Meet our inaugural Tenzing Norgay award winner Sam La Salle

Most people have heard of Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest peak on earth.

But Hillary didn’t do it alone – he relied on the help of Tenzing Norgay, an experienced sherpa, to get him there.

In fact, despite Tenzing Norgay’s limited fame, he:

• Formed part of the team that established Base Camp in 1953;
• Saved Edmund Hillary’s life on a prior expedition after he fell into a crevasse; and
• Assisted with six failed summit attempts for other climbers.

Tenzing Norgay wasn’t the only person who played a pivotal role in Edmund Hillary’s success – it took a whole team. Tenzing was a true team player and one of history’s unsung heroes.

This is why Linktree has decided to call our ‘team member of the month’ award the Tenzing Norgay Award. We want to recognize the quiet achievers, and winners have to first be nominated by their peers when they have:

• Played for Linktree – putting the company and team ahead of their own interests and ego
• Demonstrated our company value of going further together
• Helped Linktree achieve (or attempt to achieve – we learn when we fail!) something great.

Our inaugural winner has just been announced. Congratulations to Sam La Salle! 

We asked Sam a few questions to get to know him a little better:

What does it feel like to be the winner?

It feels great! This award is a great initiative to celebrate the collaborative vibe at Linktree and I feel blessed to be the inaugural winner.

What will you do with the time off?

Well obviously it gets quite cold out there on the mountain so I am thinking that with my time off I’ll visit the bath house at Sense of Self for a spa/sauna.

If you had to climb a mountain, who from Linktree would you take with you and why?

I would bring Ben McNicholl from the SRE team for his unparallelled banter.

Who is your unsung hero in life?

My dad for sure. I don’t know exactly how many mountains he has climbed but he has been a huge inspiration for me in everything I do.

Any advice for people who want to be the next Tenzing Norgay?

Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask people how they’re going! Due to scaling so quickly, Linktree is still a high-context culture, i.e. so much of the real knowledge and context sharing happens via face-to-face communication. Therefore if you’ve got some knowledge due to building something or just having been around a while, make yourself available for others who are keen to develop their own understanding.

What’s the longest word you can make from the letters in Tenzing Norgay?

Tenor