🎙️ From Playwriting to COO: Megan Roberts’ Unlikely Path to HD Growth Partners
Megan Roberts, COO of HD Growth Partners, graduated with a degree in playwriting, sorted defective spice caps on a factory floor for 12-hour shifts, spent nine years working her way from receptionist to director of operations at a wealth management firm, and earned a master’s in organizational leadership as the only civilian and only woman in a military cohort. None of it was planned. All of it was used. She joined HD Growth Partners in 2023 and helped scale the firm from $6 million to nearly $15 million in revenue in three years — not by working harder but by building systems that survive without any one person in them.
✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn:
What a factory floor sorting spice caps taught her about operational systems and scalability
Why playwriting’s feedback culture was the best leadership training she ever got
The master’s degree from a military academy where she was the only civilian and only woman — and ended up leading the first group project
How arriving at a wealth management firm with a post-it note of financial terms she’d Googled became a nine-year career
The difference between a great process and a great employee — and why only one of them scales
How the Level Up Program made career advancement transparent, application-based, and emotionally safe
Monthly scorecards that used to take a week to produce and now auto-update daily
Why HD Growth Partners wins clients almost entirely on responsiveness
The solo glamping trip that helped her stop performing and start leading as herself again
A change management book in progress built around roundabout theory and automotive metaphors
🌟 Megan’s Key Mentors:
Tim Petrey (CEO, HD Growth Partners): The visionary who sees where they need to go — Megan’s job is building the 500 steps to get there
Her Military Cohort at Norwich University: Taught her discipline, a second language, and that leadership shows up in unexpected people
Her Father (WeatherChem): Got her onto the factory floor where she first saw what a real operating system looks like
Her Staples Colleague: Handed her a post-it note with financial terms before her wealth management interview — she still has it framed
Her Husband: First test subject for every process she builds — if it works for him, it works
👉 Don’t miss this conversation about building career ladders that actually exist, why the people who can’t hear back from their accountant keep switching firms, and how a playwright ended up being the operational backbone of one of Ohio’s fastest-growing accounting firms.
