in the San Francisco Bay Area, where can we expect to find you?

Every Friday night, you can find me hosting a Shabbat dinner where we light candles, drink wine, eat bread, and welcome the day of rest! On Saturday and Sunday, I’m in the sunniest and most wooded spot I can find on a run or a bike ride. I love running up Sweeney Ridge in San Bruno (a hidden gem looking down on Pacifica!) I also love biking on hidden trails with a brunch to follow!

What’s the most rewarding part about working at Stride?

Hearing from members who have never been able to afford health insurance gain access to affordable benefits that improve their overall health and well-being. Even better than that, nothing makes me happier than hearing from a member who had a great experience with someone on our Member Experience Team!

Talk to me about Stride’s values: Empathy, grit, health, optimism, trust.

Tina Seelig, a professor I admire, once said, “attitude is perhaps the biggest determinant of what we can accomplish.” Solutions are going to be more creative and collaboration is better if you approach it with optimism. Not only does this help our team, but it helps our members, too.

What is your favorite Stride tradition?

Definitely when Noah (our CEO) picks up the megaphone and walks the hallways of Stride telling us it’s time for our company meeting and to “fire it up!” It was even funnier when we were only a 15-person company on one floor and we could hear him just fine without his megaphone.