2024 marked a year of significant change for Nextdoor. We welcomed many new teammates, including two of our co-founders — Nirav Tolia as CEO, and Sarah Leary as Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Global Business Operations Officer. It’s been an exciting year as we’ve had time to reflect on the founding of Nextdoor as we make new plans and set goals for the future of the product. This reflection has been the catalyst for change internally as well. We redefined three values that guide the work we do as a company: Act like an Owner, Build for Community, and Raise the Bar.
Our Values Awards were created at the height of the pandemic and have been a time-honored tradition where we recognize and celebrate the accomplishments of our incredible employees. Each award winner received nominations from their peers and were revealed at an awards ceremony at our company-wide All Hands where they are met with IRL cheers and a flurry of messages in the company Slack channel.
Let’s get to know Q4 2024’s winners!
Act like an owner
Alex Barkin
“Alex is the definition of what acting like an owner means to me. When there is product feedback or bug reports, he is quick to hop in the Slack thread with a code fix and a thorough explanation of why something is happening, even without being tagged. He has even helped with things outside of his team’s responsibilities, like improving tooling for NOPS.”
Build for community
Nicole Atkins
“Nicole has been the driving force behind our summer Campus program for the past few years, cultivating welcoming spaces where talented interns and new grads connect, learn, and grow together. She has built these programs into standout experiences that participants rave about, often crediting Nicole personally for making their time with us truly special. Nicole’s focus and dedication helps to attract and develop exceptional talent that will lead Nextdor into the future. Thank you, Nicole, for building such a thriving community that we’re all proud to be part of!”
Raise the bar
Steely Morneau
“Steely’s execution within the Local News ecosystem and her drive on making Content Ingestion successful has been unparalleled. She single handedly built a majority of our pipeline that powers our new content flywheel and is already delivering significant measurable impact on engagement. Steely then interviewed and onboarded an entire engineering team from scratch and mentored them to be successful contributors while simultaneously continuing to execute on one of the most important strategic priorities within the next phase of Nextdoor. She has truly raised the bar on what it means to take ownership and deliver on a company objective, and serves as a model for others who work with her. I am extremely fortunate to see her work, to call her my partner, and am excited to see where she takes Nextdoor.“
Honoring our Values Award winners serves as a powerful reminder of the incredible talent and dedication within our Nextdoor community. These individuals exemplify what it means to Act like an Owner, Build for Community, and Raise the Bar. By celebrating their contributions, we reinforce the core principles that make Nextdoor a vibrant and dynamic place to work. We are immensely proud of our values winners and are excited to see the impact of their leadership and innovation as we continue to grow together.