WhY
TALENT?
Your team is your first impact. Before your organization, product, or intervention delivers a single external outcome externally, it's already producing impacts as an employer: through every role you design, every candidate you interact with; each hire you make, and the evolving systems you build for how people work together.
When talent practices are aligned with your mission, they create a positive flywheel: the right people in the right arrangements, building momentum together. When they're misaligned, the costs compound just as fast…in turnover, in budget, in missed potential.
Next Wave brings impact measurement discipline to talent work. We use your theory of change to architect internal infrastructure: grounding role design, hiring, onboarding, performance, and team strategy in your mission so your people can see how their work connects to the bigger picture. And we account for the full spectrum of effects, including the ones that are hardest to look at.
NOW → NEXT
Hierarchical org chart → Collaboration maps that show how work actually flows
Gap-based hiring ("what's broken?") → Impact-informed role design ("how does this role advance our mission?")
Keyword-matching screening → Authenticity-first evaluation with videos, scenario-based prompts, and human reviews
One-size-fits-all job descriptions → JDs designed to offset bias, reflect real work, and help candidates see themselves in the role
Compliance-driven performance reviews → Accountability and development as part of your organization's impact
Cover letters and corporatized application forms → Low-burden, high-signal application design that makes the most of everyone’s time
"Culture fit" → Complementarity (what makes this team more than the sum of its parts?)
Personalization→ Structure-first diagnosis — start with how the role is designed and what support exists, then build from there
Theory of change as an external document → TOC as internal talent infrastructure — your mission becomes the throughline for onboarding, strategy, performance, and team alignment
what does it look like when impact organizations Build IMpact into their talent PRACTICES?
THE NEXT wave model
Evidence-Based |
Equity-Centered |
Proportionate |
Human Structures |
Adaptive |
DIVE IN
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Hi, I’m Maegan! I’ve been in diverse strategy, program, and impact measurement roles across social entrepreneurship for over 15 years. I've been an employee, manager, contractor, consultant, co-founder, and fractional chief of staff — sometimes more than one at the same time, building inclusive global teams across climate tech, innovative finance, web3, social innovation, workforce development, and more.
Across the wide range of organizations I've worked in, someone always had to step up for the talent needs — and I kept getting pulled in to the undertow. While my titles have never said "talent" or "HR" or "recruiting,” in every role, I’ve ended up working with leadership on how the team should be structured, who should be in it, and how they work together best.
From designing the functions to visualizing the org model to running the hiring process and building the performance systems, I've lived the reality of crafting teams inside organizations that are developing their infrastructure in real time.
My career has been shaped by all kinds of proof that jobs themselves are one of the most powerful impact levers we have on lives and communities.
I started Next Wave Talent Studio because the shapes and sizes of work get to be as creative and impactful as the solutions they’re advancing. Full-time with salary and benefits is just one model. Fractional roles, advisory arrangements, contracted partnerships, ownership stakes, milestone-based engagements, teams across timezones and operating models — those are truly the next wave of impact work for multi-hyphenate leaders who bring cross-sector fluency in complexity. And it’s my favorite stuff to design, because I’ve been there!
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It’s wild out there, we know. Next Wave focuses on partnering with employers, but we’re always supporting seekers.
Check out our evolving showcase of the best impact-first job boards or drop into one of our sliding-scale Office Hours (sign-up system is launching soon) to ask all your questions about impact careers.
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Watch this space - it will be expanded soon with some of our favorite tips and tricks for hiring managers (especially first-timers)
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Looking for curriculum content on talent operations for your cohort startups? That’s our favorite!
Let’s work together to craft custom educational material to empower your port-co’s with contextualized hiring and team building guidance, tailored to their industry, impact thesis, developmental stage, size, and cultural and gender dynamics.
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We are too! We’re ocean lovers, swimmers, divers and surfers - that might be why we take our next wave analogy a little too far sometimes. If you’re looking for marine tourism operators, we have some recommendations for that too - drop us a line :)