Spark Advisors Company Culture & Values

How would you describe your company’s approach to remote-first work? What have been the greatest successes thus far and what obstacles have you overcome in building a remote team?

We’re a remote-first, people-first organization that supports employees as whole humans. Our goal is for everyone to bring their best selves to work, wherever they are. One of our proudest achievements is maintaining a vibrant Slack culture as we’ve grown to 130-plus people — from lively #random threads to celebrate Sparkiversaries with custom emojis. These moments help us stay connected and highlight what matters.

As we scale, we stay intentional about hiring and nurturing a culture that prioritizes people. Remote work lets us find incredible talent nationwide and gives our team the flexibility to navigate life changes without sacrificing their careers. This mobility has strengthened retention, reduced attrition and allowed individuals to live where and how they choose — all while remaining fully part of our community.

How does your team stay connected in a remote-first office? Are there specific tools you rely on to communicate and collaborate together?

At Spark, communication is core to how we work remotely. Our Spark Operating System turns daily habits into high-performance outcomes by emphasizing clarity, connection and collaboration. It’s built on three inputs — calendar mastery, deep work protection and communication excellence — which fuel the Spark Flywheel to drive performance, growth and well-being, ultimately creating a high-talent, high-performing team.

Most SOS habits live in Slack, our central hub for updates, collaboration and culture — though it can get noisy. To keep communication effective, we encourage intentional messaging, assuming good intent, cleaning up or creating channels as needed, using tools like statuses and managed notifications and being clear about urgency while reserving tags like “ASAP” or “@here” for true priorities. Slack should make work easier, not busier.

How does your company build culture in a remote-first office? What specific rituals or initiatives does your team use to create a more inclusive, engaged environment?

Our industry is complex and seasonal, so new hires must ramp quickly and gain deep context. Our culture supports this through fast, structured onboarding and rituals aligned to the natural rhythm of the business. We’ve introduced an F1-themed onboarding experience to bring clarity and momentum, with cross-department touchpoints and hands-on demos that help new team members build relationships and understand the business from day one.

Year-round, we reinforce connection through social and wellness events, cross-team lunch and learns and small values-driven gestures like sending flowers for life milestones. We’re also intentional about in-person time, shifting our offsite to a calmer point in the business cycle so people can be fully present. Overall, our culture is built on clarity, shared context and intentional connection — supporting a remote-first team in a fast-moving environment.

Describe Spark Advisor’s company culture in one word. What made you pick that word? 

“Empathy.” It informs how we interact with each other and with our agents. One of our core values is “Take Nothing for Granted,” and a fundamental part of that for Spark is having deep empathy for our agents and each other; it’s been the key to our growth so far. 

Instead of just betting on sheer efficiency for disrupting the industry, we’ve bet on our agents, because they use empathy every day to connect and support their clients. Our team regularly uses empathy to hear, support and collaborate to make our company better and drive the change we want to see in this industry, all while navigating the fast pace of a startup. I could have picked a word like “ambitious” but it doesn’t capture the human component of Spark — empathy is our superpower.

What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on recently, and how did it help you grow professionally? 

Historically, the industry has had a lack of transparency — agents and agencies lack trust in their up lines and carriers, often unable to get on the same page. At Spark, we believe that if we can address the inefficient and disorganized data processes that permeate the industry, transparency will follow. 

The coolest project I’ve worked on at Spark has been tackling this problem head-on using a modern data tech stack, automating messy and unstructured data from carriers so our agents have the most up-to-date insights at any moment. This project has helped me grow in so many ways. I got to stand up data infrastructure from the ground up with our data engineers, research and learn the latest data pipelining tools, stand up an analytics function for the organization and work directly with our top agents to build a data product vision. This multiyear project has given me a broad range of experience and skills and the confidence that I can take on much more beyond my engineering background.