How Allison McMillan Learned to Lead at the Intersection of People and Technology

A few years ago, after nearly two decades of leading teams, scaling products, and navigating multiple industries, Allison McMillan gave herself permission to pause and reflect on the kind of work that energized her most. She’d built and turned around teams, led engineering at high-growth companies, and overseen critical product lines—but the moments that stayed with her weren’t just about technical wins. They were the moments where she got to bridge the gap between people and technology: translating complex ideas, helping teams communicate more effectively, and expanding people’s sense of what was possible.

Over time, Allison realized her greatest strength wasn’t just her technical expertise or leadership experience—it was the rare ability to blend EQ and IQ in equal measure. After years of channeling that skillset into other organizations, she decided to build something rooted fully in that philosophy. The result was Tavlin Consulting, a human-centered consulting firm that helps tech and nonprofit leaders transform the way their teams collaborate, communicate, and operate.

Today, as the Founder and CEO of Tavlin Consulting, Allison brings that signature blend of emotional intelligence and technical insight to off-site facilitation, fractional engineering leadership, and one-on-one advising designed to spark clarity, connection, and meaningful action. Read on to learn more about Allison’s journey—and the leadership philosophy shaping what comes next.

Did you always know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

Honestly, I stumbled into it, though I've done it enough times now that I should probably just own it! My first startup launched about 15 years ago: a platform to help people make friends online in their neighborhoods and then meet in-person. This was before we really understood the impacts of the loneliness epidemic and before “online-to-offline” was even a category. I ran it for almost two years—starting with nights and weekends and then moving into full-time—and learned an enormous amount before sunsetting it. After that, I shifted into software engineering and spent years inside companies running R&D and innovation efforts. 

When I started Tavlin Consulting a few years ago, I didn't even frame it as entrepreneurship. It just felt like the most obvious next thing to do.

What’s been the hardest and most rewarding part of your entrepreneurial journey?

Everything I’ve learned has been both the hardest and most rewarding part of the journey. I have a deep belief that anyone can learn anything, which is more true now than ever thanks to the AI tools available today. My political science degree hasn't come up once in my actual work, but that's never slowed me down. When there's new jargon, new skills, or a new domain to navigate, I dive in headfirst and figure out a scrappy, effective path through it. Learning and doing at the same time is hard in the moment, but when I look back at the range of things I've tackled across my career, it's genuinely surprising—and that's the part I'm most proud of.

What’s the biggest misconception others have around entrepreneurship?

That if you build it, they will come. Having a great product or service is table stakes. The real work is getting in front of the right people, over and over again, in ways that actually land. The most common question I get is how I found my first clients, and the honest answer is: a lot of hard work, a lot of pivots, and a willingness to keep going when nothing seems to be working yet. Entrepreneurship requires you to simultaneously be the person doing the work and the person selling the work. Most people underestimate how much energy the second part takes.

What have you learned about building a team and a support network around yourself?

My whole career has been about bringing people together: understanding how people have conversations, how they learn from each other, and how everyone has something to contribute. I feel that just as strongly about my own support network. Running a company is hard. There are a thousand things to think through every day and a to-do list that never really ends. If you don't have people around you to ask questions, vent to, celebrate the wins with, and help pull you back up on the hard days, it's a brutal journey to go alone. Building that network is a must.

How would you describe the journey you’ve had in a few sentences. And would you do it all over again?

My career has been a winding path with a lot of forks in the road and rarely an obvious right answer at any of them. There have been real setbacks and barriers to push through, but every time I came out on the other side, that feeling of momentum made the next hard thing feel possible. Life has been woven into all of it, too: two kids, matrescence, and everything that shifts when you're building a career and a family at the same time. It's been messy and nonlinear and I wouldn't trade any of it. Yes, I'd do it all over again—and I love that there's finally a name for people like me: multi-hyphenate leaders.

What’s next for you and your career?

Every year I take stock of what's working, what's not, and what I'm hearing from the leaders and executives I'm talking to. Are the problems showing up at the top of the organization the same ones showing up for individual contributors? Where are the gaps? What's actually holding companies back from where they could be? I'm continuing to evolve my services to stay in close contact with those questions. The problems evolve and the context changes, but the root of what I do stays the same—and I want to make sure it's always solving something real.