Building Leadership and Culture: Molly Hill’s Insights from Disney, Starbucks, Airbnb, and Toast

On a recent episode of the Talent Development Hot Seat, Andy Storch sat down with Molly Hill, Global Head of Talent Development at Toast. Molly’s journey has taken her from iconic brands like Disney, Microsoft, and Starbucks to her current role helping fuel growth and innovation at Toast—a platform empowering small businesses and restaurants nationwide. In their conversation, Molly revealed actionable insights on building impactful leadership development, codifying values, leveraging remote work, and nurturing authentic community. Here’s what you can apply to your own organization.

Build on Brand Love and Personal Connection

Molly’s career path is not about chasing big names but working for companies—and products—that inspire passion. Her advice: choose organizations whose mission and product you genuinely care about. Authentic engagement at this level not only fuels personal satisfaction, but makes the work of culture-building and development feel purposeful and real.

Codify Values With Intention, Not Just Process

When Molly joined Toast, the company had recently refreshed its core values. Instead of simply inserting these values into hiring or performance templates, she took a more intentional approach: "Not just creating a set of questions and shoving them in, but asking, 'What are we actually trying to achieve in each part of the employee experience?'" This meant:

• Collaborating with leaders and talent acquisition to define what values-based behaviors actually look like in interviews, hiring, and onboarding.
• Building development programs, like monthly Leadership Lunchbox sessions, that go deep on one value/behavior at a time, ensuring employees are never overwhelmed.
• Taking inspiration from marketing: launching “campaigns” around selected behaviors, making learning sticky and measurable—one step at a time.

The takeaway? Codifying culture and values is a living, breathing process that must meet people where they are and integrate into daily workflows.

Design Purposeful, Connected Learning Experiences

Molly draws on experience leading massive in-person leadership conferences at Starbucks (including a 12,000-person event in 2019) and is a champion for high-impact, interactive gatherings. The key question for any large event or learning initiative: “Why are we together in person?” Her guiding principles include:

• Make every in-person or synchronous touchpoint about creating connections—not just absorbing content.
• Prioritize group discussions, peer learning circles, and activities that spark camaraderie, not just presentations from senior leaders.
• Follow up events with robust, sustained learning “tails” that pull people through new skills, keep conversations alive, and reinforce behaviors over months (not just days).

The message is clear: Use your limited facetime to foster real relationship and belonging, not to deliver what could be a webinar.

Leverage Creative Programming and Resourcefulness

Operating in fast-paced, dynamic organizations, Molly knows the value of resourcefulness. For ongoing manager development at Toast, she created the Leadership Lunchbox: an always-on, curated mix of mini-learnings, discussion guides, podcasts, and group coaching—delivered monthly, and aligned to a targeted set of behaviors. This approach recognizes that not every leader learns in the same way or needs the same thing at the same time, and that variety is essential for sustained engagement.

Community Building for Senior Leaders

Recognizing that community is essential at the top as well as at the front lines, Molly launched the "Breadth and Depth" program at Toast—a blend of business simulations, executive development, and ongoing coaching, designed to build both capability and peer networks among VPs and senior leaders. In a hybrid, distributed world, building relationships and shared understanding among executives is critical for alignment and business success.

Measure, Pivot, and Let Go of Ego

A lesson brought from her time at Airbnb: apply a true marketing and product mindset to L&D. This means closely measuring behavior change, not just activity—and having the humility to pivot or sunset programs that aren’t working, no matter how much you personally invested in them. As Molly puts it, “The ego part can kill you in this profession. You have to let go.”

Experiment, Learn, and Demystify AI for Your Team

Molly’s advocacy for experimentation shone in Toast’s recent HR AI Hackathon. By creating a safe space for people professionals to design and demo practical AI solutions (from career chatbots to workflow automations), the team demystified AI and fostered a collective growth mindset. Her advice: don’t be intimidated—lean in, experiment, and don’t try to create a perfect product. Just start.

Human-Centered Development, From Bar Business to Boardroom

Through it all, Molly’s career—whether leading Starbucks’ culture efforts, running a small-town bar, or shaping the future at Toast—centers on empathy, creativity, and curiosity. Her top advice for talent professionals?

• Invest only in missions and products that light you up. Passion fuels perseverance.
• Create experiences, not just trainings. Learning that sticks is social, experiential, and integrated into daily work.
• Measure what matters and be ready to move on. Don’t cling to initiatives that don’t deliver.
• Build community at all levels—from line managers to executives. Connection and belonging drive engagement and culture.

Fostering a values-driven, innovative culture is about more than tools and budgets. It’s about inspiring people to bring their best, every single day.

Be sure to listen to the full episode with Molly Hill on The Talent Development Hot Seat podcast for more insights on building culture, activating values, and the future of learning at work!