EP # 3 Penn Lat: People-First Leadership Even in the Difficult Moments

I sat down with Penny, Co-CEO of Virtua Solutions, a remote staffing company that's been quietly doing something most companies just talk about — keeping people. At 95% employee retention, some team members still around from 2014, Penny's built something rare: a team that actually wants to stay.

But this conversation isn't a highlight reel. Penny gets honest about the moments that humbled her — including a hard lesson about communicating change to her team the wrong way, one that cost Virtua a client. That story alone is worth the listen.

We go deep on what "people first" actually looks like when performance is slipping and a client is frustrated. We talk about why slowing down isn't weakness — it's leadership. And we get into something I think we don't talk about enough: emotional regulation as a core leadership skill. Not a wellness trend. A real, practical requirement if you want to show up steady for your team.

Penny also shares how she and her co-founder Francis model the culture they want — not through leadership manuals, but through how they show up in every meeting, every check-in, every joke. And we get into something close to my heart: the deference culture in the Philippines, why it holds our leaders back, and what it's going to take to move past it.

If you're a people manager, HR leader, or founder trying to figure out how to build a team worth staying on — this one's for you.

WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT

• How Penny's early experience as a remote worker for a US-based SaaS startup gave her the blueprint for the kind of leader and culture she wanted to build
• The founding of Virtua Solutions in 2017 — and how the company has held a 95% employee retention rate, with some team members still around since 2014
• The costly mistake of communicating a major change to her team using business logic instead of leading with what it meant for the people — and losing a client because of it
• Why slowing down is one of the most underrated leadership skills, especially for fast-moving, systems-oriented leaders
• Emotional regulation as a real leadership practice — not a buzzword — and Penny's honest account of learning to regulate her own state before bringing hard news to the team
• The breathwork and mindfulness techniques Penny actually uses, and why she's still figuring out what sticks for her personality
• What "people first" looks like in practice when someone is underperforming — understanding the full story before jumping to solutions, and using trusted peers as a bridge when direct conversations shut people down
• The skill vs. will distinction in performance conversations — and why you can't coach your way out of what you don't understand first
• How Penny and Francis model the leadership culture they want, rather than prescribing it — and why that approach produces leaders who put their own spin on it, which is the point
• The role of humor and lightness in building psychological safety — and why breaking the ice (or "breaking" someone, in Penny's words) is actually a signal that trust has been built
• Hierarchy in the Filipino workplace — where it comes from, why it's largely subconscious, and the quiet cost it has on how teams communicate and perform
• The deference Filipinos can show toward Western or foreign leaders, and why Penny frames it as a shared human experience rather than a culture problem
• What's shifting (and what isn't) as Gen Z enters the workforce with more international exposure and fewer ingrained sir/ma'am habits
• What Virtua is still building toward: a culture-specific leadership training program that defines what it means to lead a team the Virtua way
• The one thing Penny would tell every new leader: understand yourself first — your emotions, your triggers, your communication patterns — because how you manage yourself is how you'll manage others

EPISODE QUOTE

"If you don't understand your own complexities as a person, how would you understand that the people on your team also have complexities?" — Penny, Co-CEO, Virtua Solutions