Graci deLuna is a partner on Andreessen Horowitz’s People Practices team, focused on human resources and recruiting [1], with the title Partner, Talent Partner Lead & People Practices, based in Menlo Park, CA [3]. In 2020 she was additionally asked to build a16z’s internal recruiting function from scratch; over the following five years the firm scaled from 115 to more than 600 people [3]. Before a16z, she led global HR and recruiting teams in the technology and retail industries [1] — her LinkedIn profile names that prior experience as Chief, Escalate, The Gymboree Corporation, and Oracle Corporation, though it does not give titles or dates for those roles [3]; before that, she worked as a therapist with at-risk adolescents and women, a background in assessing and counseling people that predates her hiring career entirely. She holds an MA in marriage, family, and child counseling and a BS in sociology, both from San Francisco State University [1]: training in psychology and human behavior, not in business or management theory.
Her published record is a single credited piece: The Hiring Process, co-authored with Jeff Stump in 2023 [2], a step-by-step public walkthrough of executive hiring that includes the sample role definition MC’s The MOC cites as its clearest example in practice.
Graci deLuna sits on the practitioner end of the devoted-adjacent spectrum: management in the abstract isn’t her trade, but hiring and HR specifically are the entirety of her professional life: first leading HR and recruiting inside operating companies, now running people practices for a16z’s portfolio [1]. Her word carries real weight on the mechanics of hiring (role definition, the shape of a rigorous search) and on HR leadership generally. It carries none on management theory, general operating experience running a company, or anything outside the hiring and HR function.