Who We Are: Your Partners in How
Meet Helia
We created Helia to be the resource we always wished existed—a place that combines practical tools, honest insights, and real partnerships to help organizations move from stuck to solution. We've been lucky enough to face and figure out almost every challenge that's come our way professionally. Not without a ton of learnings and mistakes—but we've always figured out how to get from here to there.
Our Story
We've spent our careers in the trenches—building teams, scaling organizations, and turning ambitious visions into sustainable realities.
Along the way, we noticed something: while many organizations have similar challenges, most are solving them in isolation, without the benefit of collective wisdom.
Helia began with a simple question: What if we could harness the power of collective experience to help organizations figure out the "how" of their biggest challenges?
Today, that question drives everything we do—from our hands-on partnerships to our growing library of practical resources and our collective of amazing experts. We believe in the power of 'been there, done that' wisdom. When organizations can tap into collective experience rather than starting from zero, we can all move forward.
Meet our founders
Jess Skylar
Twenty years in and Jess still loves helping turn big ideas into reality. Throughout her career, she's partnered with mission-driven organizations across education, tech, food, financial services, and social impact to be part of building a world we all want to live in. Whether helping scale Revolution Foods from $14M to $170M, co-building Think of Us to be a national systems change leader (including raising nearly $50M through the Audacious Project), or launching one of the first social impact investing firms with HIP Investor, she loves thinking big and then getting into the weeds to make things happen. Now, she's co-creating Helia Collective to be what she always wanted in the world - a practical partner providing hands-on support that all organizations can turn to when they're stuck.
When she's not working with great organizations, you'll find her in sunny Los Angeles with her teens, writing her newsletter Loving Jess, hiking with her 110-pound pup, or reading in her hammock, always rooting for the Dodgers and often with a breakfast burrito in her hand.
Liz Mills
Liz has a gift for building structure out of chaos, and she's put it to work across sectors—from nonprofits to tech giants. At Think of Us, she grew the team from five to 40+ in three years (managing almost every team and/or function during her tenure) while supporting a $50M raise through the Audacious Project. At Dropbox, she was core to launching their UK expansion. At Udacity, she launched their Enterprise offering and grew the team from three to 40+. Liz’s most beautiful superpower - combining problem-solving expertise with empathetic leadership to help organizations and their people thrive. Whether serving as an out-of-house Chief of Staff or Head of People, Liz helps teams turn chaos into clarity.
Beyond bringing her hard earned wisdom to Helia, Liz is a runner, a writer including her newsletter In The Midst, a Moth performer + winner, and a food loving, traveling human who so many are lucky to call a friend.
Snapshot - Our Founders’ Experience
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Scaling Systems Change
We transformed Think of Us from a $700K startup to a $14M leader in child welfare innovation.
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Scaling Healthy Food Access
Before Helia, Jess drove Revolution Foods' growth from $14M to $170M, expanding nationwide, improving margins, and maintaining mission impact.
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Pioneering Impact Investing
Before Helia, Jess helped grow HIP Investor from concept to industry pioneer, building infrastructure, tools, and frameworks shaping impact investing.
Need a Partner in How?
Whether you're stuck, scaling, or strategizing, we bring the right expertise, resources, and connections to move you forward. Let’s make it happen.