Elena Agaragimova Fixes the Inside of Fast-Growing Companies

Elena Agaragimova held 17 different jobs before she turned 25. For years, she read that as evidence that she was lost, while her peers picked one lane and stayed in it. Those years were training. She now walks into growing companies, finds what is breaking, and builds what fixes it.

Elena Agaragimova runs Elena Agar LLC, an independent practice where she takes on fractional people and operations engagements with growing companies. She is a member of the Entreprenista League, a 2x founder, Columbia-trained in neuroscience and performance, and a former Forbes columnist. She is also a current operations and people executive at Horizon Industries, which keeps her inside the work she advises on.

I’ve always been the person who sees what’s missing, builds the thing that fixes it, and moves on to the next problem. It just took me a while to fully own it. Her path from university career offices to fractional operator came down to one distinction she needed years to name.

Three worlds and one through line

Elena started her career in higher education, leading student development, career programs, and employer relations at universities in the United States and abroad. She moved into corporate talent acquisition and learning and development roles across the US, Asia, and the MENA region, advising large multinationals on leadership development, onboarding, and organizational strategy. That is where she built the enterprise operator skills.

Then she started building companies of her own. “The through line across all of it is the same: I’m the person who figures out what’s not working and builds the thing that fixes it,” she says.

Two startups and the distinction that made everything clearer

She co-founded Bessern, a behavioral-science-based leadership platform that was acquired, and Shiftwell.ai, an AI-enabled talent performance platform. Neither company ended the way she wanted. Both handed her the same finding: She is built to be the operator who makes a vision actually happen.

“Knowing that distinction has made everything clearer,” she says. Elena Agar LLC followed. “I’ve been building things my whole life in some form, programs, teams, companies, practices,” she says. “It was just the natural next step of doing what I’ve always done, but on my own terms.”

What 30 to 50 investor pitches taught her about capital

Across those 2 startups, Elena pitched somewhere between 30 and 50 investors and never closed a round. She is direct about what she took from it. “I walked away with a very clear lesson: I didn’t actually need it,” she says.

"There is real pressure in the startup world to raise," she says, as though funding is the metric that proves a business is legitimate. Bootstrapping has always been her answer. “It forces discipline, keeps you focused on revenue over runway, and means you answer to your customers instead of your investors,” she says.

Her tip for any founder weighing a round is a question about honesty. “Get really honest with yourself about whether you actually need investment or whether you’re just not yet ready for it,” she says. “Because those are 2 very different situations, and confusing them will cost you time, energy, and focus you can’t afford to lose.”

The founders who call her when things break

Elena works with founders and executives who are scaling fast. “They need someone who thinks like an owner, communicates like an operator, and actually gets things done,” she says. She comes in, assesses what is breaking, and builds the people and operational infrastructure that gets leadership back to growth.

A decade of building, in seasons

Elena has been building her own thing for more than a decade, through different ventures, different focuses, and different versions of what she offers and who she serves. The accomplishment she names first is her persistence. “I’ve kept going, kept evolving, and kept showing up even when things didn’t go the way I planned,” she says.

The rhythm that sustains it runs in seasons. Fall and spring are her execution seasons, when clients are most active, and the work is intense. Summer slows down for strategy, content, and recharging. She always has a trip booked, because going fully offline is the only way she comes back at full capacity. “I like to go really hard and then rest really hard,” she says.

Saying no is the skill she is still working on. “Very hard for me, but getting so much better,” she says.

Two podcasts and more of the right partnerships

Turning 40 this year brought a clarity Elena did not expect. “I finally feel like everything I’ve built, learned, and lived is clicking into place: who I serve, what I offer, and how I want to show up,” she says. She is doubling down on fractional people and operations work with growing companies that need real operational infrastructure.

Content is the other half of the plan. She is relaunching SHIFT with Elena Agar after a 6-month break, same show with a sharper focus aimed at founders and business builders, and the archive already runs past 250 episodes.

This summer she co-launches Suits & Scrappy with finance veteran Steve Mann, a biweekly show for founders and senior leaders who want honest business conversations without the corporate polish. “Content has always been my highest ROI activity for building trust and credibility,” she says.

Her advice for anyone waiting to feel ready is short. “Do it before you are ready,” she says. “You are never really ready until you are in it.”

You can follow Elena on LinkedIn, find her fractional people and operations work at elenaagar.com, and listen to SHIFT with Elena Agar wherever you get your podcasts.

If Elena's approach to building the inside of a growing company resonates, the Entreprenista League is a community of women founders who value connection, shared experience, and practical business insight as they grow. Learn more about the Entreprenista League right here.