Thank you for your contribution to selecting 2023 CHROs of the Year.
This page contains in-depth information about each nominee. Each nomination describes the nominee’s overall impact on his or her organization, as well as the process and risk involved around key initiatives led by the nominee.
You can make your selections for CHRO of the Year on our Judging Form page.
Nominee Name: Elisa Bannon-Jones
Nominee Title: Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: GNC
Nominee Company’s Website: www.gnc.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 10,000 – 24,999
Primary industry: Health and Wellness
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: When you look at Executives today, there are few and far between who truly make an impact to an organization, its staff, and its customers. Elisa Bannon-Jones is the Chief People Officer for GNC and is a force of nature for when it comes to spearheading a HR community filled with inclusivity, collaboration, and inspiring leadership. Joining GNC in October 2018, she inherited a function that did not have a leader for six months and was split across Finance and Legal. Working in silos with a compliance-first mentality, the Human Resources team lacked credibility. A focus on Talent was lacking, systems and processes were broken.
Elisa successfully promoted a “People First Culture” that both developed and supported a culture built on innovation, positivity, collaboration, performance, and consumer-focused teams that help each other succeed. Within her first 60 days, based on feedback across the organization, she developed GNC’s Talent Strategy Roadmap, embedding diversity, equity and inclusion in all Talent Processes and Programs. By focusing on GNC’s people, process, and technology, she has been able to structure talent acquisition to specialize in professional/technical, frontline/DC, and executive, develop consistent branding by fostering strategic partnerships strengthening diversity hiring, and enhancing the review selection and interview process for future new hires.
Developing a Talent Planning process, introducing the business in January 2022, Elisa inserted critical thinking and broader business perspective into organization structure, assessing talent gaps and recruiting for the right talent. Leaders were required to think about roles requested via guided dialogue and overall team strengths and gaps.
Elisa is a force to be reckoned with at GNC and continues to highlight the poise, passion, and power of which she is capable.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Elisa Bannon-Jones not only leads the way to a better tomorrow but backs up her success with quantitative metrics. For example, as part of the 2022 Internship initiative, in partnership with talent acquisition, onboarded forty-eight college students to complete 12-week guided programs in the Pittsburgh corporate office from eighteen different universities. This program launched the “new” GNC employer brand, establishing a strong recruitment network of early talent that can be cultivated for open headcount and future opportunities at GNC. This also ignited innovation and creativity for GNC products and services for interns by providing them with fundamental platforms they can navigate. Results of the 2022 Intern Program: thirteen interns remained in the organization as they continued their studies. 3 Interns were offered permanent positions post December graduation.
In May 2022, The Talent Planning Process evolved to include a Talent Committee Review as GNC predicted the financial slowdown that was facing the macro retail environment. Working with Finance and the Chief Strategy Officer, corporate hires were approved based on vacancy rate. This partnership ensured the company did not add incremental labor cost while ensuring critical roles continued to be filled. This process included promotions and saves. Strategically thinking about talent, GNC did not face a reduction in force, saving millions of dollars in annualized salaries while filling critical roles.
The commitment to building diverse female Executives yielded two females added to the Executive Committee team. In 2021, one female was on the EC. In 2022, with the addition of Elisa and two women promoted, four of the nine positions are women.
Elisa works endlessly to inspire, motivate, and influence more than nine thousand employees every day, and that is just the beginning of what is to come.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: After reading about all of the success Elisa has had since she joined GNC in 2021, you’re probably wondering how she made it all possible. Easy. She has consistently exceeded expectations of her C-Suite leadership, cross-functional teams, and stakeholders by serving as a tactical thought leader and change agent. She continues to advocate and push initiatives that positively impact GNC as a whole. She doesn’t just look in between the lines, but paints a beautiful canvas that is inclusive, inspiring, and captivating. She doesn’t just influence those internal to GNC, but everyone she meets. From what she’s achieved so far, 2023 is looking bright to being the best year yet.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: The most challenging part is transformation is change management. This was thoughtfully calculated. Four HR technology platforms were configured and launched in 2022:
All four of these HR Technology solutions could have caused the business major disruption. Communication, training, and alignment ensured the tech stack worked and the employee and candidate experience were enhanced. To further mitigate risk, a HR Applications Architect was added to the Center of Excellence team to ensure HR Tech is correctly configured and supported.
Cultural Transformation is always risky. Moving to a Talent-focused environment post-bankruptcy and pandemic could have resulted in disengaged employees. Immediately following bankruptcy emergence (October 2020), leadership went to extremes allowing employees freedom to make decisions. Building an environment of innovation, collaboration, consumer-focus, and leadership while mindful of the broader organizational impact was not always embraced. A measure of success is corporate turnover. Corporate turnover in 2022 was 14% versus 23% in 2021. GNC Corporate turnover was also better than our industry benchmarks, GNC, with transformation was able to increase capability and culture- while retaining the existing team.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 4 – 6 years
Nominee Name: Annette Favorite
Nominee Title: SVP and CHRO
Nominee Organization/Company: West Pharmaceutical Services
Nominee Email: Annette.Favorite@westpharma.com
Nominee Phone: 610-594-3328
Nominee Company’s Website: www.westpharma.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 10,000 – 24,000
Primary industry: Global manufacturer in the design and production of technologically advanced, high-quality, integrated containment and delivery systems for injectable medicines
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Under Annette’s leadership, West increased the diversity of its employees and is creating a more diverse supply chain, partnering with more minority-owned/managed businesses. Internally, a CEO-led Inclusion Council was formed to support the diversity strategy of West’s Employee Resource Business Groups.
As President of the Herman O. West Foundation, she increased West’s global outreach efforts on societal issues. In 2022, West donated over $175,000 supporting organizations in Ukraine, $300,000 to improve access to healthcare in underserved communities, and over $150,000 to food charities. She increased the number of academic scholarships awarded to dependents of West’s employees by 35% and added a category for trade schools.
In the community, Annette serves on the Executive Board, HR and DE&I committees of the Chester County Economic Development Council. She is a member of the West Chester University (WCU) Presidential Board of Advisors, preparing students to thrive in the modern workplace. In 2022, Annette was recognized by the WCU President’s commission as one of 150 Most influential Women of WCU.
At West, we say everything we produce has a patient’s name on it, but it also has a team member’s name on it. Annette developed and implemented numerous initiatives to meet West’s employees’ needs during the pandemic. That included creating enhanced benefits like continuing to pay COVID-infected team members to stay home and care for themselves and/or infected family members so they could recover without concern over their paychecks. Office-based team members received a yearly stipend to help pay for home office equipment, set-up and maintenance. To support team members in the post-pandemic workplace, Annette created the Dynamic Workplace, a flexible work environment that balances the personal and professional needs of our team members with the business needs of the organization. Many office workers are on a hybrid schedule, working remotely and in the office, depending on the level of collaboration involved in the project.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): West played a critical role in the COVID-19 vaccine program, manufacturing and delivering millions of components to a dozen global customers that were used to package over a billion vaccine doses. West also supplied critical components needed for some of the diagnostic kit products used to detect COVID-19. All major areas of the company were affected as production was ramped up to meet the growing customer demand. Annette led recruiting efforts to fulfil that need, hiring more than 3,000 team members to expand and optimize West’s manufacturing capacity and operational capabilities. Globally, West now employs more than 10,000 team members. During the pandemic, Annette led West’s COVID response for those 10,000+ team members and she continues to lead the organization’s post-pandemic efforts.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Annette supported the enterprise through the COVID-19 Pandemic with proactive, innovative, employee centric programs to help the workforce to successfully navigate pressures raised by the global event and continues to drive innovative programming and employee engagement in the post-pandemic workplace:
To maintain the health and safety of our team members and their families, she:
To protect our ability to manufacture and supply our products for customers and patients, Annette:
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 1
Also, please describe that risk: According to Annette, there was absolutely no risk. “I did what was the right thing to do and I had a CEO who supported me.”
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 7 – 9 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
Nominee Name: Kevin Silva
Nominee Title: Chief Human Resources Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Voya Financial
Nominee Company’s Website: www.voya.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 3,000 – 9,999
Primary industry: Financial Services
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: With CHRO Kevin Silva as the primary lead, Voya has undergone a complete and total company transformation over the course of the last 18 months. The transformation had five key elements.
The first element was a major enterprise-wide expense reduction effort of almost $500 million, which led the company to reorganize headcount, talent allocation and organizational structure.
The second element of our transformation was the significant M&A activity, as we redefined who we are, our company purpose and where we want to go. We rolled off our Life and Annuity businesses, as well as our Financial Advisor organization. We also built a platform for growth and have acquired and are integrating many new businesses/employees including Allianz Global Investors’ U.S. business, Tygh Capital Small Cap Equity Team, Czech Asset Management, VFI SLK and Benefitfocus.
The third element of our transformation has been the creation of a remote and hybrid environment during the pandemic. Many companies couldn’t wait for the pandemic to be over, so things could return to “normal.” We embraced remote working and today, 95% of employees are remote or hybrid and that flexibility has become a competitive advantage. We’re able to cast a much broader net for talent, which has accelerated our DEI goals. We’re allowing our people to have greater mobility throughout the country so they can align their work aspirations with their personal life aspirations and as a result, our employee engagement and satisfaction has reached the top decile as recorded by McKinsey. Additionally, we’ve completely changed our physical footprint, shedding half of our brick-and-mortar facilities, which has resulted in significant cost savings.
The fourth element of our transformation has been the acceleration of our diversity, equity and ESG goals. Today, we have more diversity on our board of directors than ever before and more diversity within our senior team than ever before. Additionally, we have a recruitment team dedicated to hiring talent with disabilities, furthering fostering our inclusive culture.
The fifth element has been the deliberate focus on talent regeneration and succession within our Board of Directors and within our executive and senior teams. We have very thoughtful succession plans that enabled a planned CEO succession this year, tapping one of our women officers to take the helm in January 2023. We have replenished our executive team through succession planning and established a diverse Enterprise Leadership Team of 60 leaders.
This significant transformation has advanced our company strategy and strengthened our performance driven culture. Our turnover rate is much lower than the industry average and our employee engagement rate is much higher than the industry average. And, during this 18-month time period, our stock has grown at twice the S&P 500.
We have received numerous accolades this year, further validating the success of this transformation including Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Company; named to the Great Place to Work® and Fortune Best Workplaces in Financial Services & Insurance™ 2022 list; Human Rights Campaign – Best Places to work for LGBT – 100%; Disability Equality Index – 100%; Bloomberg Gender Equality Index listing; S&P Global “The Sustainability Yearbook”; Dow Jones Sustainability Index and Newsweek’s “America’s Greatest Workplaces 2023 for Diversity.”
The risk of doing all of these material changes in a COVID environment – all at once – is extraordinarily high. On a scale of 1-10, it’s close to a 10. We’ve changed the fundamentals of the business, the people of the business, business processes and brought on an offshore team of several thousand people – all within 18 months – and all done successfully.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): As referenced in the previous response, Kevin Silva was instrumental to Voya’s enterprise-wide transformation effort during the last 18 months that captured a savings of almost $500 million. Voya’s transition to 95% remote/hybrid work has also captured significant savings in real estate.
Even more important than the cost savings, is the role Kevin Silva has played in Voya’s culture during the last 18 months. Despite the significant change the company has undergone, employee engagement and satisfaction has never been higher.
During this time, Voya achieved an employee engagement and satisfaction score from its 6,000+ employees in the top decile as recorded on McKinsey’s Organizational Health Index.
Additionally, on a recent enterprise-wide survey, 95% of employees said that “at Voya, peoples differences are embraced and celebrated” which reinforces Kevin’s commitment to an inclusive culture.
92% of employees feel a sense of personal accomplishment from their work at Voya. This statistic is especially meaningful, because Kevin and the HR team have led “personal purpose” workshops for employees that are 100% dedicated to employees’ wellbeing and development. More than 2,400 employees have participated in the workshops to date.
Finally, during the pandemic, while other companies were furloughing employees, Voya’s HR team, led by Kevin, stood by its people and committed to no furloughs. That resolve remains today and Voya’s turnover rate is much lower than the industry average, retention is at an all-time high as is employee engagement/satisfaction. And, Voya’s stock price has grown at twice the S&P 500.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: As a member of Voya’s Executive Committee and strategic advisor to Voya’s CEO, Kevin Silva was in charge of the majority of the elements described in the company’s transformation initiative.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe that risk: The risk of doing all of these material changes in a COVID environment – all at once – is extraordinarily high. On a scale of 1-10, it’s close to a 10. We’ve changed the fundamentals of the business, the people of the business, business processes and brought on an offshore team of several thousand people – all within 18 months – and all done successfully
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? More than 10 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Betty Thompson
Nominee Title: Chief People Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Booz Allen Hamilton
Nominee Company’s Website: www.boozallen.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: More than 25,000
Primary industry: Technology
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Betty Thompson is a true pioneer in human capital strategy and talent management for complex global businesses, and she is one of the country’s preeminent human resources executives. As the Chief People Officer at Booz Allen Hamilton, she is the driving force behind the culture and people strategy for over 31,000 employees worldwide. She is consistently at the forefront of employee experience, diversity and inclusion, ethics, compliance, crisis mitigation, leadership development, and workplace wellness best-practices. Over the course of the past year, in a time of significant volatility and uncertainty, she has led the design, development, and implementation of all elements of a talent strategy to attract, grow, connect, and deploy talent to meet the organization’s long-term vision and growth strategy.
One of the key initiatives she has led is the creation and implementation of the Integrated Technical Talent System. This system unified five traditionally separate components into one comprehensive platform that is creating the workforce of the future at Booz Allen. The system is designed to empower employees, advance innovation, cultivate equity, and evolve as the firm grows. It provides the architecture that supports ongoing career development, empowers employees to take control of their own careers, and gives them the support they may need along the way.
The components of this system cover all phases of the employment lifecycle, thereby enabling the organization to deliver on its differentiated employee value proposition. Also, it provides a clear picture of both the current talent footprint and future talent needs, thereby enabling senior leaders to take a more aggressive and disciplined approach to scaling a bigger and deeper pool of high-performing tech talent.
As part of this initiative, Betty led the development of a comprehensive skills-based framework to provide a common taxonomy and standardized approach for understanding current talent as well as future needs. In addition, she led the development of skills-based digital profiles for all employees. This work increases growth and mobility by matching the education, experience, skills, and aspirations of employees with needs and opportunities across the organization. These profiles empower employees to take control of their careers by identifying opportunities for mentoring, development, and networking more easily.
In addition, this initiative required the development of pipeline programs to attract, train, and retain diverse workers, with the goal of increasing the flow of talent for in-demand skills. A key feature of this component is the Tech Excellence Program. This cohort-based learning program provides upskilling and reskilling opportunities to candidates, new hires, and existing employees in critical skill areas, including Cyber, data science, modern software development, and cloud engineering. This program is just one part of a broader learning ecosystem that helps the organization keep pace with evolving skills, deliver a world-class learning experience, and reach more employees agnostic of geography. To support this ecosystem, Betty led the creation of partnerships with a wide variety of external organizations, including INFOSEC for cyber engineering, Stoney Point for low-code and no-code, the Data Society for analytics and AI, Web Age Solutions for cloud engineering, and Udemy as MOOC provider (over 5,000 courses).
The third major component of the Tech Talent System is our internal talent marketplace, which we call the Career Hub. This component provides increased mobility for talent within the organization, with the goal of creating equitable access to a broad set of opportunities so that employees can find and take the next steps in their career. The Career Hub is a one-stop shop where employees can see new roles and recommended learning based on their digital profiles, and managers can discover employees with whom they may want to connect. This makes opportunities more visible to talent, and it makes talent more visible to managers. It matches talent to needs via an algorithm that helps employees find opportunities while also helping them identify the most relevant skills to develop to pursue the opportunities that are of interest to them.
Another key initiative that Betty has led is the creation and implementation of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Strategy and Action Plan for Booz Allen. Betty was instrumental in laying the foundation for this work two years ago by partnering with the CEO on the creation of a six-point plan for advancing equity and inclusion both within the organization and in the broader community. This included making internal and external commitments such as launching an independent review of how Booz Allen’s business practices impacted Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), increasing employees’ personal time and space for reflection and mental health, increasing representation of BIPOC at all levels of the firm, accelerating DEI learning opportunities for all employees, and making DEI a major element of the firm’s corporate philanthropy.
Since then, Betty has led significant progress in tackling systemic challenges in culture, processes, and employee experience related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. As the Executive Sponsor of Co-Chair of the organization’s DEI Executive Council, she led the articulation of two strategic goals to clarify desired results and maintain focus. Also, she built a multi-tiered governance framework to cultivate commitment and accountability among senior leaders across the organization. Finally, she established a comprehensive measurement system with eight key indicators and quarterly reporting requirements to track progress, ensure accountability, and celebrate achievements.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): The initiatives led by Betty have had direct and substantial impacts on the business as well as on the professional lives of over 30,000 people that Booz Allen employs around the world.
The Integrated Technical Talent System has had measurable impacts in all areas of talent strategy and management. For example, in combination with other process optimization initiatives, it has made hiring more efficient and effective. Through the use of profile-based hiring requisitions, the organization has shifted form a one-to-one hiring model to hiring at scale, yielding a 46% increase in hiring quarter over quarter, significantly exceeding growth targets. Over half of these new hires were immediately billable, and more than 95% were billable within their first month, which drove increases in revenue generation and profitability across all sectors of the business.
Also, the learning ecosystem that has been built includes an upskilling program comprised of more than 30 courses and over 600 learning pathways available on demand to the entire population of employees. Over 60% of program graduates demonstrate expert-level proficiency and have been deployed to support client missions. Almost 35% of graduates are women, and 51% identify as minorities. This program has supported a 6% growth in industry certifications over the past year, and Booz Allen is now the industry leader in the proportion of its workforce holding DevSecOps certifications, and more than 12,000 employees possess a cyber certification. Also, employees who have completed upskilling and reskilling programs 4.5 points higher as a group on employee experience survey questions.
In the area of DE&I, the Action Plan that Betty leads has yielded significant progress in multiple areas. First, Betty has elevated diversity to a strategic priority for the organization, resulting in one of the most diverse executive leadership teams and Board of Directors in the industry, for which she has received extensive external recognition. With Betty’s leadership on these concerted efforts, Booz Allen’s board of directors today has 72% diverse representation including female, Asian, Hispanic, and/or Black members. This far exceeds the average for Fortune 500 boards, which in 2022 reported only 31% female representation and 21.5% representation for people of color.
Also, on the most recent annual employee experience survey, the gap in scores between diverse employees and the overall average has narrowed significantly, and the overall score has increased, outperforming industry benchmarks on 90% of questions. Notably, survey items with the most significant improvement included those that relate to a sense of belonging and inclusion at work. Specifically, employees feel more supported in being themselves, empowered to raise concerns and share ideas, and believe Booz Allen values diverse perspectives and treats employees according to its purpose and values. Also, Booz Allen is attracting a more diverse pool of candidates, including a 4% increase in Black applicants for Cyber Strategic Planner and Dev Ops Engineer roles, a 7% increase in applicants with a disability for Logistics Engineer and Trainer roles, and a 16% increase in applications from women for Dev Ops Engineer and Ethics and Compliance roles.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: As the Chief People Officer at Booz Allen, Betty is responsible for all elements of the organization’s people strategy and programs affecting approximately 30,000 employees worldwide. Also, as the Co-Chair of the DE&I Executive Council, Betty is directly responsible for the design and implementation of all aspects of the DE&I Strategy and Action Plan.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 8
Also, please describe that risk: In an environment of continued volatility and uncertainty, Betty led key initiatives that carried substantial risks to the organization. Specifically, she leads talent strategy and management functions at a time when organizations are facing significant challenges in the areas of retention and labor costs, especially in the technology sector. Also, she led DE&I initiatives at a time when many organizations and society at large are facing significant challenges in all areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Poor leadership in these areas could generate significant operational risks for any organization, as is the case with many of our industry peers.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? More than 10 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Janine Walter
Nominee Title: CHRO
Nominee Organization/Company: Galway/EPIC Brokers
Nominee Company’s Website: www.epicbrokers.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 3,000 – 9,999
Primary industry: Insurance Brokerage
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Janine is tasked with driving employee engagement, mitigating risk, creating efficiencies and embedding our new acquisitions into our culture. These all individually are challenges but she truly sets the pace for not only the HR department but the executive team as well which then impacts the entire organization through her spearheaded efforts. She leads our growth strategy by driving a development of people, tools and resources to support our organization.
Achievements this year:
– Created two Employee Resource Groups
– Talent review process evolution to include succession planning
– New HRIS selection and implementation
– Developed Organizational and Development team with initiatives for managers, DEI training, mentorship program and companywide learning system
– Improvement of Talent Acquisition Brand internally and externally in the marketplace -Provide DEI metrics and a Dashboard of reporting to senior leader and executives to ensure execution of talent strategies
– Redesign of offboarding process to collect and utilize impactful data for improvement -Centralized compliance training and tracking
– Create process for diligence for acquisitions and integrations to facilitate belonging -Improved employee turnover by 3% over industry standard
– Created a Foundation for charitable efforts and lead three events this year
– Facilitated Town Halls in person throughout the country with leaders all using language provided by the CHRO
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Driving to go from a $1B organization to a $2B organization in the next five years. The drive for acquisitions and pace of growth is intensely fast. The population has exploded from 800 people to 3500 in the past three years. Cost savings from Talent Acquisition is $10M in 2022 to date. Driving these changes and creating these impacts make our organization one of the best and most sought after places to work in the industry. Janine is the one who is driving these initiatives and leading the way for our growth while ensuring employees are engaged, supported and needs are met.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Janine is a hands on CHRO. She is involved in all aspects of creating projects, driving the work and expecting results delivered. She is a collaborator who is able to spin multiple plates at a time while motivating her staff to perform. She engages employees and provides thought provoking leadership support to her executive team. She is the person they go to whenever there are questions about strategy, growth and the people at our company.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe that risk: The risks for an executive at this level are typically great. There is much personal weight given to these scenarios to drive an organization to be empowered to put their people first. Sometimes it’s not popular but Janine holds her own as the constant voice of the employee. She is a thought leader and is recognized throughout the organization for her management style.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 4 – 6 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 4 – 6 years
Nominee Name: Melissa Werneck
Nominee Title: EVP & Global Chief People Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: The Kraft Heinz Company
Nominee Company’s Website: www.kraftheinzcompany.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: More than 25,000
Primary industry: Consumer Packaged Goods
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: As Global Chief People Officer, Melissa Werneck has had a significant impact on a company by leading and implementing strategies that improve the overall employee experience and engagement.
The Kraft Heinz Company is continuing to implement our strategic transformation plan and new operating model. Among the five primary components of the operating model was “People with Purpose” which affirmed that “Employees are the Company’s most important resource, charged with bringing the strategy to life.” A global People Strategy, with multiple initiatives and enablers, was developed with one of the key enablers being the growth of HR Capabilities. The HR function includes approximately 650 employees globally.
Through Melissa’ leadership of the HR function, Kraft Heinz has seen increased employee retention, and the transformation of the company culture, including the rollout of a new company purpose and the refresh of the company values.
Her vision and leadership has enabled Kraft Heinz to attract, develop and retain top talent and the company has amplified its focus on in promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion within the company.
Additionally, Melissa is a leader that focuses on creating an environment where employees feel valued, supported and motivated to perform at their best.
Melissa’s vision as a Chief People Officer focuses on building a best-in-class HR function, modeling how we live our company values including those that state: We Champion Great People, We Dare to Do Better Every Day, and We Demand diversity. Some of her important areas of focus include:
She drives these initiatives while continuing to deliver on some of the “business as usual” responsibilities of the role – benefits and rewards, compliance, and employee relations, to name a few.
Melissa is a true leader worth celebrating and emulating; I am fortunate to be part of her team.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): The Kraft Heinz Company is one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies. We manufacture and market food and beverage products across the globe, including condiments and sauces, cheese and dairy, meals, meats, refreshment beverages, coffee, and other grocery products in a portfolio of more than 200 iconic brands. Kraft Heinz has about 38,000 employees in over 40 countries.
Below are some examples of the impact of the programs sponsored by Melissa and the HR function:
Leadership Development/Manager Excellence Program Impacts:
Functional/Capabilities Program Impacts:
o The goal of retention was also met as 80% of the high-potential performers enrolled in the program remain with the company. Additionally, 5 of the remaining 16 have either been promoted or moved to support another function with expanded responsibilities.
o Health & Safety (such as safer factory floors)
o Waste Management (by focusing their efforts slightly differently, sites turned the waste management expense into profit by being able to sell the waste product once it was broken down correctly)
o Employee Engagement (such as designating “safe spaces” for their employees to bring and discuss any issues related to diversity, inclusion, and belonging).
o Several plants saw large gains in waste reduction both in dollars and in amount going into landfills:
o In one plant in Granite City, the results of implanting weekly Gemba walks resulted in plant savings of $83,642 in 2021 and reversed expenses of $10,000 a month associated with landfill to turn a profit for the first time. This turned into a 75% landfill diversion rate.
o A global example in Panyu, the plant saved $12,011 by recycling and reducing solid waste. Total waste cost reduced 120% Year over Year with a 58% solid waste cost reduction.
o Another plant achieved $25K in savings in 2021 through solid waste reduction in landfills and incineration.
DEIB Impacts:
o Content effectiveness ratings of 96%, exceeding the target KPI (75%)
o 2021 WE Network program participants had slightly higher 360 scores, and 2020 participants’ 360 scores increased by a faster rate in 2021, compared to company average
o Improved leadership skills, measured by their direct reports’ engagement scores growing more quickly than the company average
o Participant retention: 89% for WE Network participants, compared with overall company retention (87%, with retention for women in the relevant job classification lagging behind)
o 32% of participants were promoted in 2021
Positive outcomes for the teams managed by participants:
o Engagement scores 5 points higher than company average on Manager, Empowerment, and Inclusive Leaders, and 4 points higher on Feedback, Growth, Recognition & Career
o Overall engagement scores rose by 3 points, a rate faster than the rest of the company
o 56% promotion rates within their teams, vs. 39% promotions in the teams of other managers
o Turnover rate for teams led by WE Network participants are better and have gone down compared to the company average. Teams led by 2021 participants have turnover rate 3% lower than the rest of the company in 2022. Similarly, 2020 participants have 4% lower turnover rate compared to the rest of the company in 2021
Furthermore, 2021 WE Network program improvements based on 2020 learnings were beneficial. The teams of 2021 participants showed more positive outcomes than the outcomes for 2020 participants’ teams.
Culture/Onboarding Impacts:
o In the case of Living Our Values – a curriculum to immerse employees in our purpose, values, and other cultural elements
o 1900 employees attended at least one module of Living our Values in 2021, exceeding the goal by approximately 7%. Additionally, Kraft Heinz is starting to see widespread adoption across the organization. Employees at all levels have adopted the Purpose, Values, and Leadership Principles into their everyday language and framing of daily work, and now use them to guide decisions.
At the program level, a post-event evaluation survey was used to gauge a variety of metrics including knowledge gain, prediction of job application, performance improvement, and overall value.
o 94% of learners agreed that they learned new knowledge and skills from the program.
o 97% agreed that the content was relevant to their job, with 91% stating their job performance would improve because of the program.
o 92% of learners felt the program was a valuable use of their time.
o The Hello Owner global onboarding program:
o The program met the objective of enhancing the local new hire experience, while providing a consistent onboarding experience for all new hires regardless of role, level, or location. Specifically, the program achieved its target of scoring in the top quartile (74) in Growth in the employee engagement survey.
In addition, the program has a standard post-event survey, with 2021 results including:
o – 96% agreement for: I gained insights from this experience that will improve my job performance
o – 97% agreement for: The learning experience was a valuable use of my time
o – 99% agreement for: Content was relevant to my job.
Ethics & Compliance Training Impacts:
In 2021, employees globally managed to complete all mandator ethics and compliance training courses and meet the required 90% completion rate threshold by the deadline. Additionally, more helpline issues were reported to the Kraft Heinz Helpline, which indicates how employees are modeling the behavior we expect. Finally, employees have provided feedback about their appreciation of the updated program content.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: As Global Chief People Officer, she is the Executive Sponsor for the programs that are driven by my team, the Global Learning and Diversity teams, as well as the Chief People Officers of each of the zones (North America, Headquarters, and International) at the company.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 6
Also, please describe that risk: Melissa is a leader that harnesses the superpower of her team – she listens to and supports the pioneers that in turn support her as she takes professional risks that one could be expected to take in order to drive positive change and improve the overall performance of an organization’s human resources function. Some examples include:
In addition to taking these risks, she does her best to mitigate these risks by communicating effectively, involving employees and managers in the change process and building a positive culture.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 7 – 9 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Pablo Brizi
Nominee Title: Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer & Corporate Affairs
Nominee Organization/Company: Hilton Grand Vacations
Nominee Company’s Website: www.hiltongrandvacations.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 10,000 – 24,999
Primary industry: Hospitality
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Pablo Brizi is Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer & Corporate Affairs for Hilton Grand Vacations (HGV), an industry-leading global timeshare company. In this role, he is responsible for leading teams of highly experienced professionals, while ensuring a positive and supportive workplace environment. Pablo’s oversight includes Corporate Communications, Corporate Affairs, Total Rewards, HR Operations, Talent Acquisition, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEI&B), Community Relations, Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). He has successfully grown the HGV family to over 16,000 team members.
In August 2021, HGV acquired Diamond Resorts, making it one of the largest vacation ownership companies in the world with over 150 resorts. To ensure a smooth transition for team members, Pablo employed his industrious team of professionals to develop and execute a plan to transition and merge both companies in just six months while continuing their day-to-day duties and supporting team members through the transition. With this massive undertaking, the team completed an enormous range of projects that touched every aspect of the business, including, but not limited to: implementing Paid Time Off, holidays, sick time, health benefits coverage, vacation discount programs, payroll, a new compensation framework, and IT and system integrations, such as email, applicant tracking system, HCM and workforce planning. Under Pablo’s leadership, this team implemented a plan that allowed the company to continue to operate as normal amid the challenges of combining over 10,000 team members into one, unified company in the middle of a pandemic. This also included adding over 25 global resorts to HGV’s portfolio and ensuring these international team members were properly set up on day one.
As he worked through the challenge of a pandemic, ongoing labor shortage, and combining two companies into one, Pablo’s unwavering focus on creating a company culture that emphasizes respect, growth, empowerment, inspiration, and belonging has allowed HGV to overcome these hurdles and successfully cultivate a dedicated global workforce. HGV’s people-first value proposition is inclusive of programs and services designed to ensure team members feel engaged, appreciated and rewarded for their contributions. For instance, a dedicated mobile app was launched internally for team members to share their stories, celebrate their achievements, and have easy, on-the-go access to tools and resources needed to do their jobs better and to stay connected with the company. These type of initiatives have opened the door for team members to inspire creativity and deliver memorable vacation experiences for owners and guests in highly desirable destinations around the world.
Pablo’s commitment to creating a positive workplace led HGV to be recognized and honored with several awards and certifications over the past year including:
Pablo believes that a company’s success is measured by its impact. In his position, he has effectively blended HGV’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEI&B) and HR initiatives into a key component of the company’s business, designed to bring to life the company’s “Putting People First” mission. This has been key to HGV’s continued success in talent recruitment, since younger generations increasingly looking to work for mission-driven organizations.
Pablo is committed to HGV’s mission of “Putting People First” through enterprise DEI&B strategies, including 12 active Team Member Resource Groups (TMRGs), which are an integral component of HGV’s culture of inclusion representing a broad range of perspectives. The TMRGs include: Asia-Pacific Islander, Black Employee Action Team (B.E.A.T.), Diverse Abilities, The Givers Group (PaCT), Hispanic/Latino, Military, Mosaic, Pride, Sustainability, Wisdom, Women and Young Professionals.
Furthermore, a Spirit of Service has also always been at the heart of HGV. In celebration of the company’s 30th anniversary in 2022, Pablo led the HGV #30for30 campaign, which expands on the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility program, HGV Serves, and included executing 30 volunteer and philanthropic initiatives during 2022. HGV ended its #30for30 campaign with the local Habitat for Humanity Orlando & Osceola chapter helping build a new home for a local family, marking the company’s 30th and final volunteer event of the year. Given HGV’s headquarters are located in Orlando, it was very special to end the campaign in the company’s home city.
Pablo ensures HGV’s commitment in giving back to its local communities by supporting organizations based on four philanthropic areas including disaster relief, homelessness, veterans, and youth development. In support of the four pillars, the company’s national partnerships include: Habitat for Humanity International, the United Service Organizations (USO), Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and the American Red Cross. In addition, HGV supports sustainability efforts through its partnership with Clean the World.
Pablo maintains a people-first outlook by ensuring programs and services are designed for team members to feel engaged, appreciated and rewarded for their contributions. He has shown commitment to these values by launching day-1 eligibility benefits, HGV is currently one of the only vacation ownership companies to offer benefits on day-1 including medical, dental, vision, optional supplemental insurance, PTO, sick paid-leave and 401K. Under his leadership, the company also began offering various flex-work options including: 100% in office, a few select days in office or 100% remote. These options also include six weeks of remote work each year, four weeks remote during the summer and two weeks during the winter. Additionally, HGV has an exceptional adoption assistance benefit program, leading it to be ranked among the top 100 companies on Dave Thomas Foundation’s “Best Adoption-Friendly Workplaces” list for the last three years.
Along with advantageous and flexible work options, Pablo has ensured the company invests in multiple perks and benefits directly associated with HGV’s company culture including: a best-in-class team member travel program (Go Hilton), a discount program that provides discounts with various merchants and companies, 24/7 HR assistance, Retirement Savings Plans, health savings accounts, health reimbursement accounts, flexible spending accounts, paid time off benefits, EAP – employee assistance program, employee stock ownership plan, company paid short term disability benefits, tuition reimbursement, learning & development opportunities and more.
75% of HGV team members are enrolled in at least one of the health and well-being programs. In 2023, there will be several new additional wellness benefits for team members, including increasing the bereavement benefit from three to five days for immediate family members and will also include pets.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s):
○ Less Paper Waste: Preventing nearly 700,000 pounds from ending up in landfills from Jan. 1, 2020 – Dec. 31, 2021
○ More Trees Saved: Approximately 5,200 from Jan. 1, 2020 – Dec. 31, 2021
○ Fewer Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Approximately 2.4 million pounds of Co2 from Jan. 1, 2020 – Dec. 31, 2021
○ A donation of $100,000 was made to Habitat for Humanity International to help support home builds and repair projects for families across the country.
○ A donation of $100,000 was made to the United Service Organizations (USO) in support of service members in local communities across the country.
○ In March 2022, matched public donations dollar-for-dollar up to $50,000 to the American Red Cross to assist with domestic disaster relief efforts.
○ A donation of $150,000 to Boys & Girls Clubs of America to help create positive impacts in the lives of young people throughout communities within HGV’s footprint.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Pablo stands out in his role as CHRO due to his innate ability to connect with team members and create an environment where people want to work while being fulfilled by the job they perform. In the past two years, Pablo had to help HGV overcome a myriad of challenges the hospitality industry has faced, all while acquiring another company at the same time.
While bringing two companies together has always presented both opportunities and challenges, Pablo understood the key to a successful merger lies in people. A large part of the successful integration of both companies was all in part due to Pablo and his team creating an almost 100-page Leader Playbook that detailed how leaders can successfully move forward as one company, one team. This document showcased the magnitude of what Pablo’s vision entailed, and what his team was doing behind the scenes to make a merger so seamless starting from the team member level.
Working through this 100-page document, he had his leaders view their roles and how they could support the company’s strategic priorities by viewing it as a pyramid, starting with team members and culture at the base and each one building upon the other. Team members and culture as the main support system and functioning as one, thus building to financial performance which helps to increase revenue and finally, focusing on innovation and integration as a whole to complete the pyramid. Having this visualization helped Pablo’s leaders understand the way to success, operating together as a pyramid, building on each other to achieve success.
Effective and servant leadership is absolutely essential to ensuring an entire organization is aligned and inspired to move forward together. Pablo’s guiding principle is to be a servant leader and he’s had the good fortune throughout his career to learn firsthand from tremendous servant leaders whose guidance has impacted him immensely. The philosophy of this leadership style is a “serve-first mindset,” which unlocks potential and drives a strong a sense of purpose. Servant leaders enrich the lives of others, build better organizations and lead by example by paying it forward.
Pablo has instilled this servant leadership style to his own direct leaders and through his guidance, his team’s consistent focus on creating a company culture that is based on transparency and one that emphasizes respect, growth, pride, and fueled by a passion for integrity has allowed HGV to successfully grow a dedicated and engaged global workforce of over 16,000 team members.
Since starting his role at HGV in 2020, apart from cultivating a company culture that is rooted in respect, diversity, inclusion and belonging, Pablo also understands that recognition, no matter how small, inspires big things. Pablo has ensured it’s one of HGV’s key priorities to appreciate and recognize team member milestones throughout their journey with the company. From day one, HGV offers flexible recognition programs that support leaders with helping create meaningful and impactful moments for their teams. These programs reward and highlight milestones, recognize exceptional service standards of team members and promote company values. Pablo and HGV are committed to creating rewarding travel experiences and a fulfilling work-life balance for team members through the company’s Team Member and Family Travel Program and generous paid time off to relax, recharge and reconnect.
Pablo’s role in combining CSR efforts with HR operations have been key to HGV’s continued success given that younger generations increasingly look to get involved with and work for mission-driven companies. He works to invest in programs that not only support HGV team members – both personally and professionally – but to also continue to strengthen and further HGV’s efforts to support the sustainable development of local communities and environments. This is accomplished through numerous volunteer events and activities, charitable contributions, implementation of energy-efficient programs and more to help protect the world in which HGV’s owners, guests and team members adventure.
Pablo’s values are directly aligned with HGV’s core values – Hospitality, Integrity, Leadership, Teamwork, Ownership and Now (HILTON). It’s clear that all of his actions and commitments to the company and team members come from a place of care and admiration for his role and responsibility. Everyone at HGV understands Pablo’s true and genuine motivations and intentions, as he makes them explicitly clear in his actions.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 6
Also, please describe that risk: In August 2021, HGV acquired Diamond Resorts, making it one of the largest vacation ownership companies in the world with over 150 resorts. To ensure a smooth transition for team members, Pablo employed his industrious team of professionals to develop and execute a plan to transition and merge both companies in just six months while continuing their day-to-day duties and supporting team members through the transition. With this massive undertaking, the team completed an enormous range of projects that touched every aspect of the business, including, but not limited to: implementing Paid Time Off, holidays, sick time, health benefits coverage, vacation discount programs, payroll, a new compensation framework, and IT and system integrations, including: email, applicant tracking system, HCM and workforce planning.
Under Pablo’s leadership, this team implemented a plan that allowed the company to continue to operate as normal amid the challenges of combining over 10,000 team members into one, unified company in the middle of a pandemic. This also included adding over 25 global resorts to HGV’s portfolio and ensuring these international team members were properly set up on day one.
One of the biggest challenges in the integration was continuing to run a business without a system to support the new legacy team members, as the company was being redesigned for the future state. This meant the team had a strict deadline to implement everything by January 1, 2022. The team had to develop creative problem-solving to achieve their goals without a framework in place, while also building the new systems the company would use going forward. They merged as many system-driven practices as possible, while designing and running several interim processes.
The second major challenge the team faced was managing cultural onboarding for new team members, while re-educating current team members on new or changing practices and procedures. The team had to be very thoughtful on how, when, and what they communicated —and what needed to be recommunicated. They supported the business during this reimagining, while also completing their regular duties and adapting to constant operational shifts on their own team. Additionally, the team revisited current benefits, such as PTO, medical, and dental, and travel discounts. They evaluated processes and perks from both companies, building a new company culture and procedure rather than just incorporating everything into the company’s existing structure.
The team under Pablo’s direction was successfully able to merge the best of both worlds and designed the company for the future.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
Nominee Name: Stephane Charbonnier
Nominee Title: Chief Human Resources Officer, L’Oréal USA
Nominee Organization/Company: L’Oréal USA
Nominee Email: stephane.charbonnier@loreal.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: More than 25,000
Primary industry: Beauty
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Charbonnier is responsible for leading the company’s overall Human Resources (HR) strategy in the U.S., including talent acquisition, learning and development, total rewards, HR operations and people analytics. The HR initiatives under Charbonnier’s leadership directly impact the company’s 11,000- person workforce, spanning administrative, research, manufacturing and distribution facilities across 16 states.
As CHRO, Charbonnier has pioneered a data-driven talent strategy which has resulted in a strong talent pipeline in the U.S. He has been an advocate for developing a holistic approach to employee wellbeing inclusive of mental, physical and financial wellness offerings. Charbonnier has also championed efforts leading to a more diverse workforce, including gender parity among the L’Oréal USA management team.
2022 in particular was an incredibly impactful year for L’Oréal USA and the HR organization under Charbonnier’s leadership. In fact, L’Oréal USA was ranked among the top 10 of Forbes list of America’s Best Employers for Women 2022. Gender equity is a top priority for Charbonnier and our organization, so this was a tremendous achievement.
Throughout the year, Charbonnier was deeply focused on spearheading a significant transformation of our HR operating model to better prepare our team and organization for the future. Goals were to transform the way we approach routine work in our functions, improve our service standards, employee experience, and cost position by developing functional excellence and a new shared service model.
Another milestone achievement in connection to the HR transformation was the launch of a new global HR platform for our U.S. employees across the company, which was 4 years in the making. For the first time ever, the U.S. is now on the same unique platform as our colleagues across the globe, making it easier to collaborate and leverage shared systems through an enhanced user interface.
Recruiting top tier talent that are as diverse as the U.S. market we serve is another priority for Charbonnier. In 2022, under his leadership and guidance, the Talent Acquisition team launched several initiatives and activations to continue to bolster the organization’s reputation among candidates, including:
Launch of LUSA Employee Value Proposition (EVP) – through many workshops with our employees we understood what brings them to work every day, which was a resounding consensus on the people and their purpose they have here at L’Oréal. This became the foundation of our EVP that allowed us to differentiate ourselves from the crowd. The Employer Branding campaign that we launched this year was told through the stories of our people – why they come to work every day and what gives them purpose. It is clear from the results that this authentically engages with candidates and job seekers and helps decode why L’Oréal could be a great place for them to work and grow.
Additionally, the team ran a “Master Class” series each month, attracting over 7,000 participants. The series hosts L’Oréal leaders talking to audiences in the thousands to allows students, young career professionals and job seekers to really learn expertise in this area and leaves them feeling like they have had a coffee chat with an inspirational leader in the market. We have run 1 master class per month and attracted over 7,000 participants.
Employee health and wellness has always been a priority for Charbonnier, and under his leadership, our Rewards team is focused on supporting employees across all facets of their life including financial, physical, emotional and social with a number of programs and offerings. Toward the end of 2022 in particular, we made enhancements to our Family Planning and Reproductive Health offerings including updates to Parental Leave. Further, we made enhancements to caregiving services, and to our health club program which gives employees and dependents access to a membership platform with the largest fitness network of gyms, classes, wellness apps, 1:1 coaching and more. Lastly, we introduced enhancements to support employees with personalized, financial guidance including access to a financial advisor to help budget toward financial goals, manage debt and understand retirement options.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): L’Oréal USA is the largest subsidiary of the L’Oréal Group, the world’s leading beauty company. Through its management of over 35 iconic beauty brands, L’Oréal USA has generated more than $8 billion in sales annually. Products are available across all distribution channels including hair salons, department stores, mass market, pharmacies, medi-spas, e-commerce and more. L’Oréal USA’s commitment to growth is generated through sustainable innovation and driven by the company’s L’Oréal for the Future ambition which demonstrates sustainable development across the Group’s value chain. The company is headquartered in New York City, employs more than 11,000 people, and operates administrative, research, manufacturing and distribution facilities across 16 states. The L’Oréal USA HR organization Charbonnier leads is comprised of roughly 300 individuals.
Through our annual employee feedback survey, we heard critical feedback from 93% of our population in 2022 — our highest participation rate ever. Results showed significant improvements across all key measures of wellbeing. We also saw significant improvement in perception of career moves and promotions.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 7
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: With every initiative listed and executed, Charbonnier led with a strong vision and perspective, support for his team, and prioritized bringing in various sponsors throughout the company to ensure projects had the right level of support and alignment among key stakeholders from day one. He was comfortable making a number of difficult decisions, taking into account many stakeholder perspectives, including from those at our global headquarters. He also leveraged his relationships at all levels throughout the company – both across the U.S. and globally – to raise awareness and drive action for each initiative.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 5
Also, please describe that risk: During 2022, Charbonnier led the launch of the HR transformation and a new HR system. Both of which impacted every team member and required a significant amount of change management support. While challenging, Charbonnier believed in the vision and positive impact these initiatives would have on our employees across the organization now and for the future, so he took a risk to challenge the status quo for the sake of the company’s best interest.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 7 – 9 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 4 – 6 years
Nominee Name: Tracy Layney
Nominee Title: SVP & Chief Human Resources Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Levi Strauss & Co.
Nominee Company’s Website: www.levistrauss.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 10,000 – 24,999
Primary industry: Retail
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: As Chief Human Resources Officer at Levi Strauss & Co., Tracy Layney has led the company’s efforts to support employees so that they can thrive in their work and their lives. Since joining the company in 2020, right at the onset of the pandemic, she has enhanced mental health resources and benefits, created and expanded policy and benefits that give people the time they need to care for themselves and family members, and overseen our ongoing efforts to become more diverse, more equitable, and more inclusive. She also led a CEO succession planning process that was announced at the end of 2022 and will play out over the course of the year ahead.
Benefits & Policy: Tracy takes a holistic approach to employee benefits and wellbeing, striving to create a workplace that enables all employees to be healthy, fulfilled and successful at home and at work. To do this, Tracy has emphasized the following:
Accessible, always on resources from the Lyra app to Rally Wellness Coaching to virtual therapy through Talkspace, Tracy helped make sure employees had access to effective tools that can help manage stress, anxiety, and depression, prioritizing their mental and physical health.
Robust employee assistance programs that immediate support from specialists to help with an array of medical, psychosocial, financial or legal issues.
An open and honest culture. As a leader who has publicly discussed her personal experience with burnout, Tracy has helped cultivate an environment where managers are trained to lead with empathy and employees are encouraged to have open and honest conversations.
Paid leave policies and bereavement leave programs to ensure no one has to choose between their job and taking care of themselves or loved ones. This year, we’re implementing an equitable Global core minimum standard that will be a safety net for our employees.
Reproductive Rights: As the pandemic has shown so clearly, public health issues are workplace issues. Business leaders are responsible for protecting the health and well-being of their employees, and that includes protecting reproductive rights and abortion access. Under our current benefits plan, Levi Strauss & Co. employees are eligible for reimbursement for healthcare-related travel expenses for services not available in their home state, including those related to reproductive health care and abortion. There is also a process in place through which employees who are not in our benefits plan, including part-time hourly workers, can seek reimbursement for travel costs incurred under the same circumstances.
Our position on this is in keeping with our efforts to support employees and family members at all stages of their lives. As such, after the Dobbs ruling was handed down, Tracy led and joined convenings of CHROs and benefits leads from other companies all across the country to discuss how companies can best support their employees in a post-Roe America.
Ongoing Commitment to DE&I: At Levi Strauss & Co. we’re committed to advancing equality through hiring, retention, and promotion practices. The goal is to build an organization that reflects the full diversity of our customers and the communities where we work and serve – because we know a more diverse company is a stronger company. With Tracy’s unwavering backing, the DE&I team, which sits under the HR function, defined a clear, multi-faceted, global DE&I strategy that crystallized our goals, key areas of focus, and a regular reporting cadence in and beyond the company.
To drive real DE&I change at LS&Co., we focus on the following core areas:
Investment & Visibility – hiring strategic DEI leaders, investing in their teams and programs and keeping DE&I on the agenda with leaders and employees
Accountability – including public commitments, connecting executive compensation or incentives to goals, embedding inclusive behaviors into performance management expectations and objectives
Transparency – workforce representation, pay equity and internal metrics/progress sharing
Advocacy – being a voice for change and leveraging their platforms to influence and advocate for equality
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s):
Policy & Benefits:
We lead or participated in several CHRO convenings, attended by more than 50 leads from companies all across the country, to discuss how to best support employees in a post-Roe America.
In 2021-22, we launched four new global Employee Resource Groups: AMAzing Rivet, a women’s ERG in AMA and Rivet in Europe, Operation 501, a veteran’s ERG, and BeYou Alliance, an LGBTQ ERG in AMA
LS&Co. Now offers 15 ERGs that serve as multicultural advisers to the company, create spaces of belonging, and are among our strongest retention and engagement programs.
We took several concrete steps to strengthen our position as a world-class destination for talent through the launch of:
Two new talent development programs – LS&Co. Lab for executive women and Elevate: Accelerate Your Career, for Black and Hispanic/Latinx talent
A global self-identification initiative, which offers employees from key markets the opportunity to disclose additional aspects of their identity – including gender identity, disability status and sexual orientation
Relaunched True Blue, our annual listening tour, with more affinity categories, including veterans, remote workers and people with disabilities
Re-vamped our internship experience making it more interactive and dynamic (F.I.T. = Fostering Intern Talent). The 2022 class was 76% BIPOC talent with an overall 77% job acceptance rate.
Released our first-ever annual DEI Impact Report to continue our commitment to accountability, transparency and progress.
We conduct US pay equity audits every other year, under guidance from outside counsel, with the goal of maintaining fair and equitable compensation. Our studies in 2018, 2020, and 2022 found no systemic pay differences across gender or ethnicity.
DE&I:
Our continued efforts to ensure our workforce reflects our consumers from 2020 to 2022 has resulted in the following:
In 2022, one year after launching our first-ever global DE&I strategy, we conducted our inaugural inclusion pulse survey. Our global aggregate inclusion score was 81%, with 85% of corporate employees feeling strongly or very strongly that we have a culture of belonging, 84% of Retail employees and 65% of our DC employees.
In 2021, we formalized 13 partnerships with diversity-focused organizations, including a three-year partnership with Harlem’s Fashion Row, in which we launched a curated fashion program curriculum to help attract Black fashion students interested in design and develop top student talent. Our 2022 class was 76% BIPOC talent with an overall 77% job acceptance rate.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Tracy Layney is Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Levi Strauss & Co., responsible for LS&Co.’s people strategy on a global scale, including diversity, equity & inclusion, recruiting, employee engagement, talent management, compensation and benefits, HR technology and HR communications. She is directly responsible for overseeing each initiative from DE&I to policy and benefits.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 8
Also, please describe that risk: When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, women became the social safety net of the country and absorbed the shocks to the system. Every company was at risk of losing valued employees. We knew we needed to act to support them.
With turnover that has been relatively flat since 2020, this shows that our programs are working. In the words of one of our employees, “I am the primary caretaker for my mom. Knowing that LS&Co. has paid family care leave in place provides me with relief knowing that if I need to, I can take the leave to take care of my mom. It helps me to be the mother that I want to be, the daughter I want to be, and the colleague I want to be.”
Similarly, when the Dobbs decision was announced, the company made sure its employees knew that we had a “centers of excellence” approach to medical care through which they could be reimbursed incurred because the care they needed was not available in their home states. Combined with public statements about the importance of supporting reproductive care, it was a considered effort to let our employees, particularly our female employees, know that the company had their backs.
There is no one size doesn’t fit all approach to taking care of our employees, they need a range of support tailored to them and their families, and we pride ourselves in staying current with our offerings as those needs evolve. But there’s always a risk that we get it wrong. If we’re not supporting our people when they really need it, we’re failing.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
Nominee Name: Sheena Ponnappan
Nominee Title: Chief People Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Everise
Nominee Company’s Website: www.weareeverise.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $500 million – $999 million
Full-time employees globally: 10,000 – 24,999
Primary industry: Business Process Outsourcing
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: With over 20 years of HR experience, Sheena Ponnappan leads as the Chief People Officer of Everise. She drives the company’s continued growth by creating and managing effective people strategies, primarily to elevate experiences for partners and employees.
Sheena has strengthened the Everise recruiting approach to ensure that all new hires are primed to thrive in a work-at-home environment. Sheena was instrumental in developing outstanding Everise’s learning and development programs for employees:
Everise Accelerator aims to quickly advance champions into supervisory and managerial positions through an immersive instructor-led training program.
Everise Career Development – Promising employees are paired with department leaders who provide career coaching and skills development. This strong mentor relationship increases readiness for career advancement. In the US, a succession planning program has been created for directors and above with at least 6 months of tenure.
Sheena has championed the ‘Everise College of Insurance (COI) program’, a sponsored program developed for our agents. It offers mentoring and study sessions that help our team members earn a state health insurance license. This gives our team members credentials that they can use to sell health insurance policies and increase their earning potential while at and after working at Everise. It has benefitted more than 800 associates who attended the program and successfully obtained their licenses within the year. This is one of the key achievements that positively impacted the financial targets as it significantly increased employee compensation and sales revenue for our healthcare clients.
Her initiative has also helped to build several technologies and career-focused paths leading our employees to succeed, including:
Sheena is always eager to launch new Learning & Development programs such as Engagement activities, and gamification was introduced to increase employee engagement, competitiveness, and rewards. To further improve employee engagement, a wide variety of sports tournaments, health & fitness programs, and webinars were organized throughout the year to engage remote workers. Utilizing our Teams Engagement Channels for activities, contests, communication, anniversary, and promotions. There has Everise has seen garners an average of over 2,000 interactions per day.
These groups provide a safe and welcoming space for individuals to raise issues related to their community internally and to leadership, and to create comradery through planned community events for group members and for the company at large.
Sheena has also rolled out a meritocracy-based Compensation and Benefits program and examined external & internal market data and pay-for-performance. Promotions and rewards are not tied to annual performance reviews but to continuous feedback and recognition, ensuring we hire, engage, and reward our people well.
Sheena developed and launched Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) for a variety of special interests and minority groups present at Everise. We have seen a 55% increase in involvement since this was introduced in 4 key areas: The Salute Network for veterans; The Global Women’s Network focusing on empowering female employees; The Ability Network focusing on supporting our employees with disabilities; and The Pride Network for LGBTQIA+ individuals.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Sheena is a valued member of the global leadership team, bringing her HR experience and passion for people to a diverse group. She is an expert in her field and an exceptional leader, always focusing on how our business decisions will affect our people. Since Sheena joined the company in 2017, she has led the growth of a small team of 10 to 16,500 workforces from 64 nationalities, managing 600,000+ experiences daily across 7 countries today. She has built a strong team of 471 passionate individuals focusing on key responsibilities – HR Strategy and Planning, Talent Engagement and Management, Compensation and Benefits, Staffing, Succession Planning, and Leadership Development.
Through her initiatives, Everise has developed a strong culture driven by referrals, where 70% of job postings were filled internally. This ensures that talent will continue to stay with the organization while creating incentives and a steady career path.
With her continuous effort in embracing and celebrating diversity, we yielded positive results from our recent Diversity & Inclusion survey among the employees in 6 countries (the United States, Guatemala, Ireland, Philippines, Malaysia and Japan) who participated, to provide us with feedback on our practices. 85% of respondents gave us top marks in promoting respect, inclusivity, and ensuring colleagues feel safe and respected. We were incredibly pleased that the overwhelming majority of respondents feel Everise has created an inclusive work culture in which every employee feels valued and respected.
You can also view the highlights of our survey here: https://info.weareeverise.com/resources/infographics/diversityinclusionsurvey2022 With a diverse hiring strategy in place, and we are proud to say that Everise is powered by women, who make up 65% of our workforce, with 45% of them in leadership positions. Furthermore, we also employ mature-age employees consisting of 7% of our workforce and PWD employees at 1.8%.
Under the guidance of Sheena, HR has kept attrition rates healthy and below the industry average, scoring 4 points more than our competitors. This falls in line with our industry-high 4.7 Glassdoor and 4.4 Indeed ratings which are ahead of our competitors.
Today, with a talent pool, Everise has expanded our market-leading healthcare customer experience practice by providing more than 40 different services across payer operations, health and life insurance products, pharmacy benefits management, and provider and health systems. With the strong workforce support from these HR initiatives, Everise anticipates more than 30% growth throughout 2022 in this vertical.
Thanks to Sheena’s commitment, our champions and Everisers (as we affectionately call our employees and agents) are happy and thriving. She has built a solid foundation in the workplace for all the strategic locations worldwide where employees can bring their authentic selves to work and perform their best.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: From the beginning, Sheena ensured Everise remained committed to our core values: Being people-first, celebrating diversity, and incubating innovation in our hiring practices. This has allowed us to attract a diverse range of people who are the best at their skill sets.
She has successfully expanded and transformed HR from an operational team to one focusing on strategic goals and key business drivers to engage and motivate our people. Sheena has taken ownership to improve our HR processes and framework, which includes rewards, benefits, and our internal communication department. She has made HR the heart of the company by ensuring the team is central to the strategic direction of the business.
What makes Everise stands out is the talent we attract, engage, and retain across our entire organization. Sheena redefined the concept of the “customer service agent” by introducing the term “Champions”. Since then, we have acknowledged all our agents as Champions in the organization. A champion simply implies the best and world-class service support. This recognizes our employees’ skills and efficiency, manifesting advocacy of a happy workforce.
Our ability to grow our business is also greatly influenced by our ability to recruit, hire and train employees quickly and efficiently. Sheen has always ensured the organization look into and invests heavily in building our tools, infrastructure, and security standards to allow employees to work remotely. As an HR leader, Sheena focused on innovations in remote recruiting, virtual training and onboarding, learning & development, and other home-based activities. This has allowed newly hired employees to gain professional skills and transferable credentials applicable to other diverse areas within the organization. These innovations have also made it possible for people who have limited employment prospects or are from economically disadvantaged regions to be able to work in Everise.
Sheena introduced a hiring scheme based on psychographics rather than demographics which helps to attract people of the right fit and are hired based on their attitudes and aspirations, which aligns with the realities of working remotely. This helps us to expand employee diversification and boast retention.
To promote diversity within Everise, Sheena has spearheaded and hosted monthly E-Talks (virtual roundtables to have open conversations to discuss trending topics, (i.e. understanding pronouns and improving work conditions) with representatives of the established employee resource groups to share their perspectives and connect with each other.
During the pandemic, Sheena deployed leadership development training focused on effectively managing a remote workforce. Keeping employees feeling connected was critical to our success. She transitioned many of our in-office/classroom sessions to virtual E-Talks/Webinars to continue promoting an environment of learning through experiences.
As a result, Everise’s home-based workforce is able to grow drastically while improving our employee engagement and managing retention. Everise was able to deliver all of its customer solutions from home, including a series of omnichannel customer services for our clients. Everise could remain unaffected and even ramp up to hire more essential workers needed to meet the surging demand for healthcare services during the pandemic compared to many competitors who were struggling.
By leveraging the power of technology, Sheena is capitalizing on digital integrations at the core of the HR Management System. She continues to conceptualize and innovate new projects, such as developing bots to automate manual processes, eliminate human error, and speed up HR processes to increase efficiency within the team. She is spearheading the design and harnessing technology to secure more information from the new hires and create opportunities to engage them prior to their official join date. It will help the HR team to understand new employees better and minimize potential attrition. Thus, efficiently extending HR operations virtually.
“Our ability to source, recruit, train, engage and manage the performance of a large global workforce in a home setting has turned out to be a real competitive advantage. Our AI-powered chatbot guides candidates through the onboarding process, while remote collaboration technologies virtually enable high-touch training and real-time engagement. All of this has been instrumental to promoting our core values and retaining talent.” – Sheena Ponnappan, Chief People Officer at Everise
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 8
Also, please describe that risk: Launching any new human resource initiative in an organization can be a risky endeavor, as it can potentially disrupt existing processes and procedures, and may not always be well-received by employees. Sheena has taken many risks and overcome several challenges along the way.
Sheena was one of the first leaders to advocate Flexi-working and hiring from home within Everise. She challenged many of the existing hiring processes, rewards and benefits of remote working, and at the beginning, she would face pushback from team members and resistance from existing employees.
Sheena has often spent a significant investment of time and resources, to work with cross-departments to implement, and test. When the training does not deliver the expected results, there is often a risk of an increasing cost to review and work on these steps repeatedly.
As the head of HR, Sheena is wary of the risk of legal consequences when implementing any HR initiative, especially if it involves changes to employment contracts or policies that may be perceived as unfair or discriminatory. She works closely with the legal team to ensure all areas are covered before any launch.
As often, Sheena has put her reputation and credibility within the organization on the line when proposing many of these new HR initiatives, as they do carry a certain risk of failure. Many of her initial initiatives have gone through careful consideration and planning to minimize potential negative consequences.
Sheena has always put her people first in everything she does, and she is known to be determined and a serious risk-taker in order to create a better work environment within Everise. This has made her gain much respect from the team and peers in the industry.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 7 – 9 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
Nominee Name: Diane Psaras
Nominee Title: Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: VITAS Healthcare
Nominee Company’s Website: www.vitas.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 10,000 – 24,999
Primary industry: Healthcare
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: As a member of the senior executive leadership team, Diane is responsible for bringing the VITAS vision and mission to life through its people. She is charged with setting the strategic direction for the HR function and a robust talent strategy to enable operational excellence throughout the organization. She is a champion for VITAS talent and culture, both of which are critical for a successful healthcare services business.
During her tenure at VITAS, Diane has driven numerous initiatives focused on continuous improvement and excellence in areas such as talent acquisition and retention, education and training, business partnerships, employee relations, benefits, compensation, payroll, and HR information systems, data and analytics.
Focus on Talent
A key strategic focus has been to attract and retain talent in a particularly challenging healthcare environment. As a result of a clear talent strategy, VITAS has been able to significantly increase its clinical capacity to serve more patients in need of end-of-life care. The development of creative hiring initiatives has allowed VITAS to achieve year-over-year increases in hiring for key clinical roles for the past four years. Even during the pandemic, VITAS was able to attract new talent and retain existing talent. Between 2020-2022, 9,237 new employees were hired, including 6,455 people (70%) whose jobs involve direct interaction with patients. In addition, the development of innovative training and retention programs, coupled with competitive wage structures and PTO/benefit enhancements, have led to double-digit improvements in talent retention. These programs and talent improvements have differentiated VITAS from others within the industry.
In July 2022, Diane constructed a new employee retention bonus program for VITAS licensed healthcare professionals nationwide. New hires in these roles are also eligible to receive this bonus after meeting the eligibility requirements. The announcement of this program was kicked off with a special card and gift sent to the home of each eligible participant. This was a meaningful gesture and expression of how our organization values team members. It was so appreciated by employees that we saw an immediate boost in morale. While the bonus was a significant demonstration of how we appreciate our people, the card and gift that they could share with their families was equally meaningful. It is these types of thoughtful engagement initiatives led by Diane and her team that have proved successful in the retention of talent, especially following a tumultuous time in the nation’s employment of healthcare professionals. Amid record industry departures and dynamic wage fluctuations, turnover within VITAS’ licensed staff has begun showing indications of normalization since the pandemic’s onset.
Diane’s development of an annual certification program for VITAS clinical staff has been a clear catalyst in the increase of quality care skills and capabilities while simultaneously motivating and rewarding our talent. Well over 68% of eligible participants completed all four modules in the first year of the program. Over 95% of eligible participants completed the Q3 & Q4 classes. Participants were rewarded with Continuing Education Units (CEUs) and completion bonuses. This three-year program demonstrates Diane and VITAS’ commitment to providing employees with ongoing opportunities to learn and grow.
In 2020, Diane led the implementation and execution of Oracle Cloud Fusion HRIS Technology, which replaced a legacy system in place at VITAS for well over 25 years. In addition to providing much needed employee and manager self-serve access, the system eliminated numerous paper-based processes. It also gave leaders the ability to pull accurate and specific data so they can better understand key people performance metrics.
Diane further leveraged this system with the implementation of an online employee self-evaluation and performance review process coupled with an integrated online merit process – a first for VITAS. Every employee began receiving an annual performance review and had the opportunity to provide their own self-evaluation of their performance. Prior to this new process, employee reviews were not consistently conducted and did not occur for over 50% of employees. The new process requires evaluation of core competencies specific to the employee’s role and 100% of employees are expected to receive a performance review each year. This process has been effective in ensuring that employees receive constructive performance feedback and has had a positive impact on employee engagement, validated by the 77% of employee survey responses that favored the prompt: “my manager provides me with performance feedback that helps me do better at [my] job.”
Diane has further leveraged the new HRIS platform to develop key people metrics and KPIs. These dashboards have provided data that was not previously available to leaders to help them understand strengths and opportunities of our most valuable assets – our people. This business intelligence has paved the way to identify key trends and opportunities in hiring and retention, employee demographics, training, compensation practices and actual costs to the business. This data drills down by location, month, and timeframe and has become a critical asset to leaders as they work to improve the performance of their business and, most importantly, improve the unfavorable trends impacting our employee and patient experience.
Enhancing Our Culture
Our VITAS culture was derived from values that have been in place for more than 42 years. Diane has been instrumental in continuing to refresh and evolve our focus on people and how that is manifested within our culture.
To champion an employee-first philosophy, Diane introduced our employee promise, which speaks to VITAS’ commitment to all employees.
“The VITAS Employee Promise” makes it clear to existing and prospective employees what they can expect from VITAS as their employer, the nation’s leading provider of end-of-life care. This includes:
Additionally, Diane has continuously worked to champion the experience of our patients and their families as it is delivered by our employees. The VITAS Difference is an evergreen cornerstone of VITAS culture, which is based upon “who we are” as a company and emphasizes three characteristics: Commitment, Compassion, and Can-Do Attitude. These characteristics define how every member of the VITAS team interacts with each other, patients and families, and our communities. The VITAS Difference focuses on the key behaviors that we expect of one another and how we deliver excellent care to our patients and their families. It has become part of our day-to-day language and is emphasized by every leader in every program across our footprint. All leaders and employees are also encouraged to recognize team members whose actions and behaviors demonstrate The VITAS Difference with specific examples of how they go above and beyond for colleagues, patients, and healthcare partners.
Through an internal VITAS platform, an employee recognition program enables peers and leaders to submit words of encouragement, support or compliments from themselves, patients, families, other team members or management via a simple online form. Team members who receive 10, 20, and 30 recognitions earn Bronze, Silver, and Gold pins, respectively, to attach to their name badge. Pins are awarded by managers at team meetings so coworkers can hear more about the inspiring actions that a colleague took to make a difference in someone’s life. New pins are awarded almost every day, and the number of submissions continues to rise steadily, with more than 20,000 recognitions and 350 pins awarded in just a year and a half since the program’s launch.
VITAS also prioritizes diversity, equity, and inclusion and ensures that our employees, patients, families, and members of the communities we serve can connect with a workforce that they relate to and who understands them culturally. In validation of those efforts, the American Association for Men in Nursing (AAMN) recently honored VITAS with the 2022 Inclusion & Diversity Excellence Award, acknowledging efforts to create and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, and a welcoming environment for all nurses.
VITAS also trains its staff to provide culturally sensitive care that acknowledges and respects differences in language, ethnicity, spirituality, class, gender, and sexual orientation. One example of what VITAS has done to inform and educate staff is the development of dozens of publications titled Things Hospice Innovators Need to Know (THINKs), which provide insight on various cultural backgrounds and beliefs – for Navajo and Hmong patients, for example. These materials help employees learn how to provide culturally sensitive end-of-life care to a variety of patients and their families – and help support an inclusive workplace culture.
Especially over the last few years, during an unquestionably difficult time for healthcare professionals, Diane has supported and guided internal initiatives on employee health, safety education, and policy compliance. She has continued to make VITAS employees feel valued and recognized for their commitment and compassion to patients and families.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Impact on Talent
Over the past four years, VITAS has seen continual growth in the amount of talent hired year over year (YOY). Even during the pandemic (2020-2022), VITAS attracted new talent and retained existing talent. 9,237 new employees were hired, including 6,455 people (70%) whose jobs involve direct interaction with patients. This additional staffing has enabled VITAS to serve more patients in need of end-of-life care and ensure that their quality of care is stellar. In addition, the continued focus on both hiring and talent retention has increased our overall headcount in key clinical areas by over 275 Full Time Employees YOY. This resulted from hiring nearly 8% more patient-facing employees YOY complemented by double-digit reductions in turnover YOY.
The development of our new annual certification program supported staff growth and retention, with more than 68% of eligible participants completing all four modules in the first year of the program and over 95% of eligible participants completing the Q3 & Q4 classes.
Impact on Culture and Engagement:
Over the past four years, VITAS has seen continual growth in the amount of talent hired year over year (YOY). Even during the pandemic (2020-2022), VITAS attracted new talent and retained existing talent. 9,237 new employees were hired, including 6,455 people (70%) whose jobs involve direct interaction with patients. This additional staffing has enabled VITAS to serve more patients in need of end-of-life care and ensure that their quality of care is stellar. In addition, the continued focus on both hiring and talent retention has increased our overall headcount in key clinical areas by over 275 Full Time Employees YOY. This resulted from hiring nearly 8% more patient-facing employees YOY complemented by double-digit reductions in turnover YOY.
The development of our new annual certification program supported staff growth and retention, with more than 68% of eligible participants completing all four modules in the first year of the program and over 95% of eligible participants completing the Q3 & Q4 classes.
Impact on Culture and Engagement:
In 2022, an internal survey was distributed to all VITAS employees, which hadn’t been done since 2007. About 69% or 6,601 of 9,527 employees responded to the 2022 survey and provided feedback on their experience as an employee. The survey revealed strengths identified by VITAS employees responding to the survey, which included:
These results were deemed strong for a group of our size and for an organization completing a survey for the first time in 15 years. These employee engagement survey results, coupled with the significant decline in turnover, has helped us gauge the success of the initiatives outlined above.
Since the inception of The VITAS Difference Recognition Program in June 2021, more than 20,000 recognitions, highlighting employees’ Commitment, Compassion and Can-Do Attitudes, have been submitted. To date, these nominations have resulted in 350 pin earners nationwide who have been recognized for living out The VITAS Difference.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Diane’s vision and strategic planning was key in the development and implementation of The VITAS Difference, The VITAS Employee Promise, the new employee retention bonus program, annual certification program, and the employee engagement survey, and of Oracle Cloud Fusion HRIS Technology. Diane identified the opportunities for improvement and investment and pioneered through planning and delivery.
During the challenging times the world experienced in 2020 – 2022, Diane knew that the healthcare industry had to make substantial changes. We needed to recognize and place more emphasis on employee well-being, and provide teams with tools, resources, and recognition to celebrate their efforts. She quickly realized that companies that did not make an authentic effort to support and foster a positive environment for employees would be the companies that would fall behind in the years to come.
Her vision was that the most successful companies would place people over profits, and establish a people-first culture to address and combat the burnout of our healthcare workers. This is where she found the inspiration to drive and deliver on all the initiatives.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: Implementing a new HRIS system that impacted and changed every people process in the company was a significant risk. It required laser-beam focus in ensuring that every aspect of configuration was flawless, and the change management plan was robust. If this system was not successful, not only was the company’s significant investment on the line, but also this was the first major system change for the company and one that a new executive, Diane, led from start to finish. Not getting a win would have been detrimental to the company and to Diane’s credibility.
There was also a significant risk in implementing the VITAS Difference as a way to continue to evolve our culture in an environment with the strong foundation and focus on our values that had been in place for over 42 years. If not done well, there was a huge risk in the VITAS Difference not being embraced by the organization and the value not being realized. In addition, when developing the employee recognition program, Diane took a risk and challenged the status quo by implementing a new lens through which colleagues should view their work and recognize one another. The initiative was launched during the pandemic, a time when healthcare employee morale was low across the industry. There was also the risk that employees may not subscribe to the cultural markers that were created to define the organization. The system to nominate colleagues could have been left unused, and the many hours and resources used to develop it could have been for nothing. Additionally, at the time of its launch, Diane had been with VITAS for under three years. A failed initiative may have left a longer impact on her personal reputation as a newer executive in the company and affected her unique performance measures.
However, Diane believed greatly in establishing an open forum for employees to show appreciation for one another. Knowing that appreciation is a global language, and that the team culture at VITAS is authentically positive, she set out to empower each team member to have a voice in the company culture. She had access to countless primary caregiver surveys that praised the various team members for the care they provided each day for their patients, as well as the primary caregivers. There were three attributes that consistently appeared in each survey comment she read- Commitment, Compassion, and Can-Do Attitude. Diane knew these attributes were not common and were something to be acknowledged and celebrated. This led Diane to motivate and mobilize her teams to get them on board and encourage them to try this new approach to recognize one another. To Diane’s delight, VITAS employees enthusiastically embraced The VITAS Difference and were quick to see the value in recognizing their peers and acknowledging Commitment, Compassion and Can-Do Attitudes when they see them in action.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 4 – 6 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
Nominee Name: Jackie Scanlan
Nominee Title: Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Axalta
Nominee Company’s Website: www.Axalta.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 10,000 – 24,999
Primary industry: Coatings & Paints
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Jackie has led an HR Transformation. In less than 2 years, Jackie has completely evolved the HR function at Axalta. Key achievements include:
– Implementing Workday globally on time and on budget in only 12 months allowing for greater process efficiencies and manager/employee self-service capabilities
– Introducing a new HR Operating Model with AskHR service centers, COEs, People Experience experts and HR Business Partners
– Implementing Aspire – an OnDemand learning and development platform available to all employees
– Reimagining our talent recruitment strategy and introducing a Recruitment Partner Outsourcing (RPO) relationship
– Improving Axalta’s YOY engagement results
– Leading the process to create Axalta’s new Purpose, Values & Behaviors
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): HR’s Transformation touched all 13,000 Axalta employees around the world.
Axalta’s Engagement Survey showed impressive YOY results between 2021 and 2022. Participation was up 20 pts from 67 to 87. Our Engagement Index rose from 68 to 75. And, we saw an increase across all engagement categories at an enterprise level.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: While Jackie had multiple HR colleagues working in workstreams, she was the Executive Sponsor for the HR Transformation overall and fully accountable for the project budget and outcomes. She was visible and engaged throughout the entire transformation often meeting with the global HR team to discuss progress, deliver/reinforce difficult change messages, and support/thank the team for their many contributions. She worked tirelessly to secure the team required resources and to keep the project visible with the Executive Committee and Board.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe that risk: Any time you try to transform an organization while also managing the day-to-day oversight, it’s hard and comes with risk. Jackie had a clear vision for what was needed and how to get there and put herself and personal reputation on the line to make it happen. She committed to the ExCo that it could be done on time, on budget and with minimal disruption to the organization and she made it happen.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
Nominee Name: Daniel G. Chappell
Nominee Title: EVP, Chief Human Resources Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Seacoast Bank
Nominee Company’s Website: www.SeacoastBank.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $200 million – $499 million
Full-time employees globally: 500 – 2,999
Primary industry: Banking
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Dan Chappell joined Seacoast Bank as Chief Human Resources Officer in August of 2014. In his time with the bank, Seacoast has been committed to an M&A strategy of delivering consistent growth and long-term shareholder value. Seacoast has become an experienced acquirer with 16 transactions and has established a proven track record of successful and value-adding integrations.
The priority of each acquisition is ensuring a seamless associate and customer transition resulting in a low associate retention rate, high associate engagement rate, and low customer attrition rate. As the local bankers are closest to their customers, it’s essential that the employees of the banks Seacoast acquires are not only retained but also highly engaged throughout the integration process so they can successfully navigate customers through the onboarding process as they transition into Seacoast customers.
Chappell plays a critical role in ensuring the success of each integration. He believes achieving a low retention rate and a high level of employee engagement can be achieved through a top-down approach. Chappell has prioritized two key tasks: guiding the acquired bank’s executives through their own personal change management process while simultaneously enlisting the executives as “champions” of the integration process to keep employees engaged and retained.
Before an acquisition is even announced publicly, Chappell has already begun his routine of weekly calls with the CEO and other key executive leadership. This routine will continue through conversion and remain in place until the cultures of the two banks have successfully merged. During the weekly calls, Chappell uses the time to understand the human capital needs and risks, roadblocks, questions, and concerns so the Seacoast HR team can make positive changes based on associate feedback.
While Chappell has led many acquisitions in his time as CHRO, in 2022, he was challenged with three acquisitions announced within six months. These three acquisitions would prove to be the most challenging yet as they had the largest impact on the organization both in terms of people, assets, and geography. The three acquisitions would increase Seacoast’s assets from $10.3 billion to $15.6 billion combined proforma in 2023 and will provide strong shareholder returns of 21.3% at year one and 89.4% at year two.
The acquisition of Apollo Bank, announced in March 2022, expanded Seacoast’s presence into Miami-Dade County, part of the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach metropolitan statistical area, Florida’s largest MSA and the 8th largest in the nation. Apollo Bank operated five branches across Miami-Dade County with deposits of approximately $928 million and loans of $665 million as of December 31, 2021.
Shortly after, in May 2023, Seacoast announced the acquisition of Drummond Community Bank based in Chiefland, FL which operates 18 branches across North Florida with deposits of approximately $932 million and loans of $543 million as of March 31, 2022. The proposed transaction expanded Seacoast’s presence into new and growing Florida markets including Ocala and Gainesville.
Finally, Seacoast announced the acquisition of Professional Bank in August of 2022, which will expand Seacoast’s footprint in the dynamic tri-county South Florida market, which includes Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties, the largest MSA in Florida and the eighth largest in the nation. Professional Bank, the sixth largest bank headquartered in South Florida, operates nine branches across Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, with deposits of approximately $2.4 billion and loans of $2.0 billion as of June 30, 2022. The proposed transaction is a natural continuation of Seacoast’s M&A strategy, adding a premier franchise in one of Florida’s fastest-growing markets.
Professional Bank will accelerate Seacoast’s growth strategy by expanding our presence in the attractive South Florida market. With the combined scale, we will bring to market a larger balance sheet, a greater digital product set and the resources to become South Florida’s most competitive community bank. This transaction is expected to be the most accretive in Seacoast’s nearly 100-year history, with a reasonable earnback on tangible book value dilution of 2.3 years.
Recognizing the sheer volume of new employees Seacoast would be onboarding due to the three acquisitions, Chappell and his team launched an M&A Associate Engagement Strategy encompassing all associate related activities to keep associate retention low and engagement high for the acquired employees.
Elements of this strategy include:
Merging the cultures of multiple banks could pose a challenge. However, Chappell enlisted the acquired bank’s executive leadership teams to be co-leaders of the markets they served. Local Market Leadership teams were formed so decisions can be made quickly at the local level to have the biggest impact on each community. Each market spent time outside of the office getting to know one another and getting to know Seacoast associates during local market events hosted by the Local Market Leadership teams.
Chappell’s top-down “white glove” approach of nurturing the executive leadership teams through the Seacoast onboarding process and enlisting them as co-leaders of the markets they serve proved to be successful.
Each integration’s one-time costs were underbudget. Chappell’s team was able to provide job placements for over 80% of the acquired employees and obtained an offer acceptance rate of over 90%. His team welcomed nearly 500 acquired employees to Seacoast between the three integrations which accounted for a 40 % increase in Seacoast’s total population size as the bank grew from 1,200 employees to over 1,700 employees.
Chappell’s idea of forming Local Market Leadership teams to strengthen the culture within each market resulted in Seacoast being named a Best Bank to Work For by American Banker for three consecutive years and most recently a 2023 Best Place to Work by South Florida Business Journal.
Seacoast has become known as a “suitor of choice” for community banks in the state Florida and Chappell believes achieving a low retention rate and a high level of employee engagement through acquisitions can be achieved through a top-down approach of providing a “white glove” onboarding experience to each bank’s executive leadership teams.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Each integration’s one-time costs were underbudget. Chappell’s team was able to provide job placements for over 80% of the acquired employees and obtained an offer acceptance rate of over 90%. His team welcomed nearly 500 acquired employees to Seacoast between the three integrations which accounted for a 40 % increase in Seacoast’s total population size as the bank grew from 1,200 employees to over 1,700 employees.
Chappell’s idea of forming Local Market Leadership teams to strengthen the culture within each market resulted in Seacoast being named a Best Bank to Work For by American Banker for three consecutive years and most recently a 2023 Best Place to Work by South Florida Business Journal.
Seacoast has become known as a “suitor of choice” for community banks in the state Florida and Chappell believes achieving a low retention rate and a high level of employee engagement through acquisitions can be achieved through a top-down approach of providing a “white glove” onboarding experience to each bank’s executive leadership teams.
The three acquisitions would increase Seacoast’s assets from $10.3 billion to $15.6 billion combined proforma in 2023 and will provide strong shareholder returns of 21.3% at year one and 89.4% at year two.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Chappell plays a critical role in ensuring the success of each integration. He believes achieving a low retention rate and a high level of employee engagement can be achieved through a top-down approach. Chappell has prioritized two key tasks: guiding the acquired bank’s executives through their own personal change management process while simultaneously enlisting the executives as “champions” of the integration process to keep employees engaged and retained.
Before an acquisition is even announced publicly, Chappell has already begun his routine of weekly calls with the CEO and other key executive leadership. This routine will continue through conversion and remain in place until the cultures of the two banks have successfully merged. During the weekly calls, Chappell uses the time to understand the human capital needs and risks, roadblocks, questions, and concerns so the Seacoast HR team can make positive changes based on associate feedback.
Recognizing the sheer volume of new employees Seacoast would be onboarding due to the three acquisitions, Chappell and his team launched an M&A Associate Engagement Strategy encompassing all associate related activities to keep associate retention low and engagement high for the acquired employees.
Elements of this strategy include:
Merging the cultures of multiple banks could pose a challenge. However, Chappell enlisted the acquired bank’s executive leadership teams to be co-leaders of the markets they served. Local Market Leadership teams were formed so decisions can be made quickly at the local level to have the biggest impact on each community. Each market spent time outside of the office getting to know one another and getting to know Seacoast associates during local market events hosted by the Local Market Leadership teams.
Chappell’s top-down “white glove” approach of nurturing the executive leadership teams through the Seacoast onboarding process and enlisting them as co-leaders of the markets they serve proved to be successful.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 8
Also, please describe that risk: Chappell identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. In this challenging, political environment, particularly in the state of Florida, and as the only LGBT executive team member at Seacoast, Chappell constantly navigates the fine line between associate advocacy and public sentiment.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 7 – 9 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
Nominee Name: Karyn DeFalco
Nominee Title: Chief People Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Millennium Trust Company, LLC
Nominee Company’s Website: www.mtrustcompany.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $200 million – $499 million
Full-time employees globally: 500 – 2,999
Primary industry: Financial Services
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Since joining Millennium Trust in 2021, Karyn has championed our culture and team members by recruiting and retaining top-tier talent, cultivating inclusion and diversity in the workplace and focusing on employee engagement. Karyn has championed three initiatives in the last year: HR transformation, benefits redesign and engaging Millennium Trust’s hybrid workforce.
HR transformation – Millennium Trust is a fast-growing company. Karyn has led the charge in ensuring the HR team is positioned and staffed to support our organization as a strategic partner. Between 2021 and today, she has evolved the HR function and grown the team from three HR generalists to a team of 24. This transformation includes establishing centers of excellence Learning & Development, Talent management, Total Rewards, Talent Acquisition and HRBP/Employee Relations that implement best practices and align with MTC’s organizational priorities.
Benefit redesign – This includes looking at our entire benefits offering: medical, dental, vision and voluntary, as well as our wellness program. Prior to, Millennium Trust did not have a major change to their benefits program in years. For some employees this was the first time they would have a new insurance provider or see a change in premium or plan design; Karyn ensured that this was a holistic look at our benefits. As a financial wellbeing company, it was imperative that this also includes revamping our wellness program and ensuring a focus on supporting mental health virtually via Calm. Overall, this change ensured Millennium Trust continues to offer competitive benefits.
Engaging Millennium Trust’s hybrid workforce – over the last year, Millennium Trust has grown from a workforce of 442 employees mainly in the Oak Brook, IL area to a workforce of 1139 with employees in 42 states and 68% of team members working remotely part of the time. Karyn has championed ensuring team members have the right tools to engage with each other and leaders. In 2021, this included introducing Yammer, an enterprise social network, designed to connect and engage team members across Millennium Trust no matter where they are. She has also introduced other programs, like Collaboration Weeks and Leadership Summits, both held twice a year, to drive cross-company connection and communication.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): All of the initiatives described in the previous answer ensured Millennium Trust was positioned to scale as part of our recent acquisition of PayFlex growing our employee population from 442 to 1139.
HR Transformation – In addition to growing the HR team to be eight times larger, this has had immediate impact on our operating efficiencies driving consistency and bringing a programmatic approach to a growing organization. Prior to this transformation, many traditional HR processes and functions where decentralized or being run in business. The transformation has repositioned HR to be a strategic partner with Centers of Excellence in compensation, employee engagement, Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, and Diversity & Inclusion.
Benefit redesign – With the benefit redesign, Karyn took the time to conduct an employee-by-employee review to understand how each of our 1,095 employees was individually impacted. She also explored ways we could help lessen the impact of the change.
Engaging a Hybrid Workforce – The introduction of Yammer, as well as transforming the way leaders communicate across the company, has ensured Millennium Trust workforce is set up for success. Through this, we have been able to successfully support an engaged workforce across 42 states with 68% of team members working remote most of the time. Collaboration Week received very positive team member feedback with a Net Promoter Score of 42.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: As our Chief People Officer, Karyn served as the Executive Leadership Team sponsor for all three initiatives. In her role she set the direction, provided strategic guidance, and championed the initiatives to Millennium Trust team members.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: When Karyn champions an initiative, she takes both personal and professional risks. She personally takes a stake in the decisions and listens to leader and employee concerns. With the acquisition and integration of PayFlex employees, she personally opened her virtually door, encouraging every employee to reach out. She led with empathy listening to every concern and would personally assure team members that they would be taken care. She would then address concerns while also ensuring the business was positioned to execute on long-term growth strategy. She took this same approach with the benefit redesign.
Professionally she pushes all team members to think creatively to ensure all sides of issues are considered and that we are doing what’s best for the company and people, even if it’s new.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 1 – 3 years
Nominee Name: Jennifer Foreman
Nominee Title: CHRO
Nominee Organization/Company: Charter Schools USA
Nominee Company’s Website: www.charterschoolsusa.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $500 million – $999 million
Full-time employees globally: 3,000 – 9,999
Primary industry: Education
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Under Jennifer’s leadership, CSUSA’s performance management initiative had a great and positive impact on the organization. In prior years, the performance bell curve was quite off-kilter. After the massive education campaign, trainings, and recalibrating the rating scales as well as expanding the ranges of % payouts, the organization had a fantastic start to understanding true performance management in our annual merit cycle. Another area of great impact was the restructuring of the HR organization to address the gaps she identified. Setting up a Talent Development team and a People Analytics team that did not exist before. Under talent development, she pulled together the HR organization to give a common HR message to the business with key training initiatives such as People Manager training and onboarding for the Support Center which did not exist prior. Under people analytics, an HR Dashboard was created giving business data to make decisions and improvements. Metrics such as: Headcount, Turnover, Span of Control, Time to Fill, 3-month retention, 12-month new hire retention, benefits cost per employee, employee engagement (measured by Great Place to Work Survey), and employee tenure.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Before the 2021-2022 performance management evaluation cycle, examples of entire departments being rated at 100% exceeds were commonplace. After the roll out of this initiative, the organization actually hit the perfect bell curve! Prior to standing up the talent development team, there was no formal onboarding at the support center for people managers and principals. Now it happens monthly as well as gets positive qualitative feedback.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: As CHRO, Jennifer was completely supportive from design to execution of the performance management initiative. She worked closely with me every step of the way. Jennifer lead the training initiative for creating a formal onboarding program as well as providing guidance on people analytics.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 7
Also, please describe that risk: Jennifer being new to the organization, introducing and striving for a performance evaluation bell curve was a risk in terms of upsetting the culture of the organization. She took on a performance management practice and improved it significantly. With regard to the restructuring of the HR department, the risk was in potentially losing key tenured members of the team who held much of the historical data and memory of the organization. To date, she has retained almost all of her original members inherited
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Alex Kweskin
Nominee Title: EVP, Chief Human Resources Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Banc of California
Nominee Company’s Website: https://bancofcal.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $50 million – $199 million
Full-time employees globally: 500 – 2,999
Primary industry: Financial Services
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Since joining Banc of California in May 2021, Alex Kweskin has made a significant impact on the organization and rebuilt the HR team for success. In 2022, under Alex’s leadership, the Banc of California was awarded HRO Today’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award and was a finalist for the HR Team of the Year award. The Banc of California’s recent success has been achieved through Alex’s strategically focused vision for HR and his results are remarkable.
At the time of his hiring, the CHRO role was empty for more than 6 months and the team seemed rudderless. As Alex shared with the Board of Directors upon his arrival, the “bones of HR were strong, but the organization needed more muscle”. With that initial assessment of the team, the new CHRO began reorganizing and repositioning the HR team, as well as resetting the company’s value proposition for its team members. The first 100 days were spent evaluating the organization and rebuilding the reputation of the HR department by hiring a new SVP, Total Rewards, two new HRBPs, an HR Project Manager, 2 new Recruiters, and recalibrating several existing roles including Talent Development, HR Communications, Benefits Administration, and Employee Relations.
Following the HR reorganization, the team met in late 2021 for a 2-day strategy session to plan the new year and Alex shared how the team would achieve success by following his model called How to Build a Human Capital Strategy©. The framework he shared outlines how to build a successful human capital strategy that aligns to the business strategy. As Alex said, “We need to manage human capital with the same discipline that Finance manages financial capital.” The process attaches action to all data metrics and is monitored in a Human Capital Dashboard. The team used this process to begin their work.
At Banc of California, our motto is “Together We Win”. But what does winning look like in HR? At the 2- day strategic meeting in late 2021, that the team agreed that “winning” in HR means “Enabling the best of our team members”. With this mantra, the team focused its attention on building an action plan for the New Year which would be captured and shared in the Human Capital Dashboard. As Alex says, “Data is only information. You need to apply action to data to be strategic.” The Dashboard highlights key metrics the team focuses on, with an emphasis on internal mobility. With this laser-sharp focus on what it means to win in HR, the team planned for an extraordinary 2022 and called this transformation the “HR Revolution”.
The new “HR Revolution” began in January 2022 and within one year, the HR team has launched more than 30 new programs, initiatives, and development opportunities focused on “enabling the best of our team members”. The results of this transformation are astonishing.
In addition to his role as CHRO for Banc of California, Alex is also co-Chair of the Inclusion, Diversity, Engagement and Awareness (IDEA) Council. The achievements from this team were recognized with HRO Today’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award.
Lastly, outside of his role at Banc, Alex also serves on the Board of Directors and as Treasurer for Habitat for Humanity, Greater Los Angeles, Board of Directors for the Banc of California Foundation, and the City of Laguna Beach’s Personnel Board.
Based on his incredible success, the Banc of California is proud to recommend Alex Kweskin for HRO Today’s CHRO of the Year Award.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): As stated above, Alex Kweskin has rebuilt the entire Human Resources function at Banc of California and drove the team to success. The sheer volume of programmatic changes and the incredible, quantifiable results highlight his achievement. The HR Revolution which Alex led at Banc of California has transformed our organization.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: See above.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: By joining Banc of California, a growing Southern California bank, Alex took a big risk following his role for nearly 10 years as Head of Human Resources for MUFG Union Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in the world. With this transition, Alex was tasked with turning around the human resources function at Banc, which was leaderless for more than 6 months. During his first 100 days he reorganized the HR team, turning over more than half of the team and rebuilding the team from scratch. At the time this was a significant risk, but as Alex says, he needed to “bring more muscle” to the HR organization and to fulfill his vision he would need new talent. This organizational change proved to be an important step in rebuilding the reputation of HR within the organization and set the foundation for the HR Revolution.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Rachel Miller
Nominee Title: CHRO
Nominee Organization/Company: Roebbelen Contracting, Inc.
Nominee Company’s Website: www.roebbelen.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $200 million – $400 million
Full-time employees globally: 500 – 2,999
Primary industry: Construction
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Despite a global pandemic that began right when she started at a company in a new, unfamiliar industry to her, Rachel successfully navigated through these challenges and has made a substantial impact on the organization in a short amount of time.
Rachel made a deep impact on the organization by providing robust workforce development opportunities and successfully implementing a brand-new HRIS. Her effectiveness as a change leader is reflected by her ability to galvanize others around an idea, communicate the purpose, gain buy-in, and effectively execute initiatives that empower our employees to thrive.
Rachel’s workforce development initiatives included the introduction of HBDI as a thinking styles assessment and tailor-made leadership foundations training at the company. HBDI has not often been used in the construction industry, so introducing this new assessment came with a fair amount of professional risk for her. HBDI is a validated assessment tool that maps how we think and is used to improve communication, build teams, increase awareness around others’ thinking styles, promote diversity of thought, and overall create stronger and more effective teams.
Rachel assessed the gaps in our managers’ leadership effectiveness and created a customized training program in partnership with senior leadership to equip leaders with tools to improve productivity, increase team and employee engagement, develop communication skills, and become effective coaches to their teams.
Immediately upon her arrival, Rachel recognized the need for a comprehensive HRIS to match the caliber of the organization and where it is headed in the future. She proposed the need for executive leadership and successfully obtained their buy-in to invest in a technology that would require significant time, resources, and financial commitment. Rachel championed her team to persevere throughout the implementation and overcome challenges at many stages in the process.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): With over 200 employees participating in HBDI workshops; and hundreds of hours invested in preparing and facilitating HBDI workshops, HBDI built a common language among employees and increased their understanding of how their team members think. This training enabled teams to solve problems faster, make better decisions together, and build better relationships.
Rachel recognized the need for additional leadership training among employees in leadership roles. She was the main driver in developing the customized Leadership Foundations Training internally in partnership with senior leaders, to give over 100 leaders (27% of our workforce) in the organization training on what it means to be a leader at Roebbelen and what is expected of them. During the training, they were provided with tools to excel as leaders.
Rachel led the successful implementation of a brand new HRIS (UKG Ready) that completely transformed the whole HR department’s function in the company. It streamlined processes that resulted in extensive time and cost savings. Additionally, with a robust employee self-service capability, it became a centralized location for many of our employees’ needs including timekeeping, benefits enrollment, performance reviews, pay information, and more. Over 400 employees were cut over to UKG Ready.
Since Rachel joined Roebbelen, the company has experienced a 26% growth in employee headcount and is positioned to have a 61% growth in revenue in 2023. Roebbelen has also placed in the top 3 best places to work every year we participated in the competition.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Rachel’s effectiveness as a change leader is reflected by her ability to galvanize others around an idea, communicate the purpose, gain buy-in, and effectively execute initiatives that empower our employees to thrive.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 7
Also, please describe that risk: Change in any organization comes with difficulty, but change in the construction industry comes with its own added challenges. Rachel introduced brand new training programs that were not already proven in the industry, which was a significant professional risk to her. Additionally, the success or failure of the HRIS implementation came at great risk to her and the company, due to the significant time and monetary investment involved.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 1 – 3 years
Nominee Name: Caroline Stockdale
Nominee Title: Chief People and Communications Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: First Solar
Nominee Company’s Website: www.firstsolar.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 3,000 – 9,999
Primary industry: Renewable Energy – Solar
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Work with a purpose is Caroline Stockdale’s passion. First Solar is a global provider of responsibly produced eco-efficient solar modules, advancing the fight against climate change. Stockdale believes their mission and approach to technology that embodies sustainability and a responsibility towards people and the planet has never been more urgent given the impact of climate change worldwide. Since joining First Solar, Caroline has put in place a Global end-to-end people strategy to bring long-term cost-effective, solutions that reflect business strategic direction and needs. Moving us to an integrated, value-added experience that reflects the business strategy, surrounds our associates, and create competitive advantage. She has achieved this while at the same time reducing the cost of HR by $8 Million plus.
In particular, she has brought tremendous value to the business by creating a unique approach to talent which has changed the way the business thinks about its people. In doing so, the business has a clear focus on critical talent and in one of the toughest markets for attrition had record low attrition in 2022 for these key roles. Associates are empowered to define their path through First Solar by knowing their core skills and being able to map those to roles they aspire to, filling any skill gaps identified through integrated learning.
Diversity and Inclusion is woven through the talent work and we have made progress on global diversity and inclusion (D&I) across the company with 4% more women in management in 2021. We view D&I as a transformation, rather than a program or an initiative, and we are committed to making progress year over year. This includes our work with the community – As part of our efforts to attract diverse talent, First Solar Ohio launched a High School Initiative to introduce students to opportunities. First Solar hosted 350 high school students from area schools such as the Toledo Public Schools. The students visited our Perrysburg manufacturing plant where they learned about solar energy, First Solar, production careers, and attended a factory tour to witness a high tech manufacturing facility in action. We created part-time positions for students to gain production experience while finishing their senior year. Seven students have since become full time associates after graduating. We recently hired our first associate to a new full-time apprenticeship position. The position was created for high school graduates of vocational programs that are looking to get a start on their career while furthering their education paid for by First Solar.
Caroline’s talent strategy, integrating a SWOT analysis of talent, critical skills, succession and value created by talent for the business was unique and non-traditional. She took a risk on implementing an approach she believed would address business needs and it is has become a key component in our business.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Some of this is referenced above. The talent work impacts all of our over 5,900 global associates, both salaried and hourly. Our talent strategy also positively impacts the community, high school students in underserved communities and veterans (current count of veterans in the business is over 600). Cost savings of the overall people strategy as referenced above are over $8 Million and we had strong retention of key talent groups, during a turbulent market. In addition, we are now able to measure execution risk, ability to scale and retention risk.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Caroline worked to explain the process and the “why” and gain key stakeholder buy-in and participation, starting with the CEO & executive team (ELT). She worked the ELT and their teams to identify critical skills and key criteria for the business such as ability to scale. She led and/or attended every talent session across all of the functions to help with the learning curve. She held sessions with the HR team to explain and teach the new approach and worked across the business , maximizing the outcomes of the SWOT and action planning and connecting the dots on org effectiveness, succession at all levels, learning and development and talent acquisition.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: This was a complete departure from the approach the business had been taking to talent in a business that had previously had a very traditional approach to HR. Had she/the process failed it would have significantly damaged her reputation in the business. She had a clear vision and believed that the transformational impact it would have was worth the risk.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Ramona Agrela
Nominee Title: Vice Chancellor and Chief Human Resources Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: University of California, Irvine
Nominee Company’s Website: www.hr.uci.edu
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: More than 25,000
Primary industry: Higher Education and Healthcare
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Ramona Agrela is the visionary force behind the numerous, high impact programs and initiatives introduced by UC Irvine Human Resources to our 11,700 staff members over the past several years. Here is a brief summary of key initiatives and their impact:
1) Established the UCI Employee Experience Center
The Employee Experience Center (EEC) is UCI’s single stop source for all employee questions and concerns – from benefits, to payroll, hiring, programs, policies, special events, and much more. Built to ensure a consistent employee experience for all employees, the EEC handles not only our 11,700 staff members, but also our 16,000+ faculty and academic personnel. Launched only a few months prior the COVID pandemic, the EEC proved to be critical in handling concerns by our employees, even to the extent of launching a special COVID Response Center with separate contact number and email to field COVID-specific inquiries. The EEC was so effective in keeping employees up-to-date and alleviating fears, the students and parent of students – and even other UC schools, began calling our COVID response line. To date, the EEC has fielded over 106,287 cases, for an average of 35,429 cases per year (2020, 2021, and 2022.)
2) Launched a Revolutionary Staff Performance Program
Ahead of her time, Vice Chancellor and CHRO Agrela eliminated annual performance reviews in favor of thrice-yearly, more casual, more future-focused one-on-one manager to employee check-ins called the ACHIEVE Staff Performance Program (ACHIEVE). With no beginning and no end, the perpetual program guides managers through 1:1 check-ins where goal setting and review, job mastery, enterprise contribution and next steps for the next four months are discussed. In addition, an important part of the discussions including asking employees directly, “How can I help you? What do you need from me? And what do you need to do your best work?” All of these are key questions that when, followed up on by managers, lead to higher levels of employee engagement. The ACHIEVE program boasts a utilization rate of 79% and growing.
3) Created a Robust Staff Engagement Program
Again ahead of trends, Ms. Agrela launched a sweeping, enterprise-wide staff engagement program called Empowered to Make a Difference. The first step in the program was to measure UCI’s engagement baseline through the University’s first-ever enterprise-wide staff engagement survey in 2017. Partnering with Gallup, a phenomenal 84% response rate returned an engagement score of 3.78 out of a possible 5.00, with leader-to-employee communications identified as one of the greatest opportunities for improvement. Over the course of the next two years, a fully-baked engagement program drove the launch of quarterly Chancellor Town Halls, bi-monthly Meet the Chancellor’s Cabinet lunches for 200 employees per session, treat cart rounding by business unit, divisional and department leaders (leaders push a cart filled with treats through departments and initiate casual conversations with staff while sharing treats), enhanced Staff Service Awards celebrations, and the launch of an innovation and engagement platform called Bright People, Brilliant Solutions, where staff post ideas for solving problems, share peer-to-peer recognition, and like, comment on, share and vote on the ideas they like best. The engagement survey is repeated every two years, and engagement has increased to 3.85 in 2019, and saw no decline (albeit no growth – but we’ll take it as a win) in 2021, which measured “the COVID years.” The engagement program continues to expand, and our next survey will be administered this year.
4) Drove a Fair Pay Initiative
In 2021, in a campaign to ensure equal and fair treatment for all UCI staff, Ms. Agrela assigned a team of compensation and fair pay experts within HR to ensure that UCI offers fair pay to all staff across our enterprise. The team conducted in-depth studies, internal and market comparisons, and reported their results in a relatively short amount of time, all of which resulted the establishment of UCI’s fair pay initiative, correction of any found fair pay discrepancies, and recognition as one of the first seven nationally-recognized fair pay certified workplaces, along with American Airlines, Anthem and others. You can learn more about the Fair Pay Work certification here: https://fairpayworkplace.org/in_the_news/fair-pay-workplace-certifies-american-airlines-anthem-inc-and-four-others-as-companies-achieving-pay-equity/. UCI’s annual fair pay analyses have resulted in 143 pay adjustments in 2021, and 87 pay adjustments in 2022, to correct for inequities.
5) Stood Up a COVID-19 Community Vaccination Center
As we all know, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck without warning, the world as we know it changed. Of first priority, was keeping our employees, students, patients, and community protected. Ms. Agrela’s Human Resources team was called upon to pivot from their traditional roles to crucial roles in setting up a community vaccination center in UCI’s Bren Events Center within a week. As a health care entity, UCI Health has early access to the first available vaccinations, but how to administer them, to whom, and in what priority fell upon Human Resources. HR leaders and their teams assumed unusual roles and worked with other key departments across the enterprise to transform the Bren Events Center into a vaccination distribution center that served up to 1,500 people per day. From the logistics of staffing, scheduling vaccination recipients, scheduling medical personnel to distribute vaccinations, managing appointments and lines and watching people for 15-minutes post-injection, the HR team was there seven days a week to get as many shots as possible into people’s arms. Other HR programs and initiatives were put on temporary hiatus as the team led the charge and established one of the first super-sites in Orange County, California.
6) Founded the UCI® Working Well™ Program
Within days of the university being closed on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the simultaneous explosion of patient cases at our hospital and ambulatory care locations, Vice Chancellor Agrela assembled a team to develop the UCI® Working Well™ program. With the goal of helping our staff feel as safe and as cared-for as possible, the UCI® Working Well™ program provided guidelines for keeping self and others well, especially our healthcare workers who were challenged beyond anything anyone could have anticipated. A major component of the program was the mobile daily check-in app, built by our HR People Services, that required employees and students to respond to a simple COVID symptom check-list, thereby allowing UCI to provide dashboards and resources to managers and staff in efforts to keep everyone working well while simultaneously providing leaders with the information they needed to keep the University functioning at full capacity. The full Working Well™ program resulted in a COVID contact tracing and vaccination resources unit, multiple on-site COVID testing locations, ongoing vaccination clinic hours, online COVID reporting, free home test kits, educational collateral material, interior and exterior signage, web section containing ever-changing, real-time policies and critical information, a separate web section for healthcare professionals with significant focus on mental health resources, toolkits for leaders and individual contributors with articles on remote work, work-life balance, keeping remote employees engaged, meeting suggestions, etc., and webinars on topics ranging from remote work with children at home, to mental resiliency. In addition, partnerships were formed with local hotels and restaurants to provide discounts to our healthcare employees who were working days on end with limited time off, free meal programs, sponsored mental health applications like Headspace, free groceries through our culinary services, free, on-site mental health services, daily phone and text check-ins with staff sick with COVID, free home grocery deliveries to staff who were ill and had no one at home to care for them, and on-site, no-cost child care. All of this was managed under Ms. Agrela’s direction by the enterprise HR team. And when staff began to slowly return to offices, a UCI® Working Well™ kit was produced that included masks, mask holder on lanyard, hand sanitizer, COVID reporting phone number reminder stickers, and an insulated lunch bag. The program is still in effect today, morphing as needed to respond to COVID, flu, and other realized and potential threats to our staff working well.
7) Led a Flexible Workplace Model and Created the Work Reimagined Program
As vaccination rates increased and COVID-19 threats lessened, UCI was faced with how to bring our workforce back safely, if at all. Was it even necessary to bring people back into offices? Essential on-site roles had continued throughout the lockdown, and the University was not seeing any significant decrease in productivity from remote workers. In fact, by many estimates, productivity had even increased. So what should be next? Once again, Vice Chancellor Agrela was selected to lead efforts to develop a new model designed to ensure the University’s business needs and staff needs were simultaneously met. The immediate, mostly-remote work model caused by COVID-19 was an unexpected experiment. Overnight, our norms and theories on work were turned upside down. We learned that some business could quite easily be completed remotely, while for other positions, it was more ideal for the work to be performed on-site. Using the data collected, Ramona created a taskforce that based work location decisions on business needs. If work could be done remotely, staff could be given a preference of location, and commit to fully on-site, hybrid, or fully remote. The resultant program was named Work Reimagined. As of this month, 36% of our staff are fully on-site, 30% are on-site three to four days per week, 15% are on-site one to two days per week, and 20% are fully remote. Through pulse surveys, we have learned that work-life flexibility is one of the top five reasons staff stay at UCI, and on average, remote workers are more satisfied with their work environment by a score of 4.03 out of 5.0 compared to fully on-site at 3.78 out of 5.0 (+.25 for remote workers). In addition, the Work Reimagined program provides managers with the tools they need to manage in a flexible work environment, with resources and toolkits, webinar series, and training. Since becoming available in October 2022, 183 managers have completed the training and 145 are registered for February and March sessions. Finally, as the Work Reimagined program becomes part of our culture, the University will look to improve overall space management and identify potential savings based on data collected from the program.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Vice Chancellor and CHRO Agrela’s efforts in the programs described in the first prompt were instrumental in UCI Human Resources realizing the following metrics, awards, honors and results.
Staff turnover is well below other University of California schools and health organizations, and well below organizations outside the University of California system. A 2022 survey reported the following turnover rates for our Health enterprise:
A position management initiative implemented by VC Agrela in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, as part of the UCI® Working Well™ program, resulting in:
Due to the Fair Pay Initiative, 230 employees have received pay adjustment to correct inequities:
In addition, in ongoing efforts to align pay to internal and external market norms, HR:
Training of UCI’s managers is a priority for every HR program. We have delivered the following in 2022:
Continuing to hire the right people in the right positions is key to allowing UCI to thrive from the variety of programs HR has implemented over the past few year. In 2022 alone, HR completed the following:
All of the programs noted in this nomination require excellent communication and engagement efforts between CHRO Agrela, organization leadership, program leads, and employees. To this end, UCI HR’s internal communications and engagement teams manage daily efforts and recorded the following metrics for 2022:
Finally, the following is a list of recent awards and recognition:
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Vice Chancellor and CHRO Agrela created an HR model which allows her to lead her HR organization to success by focusing on our clients first. Our north star is Empower People Success, and guides us through all that we do under Ms. Agrela’s direction. She created the HR Partnership for Strategy and Innovation, a team of 11 best-in-class executive directors and senior directors who report directly into Ms. Agrela. For all the programs and initiatives described in this nomination, CHRO Agrela created teams that first understood and refined her vision, then set out to create programs that were innovative, implementable, and measurable – all within our mantra to Empower People Success. Team leads reported directly into Ms. Agrela, she attended team meetings, acted as coach and advisor, and through a joint desire for excellence, ensured that her teams and people were successful. She cleared roadblocks, reported to the Chancellor’s Cabinet and CEO Cabinet, Dean’s Council and high level leadership of teams that were needed to support our HR team’s programs, e.g., OIT, Occupational Health, and more, and secured quick approvals where needed. CHRO Agrela is not a leader who delegates and watches. She is integral to her people, her teams, and their success. She is not afraid to push boundaries, to challenge norms, and ask the ‘what if’ questions. She is not satisfied with the traditional role of HR, believing at her core that HR deserves a seat at the table (which we now have at UCI, thanks to her), is a critical partner to organizational success and growth, and should be one of the first groups to stand up and push harder in support of employees.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 8
Also, please describe that risk: CHRO Agrela’s reputation at UCI is strong, and she is not risk-averse. When she believes in something, she is absolutely willing to pursue it and fight for it. The risk she took – and will continue to take – in the programs described in this nomination and in future programs, is in her willingness to push boundaries, to replace the conventional or historical ways of doing things with more effective, progressive methodologies, processes and programs. When it came time for employees to theoretically return to the office, she stood up and led a thought process that maybe what we did before isn’t what we do now. Let’s look at the BUSINESS – something HR does not always do – and raise our hand and say, “Maybe there is another way, a better way.” Part of the risk in being a thought leader like CHRO Agrela is that when you raise your hand, you often also get tasked with making it happen. This has been the case many times for her. She accepts the challenges, knowing that she has built a team that will come together to turn vision into reality – and do it exceptionally well. So we get more assigned to us, we succeed again, and then we repeat by challenging and accepting and doing and succeeding. That is where the real risk lies – in the challenging and then the acceptance of the challenges and staying strong in the belief that UCI HR has what it takes to make differences every single day and Empower People Success.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 7 – 9 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Kathleen Federico
Nominee Title: Senior Vice President, Chief People, Brand, and Communications Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: The MITRE Corporation
Nominee Company’s Website: www.mitre.org
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 3,000 – 9,999
Primary industry: Not-For-Profit, Technology
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Driving Transformational Change:
Kathleen is a disruptor and a believer. Through the lens of possibility, she knows that all people have the power to imagine and create a better future. It is this imagination that is the spark of opportunity and the fuel of creativity and innovation. Kathleen encourages others to ask of themselves, what are the possibilities and how can we make them a reality. She knows that sometimes there is no next time, no timeout, and no second chances – sometimes it’s now or never so be bold, take risks, and don’t take no for an answer. Because of this leadership philosophy and behavior, Kathleen has delivered significant operational change and generational impact at MITRE.
Kathleen is leading Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (IDE) transformation across the enterprise with results that are meaningful, measurable, and impactful. Three years ago, she championed the creation of MITRE’s first Vice President, Inclusion, Diversity, and Social Innovation. She ensures the organization is measuring, assessing, and taking decisive action on building an environment of trust, belonging, and awareness for our employees and future talent. In the last two years Kathleen and team have launched IDE leadership training; IDE webinars on key topics most important to staff; formalized and funded 10 business resource groups representing and creating a voice for staff across ethnic, veteran, age, and disability demographics; hosted an inaugural Week of Belonging event; released our first external annual report on IDE; and actively changed our talent acquisition and people programs and processes to increasingly reduce and remove practices of exclusion and bias.
MITRE’s Business Transformation journey extends beyond IDE and is equal parts accomplishment and challenge. When Kathleen joined MITRE in 2018, she embarked on a multi-year journey to rebuild our talent career paths and establish a new end-to-end Human Capital Management solution (WorkDay). Aimed at unifying our human resource capabilities into a single, easy-to-use system, Workday now consolidates employee data, recruiting, performance, compensation information, and talent and career paths—enabling consistency, transparency, and efficiency in our work. In building this cohesive technology system and processes, Kathleen was charged with assessing and aggregating dozens of home-grown, bespoke, and antiquated systems into an integrated, enterprise eco-system that required the retirement of many programs and technologies and the change management to transition the organization onto new platforms.
Combining people, technology, and change management at speed and scale was a massive undertaking with notably many challenges and significant push-back across the organization – including at the leadership levels. Despite the obstacles, MITRE’s HCM solution is now the system of record, and Kathleen’s team is actively continuing to work to bring additional technology online such as our recent Phenom TXM platform for talent recruitment and community. This new capability unifies technology and experience design to drive efficiencies in our talent lifecycle—enabling us to discover, engage, and match prospective top talent to our business and iterate in a fast-paced recruiting environment through enhanced recruitment capabilities, tools, and data.
Community Service and Leadership:
Kathleen makes it a priority to serve others both in her community and at work. For years, she focused on organizations helping children as she served on the board of a local Boston charter school and on the board of Windrush Farm, a nonprofit in North Andover that provides equine therapy for people with disabilities. Today, she’s turned her community focus to serving on the executive committee of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, guiding the organization as it supports Commonwealth businesses and enables policy to strengthen economic vitality.
Kathleen serves on the board of directors of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and Edinburg Center, which provides innovative services and hope to people facing behavioral health challenges in the greater Boston area. Kathleen is a member of the Massachusetts High Technology Council and served as an Executive Fellow of the Civic Action Project, a program that promotes collaboration and understanding between public and private sector leadership. She was also named a recipient of the 2022 Top 50 Women Leaders in Massachusetts by Women We Admire and the 2023 Top 25 Women in Consulting by the Consulting Report.
Kathleen also has fostered community action and volunteerism for MITRE’s 9,000+ employees. In 2021 MITRE employees volunteered more than 23,500 service hours at food banks, animal foster care, civic engagement, social justice, and affordable housing, among a wide range of community organizations in metropolitan Boston, Washington DC, and other cities around the country.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Intentional Hiring and Promotions Practices Yields More Diverse Workforce and National Recognition Kathleen sets the employee engagement strategy – from I&D to career paths to benefits – for our multigenerational workforce, which includes 51.4 percent millennial and Gen Z employees. To deliver on our mission of solving problems for a safer world, our workforce also brings a multitude of experiences, ethnic and interdisciplinary backgrounds, and other measures of underrepresented populations. Because innovation happens at the intersection of inclusion and diversity. MITRE’s workforce and leadership is far more diverse today than when Kathleen joined the company. New recruitment and promotion practices have yielded more underrepresented employees in leadership roles, which includes those serving as a group leader and above. In 2022,79% of external hiring was comprised of underrepresented candidates, including 38% people of color. In 2022, 63% of employee promotions were from underrepresented populations, a 9% increase from 2021. We’re also investing in learning programs and future leaders to cultivate a culture of belonging
Also, MITRE’s Board of Trustees reflect a greater diversity of professional and lived experiences than at any other time in our history, with 53% from underrepresented gender and racial demographics. In 2012 that number was 30% and in 2002 only 6%. Our executive officers are also increasingly diverse in 2022, 59.3% are from underrepresented gender and racial demographics – compared to 35.5% in 2012, and 14.3% in 2002.
To complement these new hiring and promotions practices, Kathleen has also created MITRE’s Cultivating Leaders of the Future Strategic Initiative, a three-year effort to create an integrated, sustainable, and scalable learning journey that effectively develops and continuously grows our leaders to discover, create, and lead in complex and rapidly evolving environments, today and in the future. She has enhanced the leadership development function for MITRE, convening both internal and external experts in organizational transformation and leadership development. In 2022, approximately 1,000 leaders completed the first phase of the new advanced curriculum. She is managing leadership development and growth with new programs that will engage more than half of our organization (about 5,000 staff) across a variety of leadership levels and positions.
Under Kathleen’s leadership, MITRE has earned many national recognitions for our I&D impact. Once again, in 2022 MITRE was named a top supporter of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and earned top score on the Disability Equality Index. MITRE also helped shape the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s inaugural “Champions for Accountability” program for regional businesses demonstrating a commitment to reporting progress on building a more diverse workforce.
Several of MITRE’s Black, Hispanic and women trustees and executives have been honored for their leadership by national publications including Savoy Magazine, Latino Leaders Magazine and Washington Business Journal. Kathleen also oversees MITRE’s internship program, which welcomed more than 600 high school through post-doc students and earned top honors for engaging early talent from WayUp and Handshake. These national recognitions highlight the diversity of our student engagement and the opportunities for full-time employment at MITRE. Computerworld also recognized MITRE among the best workplaces for diversity among large companies.
With 17 percent of MITRE’s staff self-identifying as a military veteran, it has always been our organization’s commitment to create an environment where we honor the service of our veterans while recognizing the incredible wealth of unique experiences, backgrounds, and ideas they deliver. Military Times named MITRE to its 2022 Best for Vets: Employers rankings for the first time. And U.S. Secretary of Labor Martin J. Walsh recognized MITRE’s efforts to hire and support veterans with the 2022 HIRE Vets Medallion Award.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Kathleen is a hands-on leader and does not fear tackling multi-year transformations. She does so with speed, agility and risk-taking – the cornerstones of MITRE’s corporate culture. Her leadership style is collaborative and grounded in grace, not grief. As such, she introduced collaboration, grace and respect to MITRE’s cultural attributes.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 4 – 6 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Dale Fisher
Nominee Title: Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources
Nominee Organization/Company: Deerfield Public Schools District 109
Nominee Company’s Website: www.dps109.org
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $50 million – $199 million
Full-time employees globally: 500 – 2,999
Primary industry: Education
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: The hiring systems and structures that Dale has implemented in District 109 have enabled our organization to recruit and retain the highest level of talent year after year. Dale’s implementation of the District 109 Human Resources Hiring Workflow has enabled the District to be a leader in the field in terms of recruitment, retainment and employee job satisfaction. His leadership has resulted in District 109 being named a Great Place to Work during the 19-20 school year, a Best Workplace in Chicago in 2020, and a Top WorkPlace as identified by the Chicago Tribune in 2021.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Dale goes out of his way to mentor leaders and staff members in our District in order to establish meaningful connections and build consistency with the implementation of the HR workflow. Dale’s dedication to developing all staff in District 109 has a direct correlation to the exponential success of our school district and the education profession as a whole. Dale’s work is not only recognized within the Deerfield community at large, but also on the state and national level as he is a leader in the HR field. In the Fall of 2022, Dale was sworn in as President of the American Association of School Personnel Administrators! This honor and leadership role was a logical next step as prior to becoming the President of this national organization, Dale had recently served as the Illinois Association for School Personnel Administrators (IASPA) President. Dale goes out of his way to mentor leaders and staff members in our District, as well as leaders in his broad professional network.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Dale approaches his work with the highest level of collaboration and reflection and shares clear procedures with all staff that outline best practices in the field. He takes the time to ensure that all aspects of any new change or initiative are well thought out and understood at all levels by sharing the information in multiple modalities. He records screencasts, regularly visits all school sites and makes himself available to meet individually with all stakeholders in order to ensure that all everyone has an understanding of the systems and procedures that he has implemented
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe that risk: I am continually impressed by the way Dale always succeeds in accomplishing the task at hand and does so in a collaborative, collegial, and professional manner. He will always stand behind what is in the best interest of students; however, he holds others accountable for implementing best practices in a respectful way that motivates and inspires them to put forth their best effort. He recognizes that in order for changes to be successful, a strong emphasis must be placed on the culture of the organization. Dale’s leadership skills help move people towards excellence. He has a unique way of seeing all sides of every situation in order to forecast questions and concerns that stakeholders may have. He has a passion for leading change and inspires others to do so as well.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? More than 10 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
Nominee Name: Stephanie Holloman
Nominee Title: Assistant Chief/Human Resources Director
Nominee Organization: Orange County Fire Authority
Nominee Company’s Website: www.ocfa.org
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $200 million – $499 million
Full-time employees globally: 500-2,999
Primary industry: Fire & Emergency Services
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: When Chief Holloman began her work with the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) as Assistant Chief/ Human Resources Director in August 2020, the agency had begun initial steps towards improved diversity within its workforce. However, those initial steps prior to Chief Holloman’s arrival were random and lacking in productive outcomes. Chief Holloman immediately took the helm to lead the organization, intentionally, and proactively towards establishing a comprehensive program of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). One of the first steps she took was to create a DEI Coordinator position, reporting directly to her, to augment OCFA’s ability to propel this initiative.
Stephanie approached OCFA’s DEI program from a data-driven perspective to develop DEI initiatives that clearly address the current needs of our workforce, beginning with identifying measurable and realistic goals while defining DEI with terms and examples that have meaning to our workforce. She took professional risk in her pursuit of this DEI program. Indeed, with internal sectors of the organization having joined the agency decades ago when Orange County was predominately White and the fire service was predominantly male, it was clear that there would be pushback to this work due to a lack of understanding of the many strengths diversity can manifest among any workforce.
Chief Holloman gained measurable criteria through pursuit of an anonymous survey of all OCFA employees to gauge DEI Culture within OCFA for use in further tailoring future proactive steps. She connected the OCFA’s internal work on diversity to everyday aspects of our external services, illustrating how OCFA can better serve the community by understanding, respecting, and representing the diverse cultures that our fire personnel serve.
Chief Holloman developed and is continuing to develop DEI training catered to the day-to-day experiences of employees and not “off-the-shelf” training. This training is now mandatory for all promotional academies within the OCFA. She is leading her team, and a broad cross-section of fire personnel who volunteer in support of OCFA’s DEI program, to strengthen connections with our local high schools, colleges and universities through active participation in career fairs.
Stephanie has been a strong supporter of rehabilitative employment in partnership with the Ventura Training Center, offering formerly incarcerated firefighters an opportunity at a career in the fire service. She and her team have visited the Ventura Training Center two years in a row to speak to their program participants about a career at OCFA. She also provided active leadership to a team of volunteers to successfully put on the OCFA’s 3rd Girls Empowerment Camp (GEC), resulting in the largest GEC to date.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Chief Holloman’s actions to embrace and improve DEI at OCFA translates to positively impacting:
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Chief Holloman provided creative thought, planning, and execution along with direct and hands-on leadership to the DEI workforce initiatives outlined above.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe that risk: Chief Holloman took professional risk in her pursuit of this DEI program. Indeed, with internal sectors of the organization having joined the agency decades ago when Orange County was predominately White and the fire service was predominantly male, it was clear that there would be pushback to this work due to a lack of understanding of the many strengths diversity can manifest among any workforce. Stephanie also took risk by the fact that some very strong-vocal advocates for female firefighters (within and outside of OCFA) want to see bold actions taken in a manner that would be completed much more quickly, contrary to the measured pace that is more conducive to bringing the entire organization along. In effect, and somewhat ironically, the risk Stephanie took (and continues to take) has the potential for putting her at odds with strong advocates for DEI, as well as strong opposition to DEI.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1-3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Melissa Dreuth
Nominee Title: Chief of Staff and Chief People Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Planful
Nominee Company’s Website: www.planful.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $50 million – $199 million
Full-time employees globally: Less than 500
Primary industry: Financial Planning and Analysis
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Melissa Dreuth, Chief of Staff and Chief People Officer at Planful, is an advocate for holistic employee care. Her innovative programs, which stems from the transformational People Team function she established, redefined how Planful supports their team. Under her leadership, Planful has implemented:
*New family support— Employees welcoming a new child receive three months’ paid leave. Primary caregivers can ease-back-in to work with reduced hours for the first month. Secondary caregivers receive six weeks, fully paid. Planful’s baby bundle includes three months of diapers and meal support for parents.
*Work travel support—Employees get an annual stipend to cover supplemental childcare, family meals, and pet-sitting costs when traveling for work.
*Mental health resources—Employees are given free Talkspace and Calm memberships for online therapy and wellness services, with more mental health services options coming in the new year.
*Wellness care— Planful schedules four company-wide wellness days annually, and employees have paid days off to focus on personal health in addition to PTO, sick days, birthday and volunteer time off.
*DE&I benefits – The FOLX Health benefits package gives LGBTQIA+ employees access to specialized clinicians, gender-affirming services, mail order prescriptions, and more.
*Women of Planful: A program for the career enhancement of women that includes monthly speakers and an employee resource group.
*Life events program: Employees are celebrated for their personal and professional wins, and supported during difficult times. When an employee becomes engaged and married, they receive champagne and flowers. If a loved one passes away, Planful sends flowers and meal support.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Companies are seeking the innovative solutions that Melissa is pioneering with her transformation of a traditional HR department to the People Team at Planful. Under her leadership, Planful earned its Fortune Great Place to Work (GPTW) certification in the U.S., UK, Canada, and India in which 98% of employees say it’s a great place to work.
Melissa is proving that 360-degree employee care results in internal satisfaction and tangible business results:
Employee Retention & Recruitment:
*Employee attrition dropped by 34%
*Employee tenure in North America improved by 9 months YoY *Record-breaking eNPS scores QoQ
*According to the GPTW Employee Survey, 99% of people feel welcomed when they join Planful, feel cared for, and know that special events are celebrated
*Planful is a “GirlsClub’s Top 25 Companies Where Women Want to Work!”
*Planful People team earned a Gold Globee® award for “Human Resources Department of the Year”
Business Results:
*Record customer acquisition rate of 95% YoY
*65% increase in subscription bookings globally
*Set three quarterly customer growth records YoY: customer expansion bookings are up 70%, total customers grew 30%, and subscription bookings increased 30%
*Global customer expansion, including Etsy, Zappos, Igloo, and more
*Rapid product advancement, including Planful: Predict, a suite of AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning)-based tools designed specifically for financial professionals
*Acquisition of Plannuh, a leading Marketing Performance Management (MPM) SaaS company
*Earned an Industry Excellence Award from Dresner Advisory Services and was recognized as an Experience Leader and a Trust Leader in Enterprise Performance Management
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Melissa has been instrumental in developing and implementing Planful’s successful people focus, rating a 10 out of 10. Her proudest accomplishment is establishing the Planful People Team (previously Planful’s HR function). Since its founding, her team has driven a complete transformation by launching new programs and benefits that challenge the status quo of the industry; publishing a Planful Way culture book; earning industry awards; and re-investing in career development and in-person culture experiences.
Melissa acknowledges that when employees are able to show up as their whole-selves at work, they are more comfortable and as a result, perform better. Her experiences as a daughter, woman, mother, and leader have allowed her to better understand the employee experience and improve it for her peers at Planful. Seemingly simple recognitions like acknowledging life milestones with champagne or flowers, providing generous stipends for work travel and investing in career/employee development are all parts of what makes Planful an exceptionally welcoming and friendly place to work.
Additionally, Melissa knows that every individual’s experience is different. Initiatives that cater specifically to women and the LGBTQIA+ community at Planful show Melissa’s acknowledgement that each employee brings a unique value to the company and they need to feel the appreciation reciprocated.
Planful’s progressive human-centric culture has won numerous accolades, including Great Place to Work® Certifications, based on its 98% (U.S.) and 96% (Canada) approval rating among employees, and WellBeyond Program of the Year Award for Emerging Companies from Sequoia, an HR consulting firm.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: Melissa is not timid in the face of risk or shaking up the status quo. Melissa’s passions were instilled at a very early age in her native South Africa. Her parents came from poor origins, but they were determined to better themselves and their lives. Putting themselves through business school, they took Melissa to class where she would draw pictures in the back while they attended lectures. She learned firsthand that you can control your destiny and ultimately, you can improve your situation. When Mel arrived at Planful, she set a transformation in motion that continues to improve and humanize the work experience for all employees.
Melissa’s parents instilled in her two traits: one, the value of hard work, and two, the importance of integrity. These traits inform her desire to treat other people with decency and respect. As she says, “people don’t remember the big things, but they always remember the little things and how you make them feel.”
Family is at the center of her people philosophy, giving flexibility and options to parents and caregivers, she realizes that any committed employee has to make personal sacrifices for their employer. She knows this firsthand as she will hold her teething one-year-old in her lap for 11PM international video conferences.
Melissa’s personal and professional risk rates a 10 out of 10, because she is committed to finding new ways for Planful colleagues to be authentic, respected, and welcomed. It’s Melissa’s zeal that is transforming Planful and inspiring leaders in her industry.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 4 – 6 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 1 – 3 years
Nominee Name: Gianna Driver
Nominee Title: CHRO
Nominee Organization/Company: Exabeam
Nominee Company’s Website: www.exabeam.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $50 million – $199 million
Full-time employees globally: 500 – 2,999
Primary industry: Cybersecurity
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Gianna leads our Talent, HR, Learning, Total Rewards, and Facilities function, plus also spearheads a number of culture-creating, diversity-enhancing initiatives, like our global ERGs. She’s helped Exabeam become a recognized Most Loved Workplace (#23 according to Newsweek) and works to spread joy throughout our organization.
Gianna has worked hard to create a culture of transparency and open communication, regularly hosting monthly “Mix & Mingle” celebrations and recognition events, all the while working to create scalable talent & people practices. We love her energy and passion!
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): With Gianna’s stewardship, we’ve increased representation of under-represented minorities across our organization, including in leadership positions. Prior to her joining in late 2021, we were largely male, White, and heterosexual; her advocacy for diversity has helped us beat industry norms for underrepresented minority representation, including having LGBTQ+ members on our leadership team, plus also has led to the creation of 6 ERGs that lead numerous awareness-building and culture-creating programs globally.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Gianna’s advocacy for the Exabeam CommUNITY Council and its ERGs has been critical to their formation and success, plus she’s championed global company initiatives, like Unconscious Bias Training, leadership development, and high potential programs. These are team efforts but require executive leadership and advocacy!
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: It’s not always easy being a champion for change and advocating for under-represented minorities, especially when those in privilege feel uneasy about change. Gianna kindly and thoughtfully helped assuage these fears and helped us create diversity champions from people who were previously silent on these initiatives.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 4 – 6 years
Nominee Name: Betzy Estrada
Nominee Title: Chief Human Resources Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Urovant Sciences, Inc.
Nominee Company’s Website: www.urovant.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $50 million – $199 million
Full-time employees globally: Less than 500
Primary industry: Biopharmaceuticals
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Urovant Sciences is a relatively young company. Our first product received FDA approval in December 2020 and was launched commercially in April 2021. Facing huge challenges brought on by the COVID pandemic, we have nonetheless significantly outpaced our business targets. As we tripled our staff count in this time, a large part of our success has been the comprehensive (and aggressive) HR efforts brought forth under Betzy Estrada.
Through Betzy’s leadership, we are implementing a global, five-pronged human resources plan that aligns with our long-term strategic business plan, including: building critical skills and competencies, competitive total rewards, building a robust talent pipeline, delivering an amazing employee experience, and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). This is an ambitious effort, and more so given how much of our company works remotely (approximately 65%) or in a hybrid approach (our HQ staff).
At its core, we believe it’s all about the employee experience; retaining and attracting talent has been essential to our success. That means creating an amazing experience for the candidate as well as development for employees. All of these efforts have helped the organization as we more than doubled revenue, because you need employee engagement to continue to drive growth in the organization. Often when an organization is growing as quickly as we have, you run the risk of negatively affecting the culture and the morale of our people – particularly when they aren’t physically centralized – but in our case, it’s had the opposite effect because of all of these investments that we’ve made in our people. These investments include rolling out a mentorship program, initiating a global mobility program to allow staff an opportunity to do global stints in Europe through our office in Switzerland, and implementing an internship program in connection with local universities.
As part of Betzy’s commitment to a top-flight HR function, in the past year we hired an individual whose job is focused 100% on Employee Engagement, as well as an executive director for Learning and Development. It’s almost unheard of in a company our size to have individuals completely dedicated to these functions, but with our accelerated business objectives, Betzy was convinced of their need and it has contributed significantly to our retention and recruitment.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): While our revenue growth has more than doubled, the initiatives implemented by Betzy and her team have helped advance the business strategy forward through investing in our people. This includes improved employee retention while growing the business (while small, the improvement is nonetheless a significant achievement given the turnover tsunami many companies in biopharma are currently facing.
Additionally, our turnover rate (approximately 11%) is lower than industry average.
Through the creation of our Executive Director for Learning and Development role to invest in employee development and build bench strength, we have seen concrete results, including:
o The number of positions filled internally reached 20%
o 94% satisfaction on optional employee training
o Launched Career Paths, Leadership certification programs, and the mentor program
In 2022, we earned not only Great Places to Work certification – which is largely based on employee survey responses – but also made Fortune magazine’s list of Best Workplaces in Biopharma (ranked #16). This is on top of earning – for the second year in a row – the Orange County Business Journal’s “Best Places to Work” recognition, which is also based on employee survey responses.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: While Betzy will be the first person to ascribe the success of this effort to her team members, I believe her leadership and determination have been essential both to the development of the strategic HR plan as well as the successful implementation of that plan. She is tireless in her support and encouragement of her teams work and ensuring that her fellow-members of the Executive Leadership Team support and implement the initiatives involved.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe that risk: The risks that Betzy took were both individual (professional/reputational) as well as for the company itself given the importance – across the board – of meeting our aggressive business objectives as a young company. This includes pushing – hard – for positions such as the Employee Engagement manager and executive director for Learning & Development that are highly unusual for a company of our size, but which she believed were crucial for developing and fostering a cohesive corporate culture and ensuring work satisfaction for all of our team members.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
Nominee Name: Margie M. Harris
Nominee Title: EVP, CHRO
Nominee Organization/Company: Tellurian, Inc.
Nominee Company’s Website: www.tellurianinc.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $200 million – $499 million
Full-time employees globally: Less than 500
Primary industry: Oil & Gas – LNG
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Ms. Harris is responsible for all aspects of Human Resources, Information Technology and Facilities functions. In her 5 + year tenure with Tellurian, she established the Human Resources function which includes payroll, benefits, compensation (direct, incentive, equity) and business partner delivery. She established the HR strategy which is underpinned by top tier delivery of employee programs which drive employee engagement and are a result of data driven decision making.
Although the company currently employs less than 500 employees, it is poised for significant growth in the coming year. Through Harris’ strategic mindset, she continues to lead the broad organization in setting the foundation for our anticipated rapid growth.
This year alone, in a 6-month period, Harris was responsible for the implementation of the Company’s ERP, SAP, and lead the transition of the existing HR system (Workday) to SuccessFactors. The result is that the organization can now work in a seamless manner across human capital management, financial accounting and reporting, procurement and capital project functionality. The capital outlay of the SuccessFactors implementation was approximately $12 million. Working over this timeframe the HR team reaffirmed process flows to ensure that each aspect of the functional areas in HR effectively utilizes the system to execute in their functional areas- including talent acquisition, onboarding, payroll, benefits administration, compensation, incentive comp, equity and performance management.
In addition to the planning and the implementation of a new ERP, Ms. Harris drove the workforce planning effort of “OneTell”, our human capital planning tool to project headcount, total compensation, burden and associated taxes through the year 2028.
She also lead the talent acquisition team in one of the tightest labor markets in history doubling the Company’s headcount using an internal talent acquisition team for the majority of hires, thus increasing base payroll by 50% or $12.4 million with a total base salaries (without any incentive pay) to $50.1 million.
She also designed, modeled, presented to the Board for approval and implemented the company’s ICP which in its first year, the plan paid out $86 million to 96 employees.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Ms. Harris’ impact is significant. She is responsible for driving the strategy for the HR and Information Technology functions which represents $30.0 million in overall budget. Her work in the last year impacted every employee, officer, board member and contractor affiliated or working at Tellurian. She oversaw the workforce growth by doubling the size and the Company is now positioned to grow at an even more rapid pace once the Final Investment Decision is declared by the Board. Her unwavering focus and stamina to lead with enthusiasm and execute with a strategic mindset is a strength she brings to our organization. As a result, she is respected by her peers, the CEO and Chairman and the workforce.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Harris’ had a strong drive in the strategy and delivery of the implementation of the Company’s ERP and SAP transition. Mrs. Harris was an Executive Sponsor and on the Senior Leadership Team for the project providing valuable knowledge gained from her prior roles and implementations that Harris has overseen and delivered in her career. Harris had an active role using her strategic nature to ensure that the implementation and go-live would be delivered on time, and the delivery was met and matched or exceeded the expected outcome. Harris’ attention to detail, organization, professional experience, and vast knowledge were very integral in the success of the project.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: Ms. Harris drives results being well aware of the cost/benefits and the well-being of her team and the Company. She is thoughtful to understand the risks of the projects she undertakes. As we implemented SAP and SuccessFactors, she closely monitored the progress and setbacks to determine if a January 1, 2023, go live date would be reasonably possible. She was brought up doing “right things, right ways” and “to execute with excellence” which is an imperative of Harris. She dove into the project with the team because there was a risk that if we did not go live, there would be disruption in our payroll obligations, benefit coverages and tax obligations. The team persevered under Harris’ leadership and we were able to go live January 1 of this year.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 4 – 6 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Beth Hayden
Nominee Title: Chief People Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: SpotHero
Nominee Company’s Website: www.spothero.com/about/
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $50 million – $199 million
Full-time employees globally: Less than 500
Primary industry: Software Industry/Parking Software
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: As Chief People Officer at SpotHero, Beth has led all aspects of people strategy for the company, including recruiting, talent development, engagement, and culture. Since joining SpotHero in 2020, Hayden has designed a people strategy that not only resonated with employees and the talent market, but was also recognized by the software industry through various best employer accolades. This strategy is best described by the employee value proposition (EVP) “We exist to create space for life” that Beth created and effectively implemented through programs and messaging.
“We exist to create space for life” as an EVP means that at SpotHero, we are committed to creating a work environment where people are celebrated for who they are, and are supported by people who will help them grow in their career while still having space to truly enjoy life outside of work. In a very competitive talent market, this commitment to creating space for life has made SpotHero standout as a talent destination, and is one of the main reasons why Beth got buy-in from stakeholders. This EVP is evident in Beth’s people strategies, which include:
The positive response of employees to this EVP and all of its programs was evident in SpotHero’s employee retention of 82% and employee net promoter score (eNPS) of +48.13 (range of -100 to +100). This 2022 eNPS in particular shows impressive employee engagement in today’s very uncertain so called “Great Resignation” talent market, especially considering the average eNPS in tech is +30.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Since implementing the “Create Space for Life” EVP and these strategies, Beth has led SpotHero to a significant demographic shift that resulted in SpotHero emerging as a more diverse company with increased representation of black, indigenous, and people of color, from 27% in 2020 to 50% in 2022. Not only are employees staying and are highly engaged, but they are also thriving in their careers as evidenced by 35% of SpotHero employees experiencing career progression in 2022. These results prove that Beth’s people strategies and her establishing SpotHero’s EVP successfully resonated with the talent market and our employees, enabling us to engage and recruit a more diverse workforce in a very competitive talent market. In fact, engagement on SpotHero’s LinkedIn posts has doubled and average recruiting time to hire has been cut in half from 84 days to 41 days. Moreover, SpotHero recently received recognition through Comparably’s 2022 awards including Best Company Culture, Best Company for Women, and Best Company for Diversity – all awards that were based on employee feedback.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: “We exist to create space for life” as an EVP was communicated, not only through messaging, but also actions which SpotHero took to show its commitment to its people. This alignment on creating space for life and the strategies that support it started at the executive leadership level, and primarily with support of the CEO. People managers and employees were introduced to this EVP through videos, stories, and conversations. Externally, these messages were then communicated through social media. However, what really showed Beth’s commitment to creating space for life for employees were the actions that she led alongside the support of our senior leadership team. For example, the flexible work strategy allowed teams to truly be inclusive to the working needs of individuals. This work strategy also enabled our recruiting team to expand their reach to an even more diverse pool of talent outside of people who are able to commute to a SpotHero location. In terms of compensation, perks, and benefits, Beth implemented a pay equity process that uses compensation data in the market against internal data to ensure pay equity for everyone at SpotHero. In addition, she also led a total rewards analysis that included not only market data, but also employee survey feedback based on perks and benefits that they highly prioritize. This data resulted in employee total rewards investments that really catered to our employees’ needs.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: Creating and implementing a new employee value proposition for a company is never easy and always runs the risk of coming across as a company brand message versus a genuine feeling and cultural belief for employees. The risk of the company or a CHRO coming across as not genuine can make a difference when it comes to employee trust and their connection to company culture and mission. This risk was further heightened by the “Great Resignation” and “Return to Work” conversations in the job market, as many companies were losing talent. If the EVP didn’t connect with employees, SpotHero’s employee retention and engagement would have been negatively impacted. According to Beth, there were so many lessons learned about the combination of the “Great Resignation” and “Return to Work.” From her experience in leading through these times of uncertainty, she recognized a need to manage these topics differently in light of these unprecedented times. As it turns out, there is plenty of reliable data that show the resignation movement was gaining momentum well before COVID, and the economics of supply and demand from a labor perspective were underlying versus additive to this period of time. With Beth’s leadership on people strategy, we at SpotHero revised any thinking around “Great Resignation” to acceptance of a market-driven reshuffling of talent, and aligned our talent strategy to be more of a talent destination for people looking for a home with a truly supportive, safe work environment focused on learning. This included more intentional communications around leading with flexibility from a prior “return to work” or “office” messaging. The focus is now about having the office as a destination people want to be, not have to be.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Diljot Kaur
Nominee Title: Vice President People & Culture
Nominee Organization/Company: Softbank Energy
Nominee Company’s Website: https://sbenergy.com/
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $50 million – $199 million
Full-time employees globally: Less than 500
Primary industry: Clean/Renewable Energy
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Some of the CHRO’s key initiatives include:
– Building the organization from scratch, in close partnership with the CEO.
– Scaling the team (to 500+ people globally) and instilling talent management principles in this rapidly changing, growth-oriented and results-driven environment.
– Designed and Launched company’s first Long Term Incentive Plan to align Company’s long term value creation goals with individual KPIs.
– Introduced an enhanced performance conversations process, enabling managers to make data-based talent decisions, focusing on impact rather than feedback, collecting 360 degree inputs and anchoring on overall growth and development to create a high growth environment.
– Built company’s first internal communications strategy focused on increasing employee engagement during the pandemic.
– Curated company’s first internal Intranet platform, with a very high adoption rate.
– Formulated company’s first DE&I strategy, goals, and priorities from scratch, to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in our team, partnerships, and our community.
– Enhanced employee benefits offerings to ensure they are inclusive and address the diverse needs of the team.
– Launched company’s first Employee Referral Program, also focused on increasing team diversity
– Enhanced team infrastructure by building a robust set of people policies, processes and systems, that provide clarity, transparency and growth in a hybrid working environment.
– Launched focused efforts to embed company’s Values as a backbone of culture and people processes.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): These key initiatives positively impacted several measurable factors, such as:
– Scaled the team from zero to 500+ people globally in 4+ years
– Less than 10% annual voluntary attrition as a result of excellent talent management and employee experience.
– Increased Employee Engagement by 8% with focused internal communications efforts including building first team Intranet.
– Fostering initiatives towards building a diverse workforce (hired 70+ youth from local communities) and cultivating an inclusive culture, both internally (88% inclusion scores) and externally (towards our communities and partnerships).
– Delivered a Long-Term Incentive Program, linking Company’s long term value creation goals to individual goals, thus resulting in higher performance linked bonuses for people.
– Substantial increase in team gender/racial/ethnic diversity across departments and levels.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: These initiates were nominee’s ideas and she drove these initiatives from the front, with her team and cross functional stakeholder alignments. She believes in diving deep while launching any new programs.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 8
Also, please describe that risk: These new programs are always prone to the risk of low adoption and hence sometimes might be less successful than anticipated. The nominee ensured that she started with creating a shared understanding of the need for particular initiatives, followed by stakeholder alignments, so she is able to capture all diverse perspectives to build a stronger offering, before a full launch. She sometime kept her personal belief in the initiative as the main driver, and spent a lot of time in bringing others onboard with the help of successful case studies across the industry and peer groups.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 7 – 9 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
Nominee Name: Camye Mackey
Nominee Title: Executive Vice President, Chief People, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Atlanta Hawks & State Farm Arena
Nominee Company’s Website: www.nba.com/hawks
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $500 million – $999 million
Full-time employees globally: 500 – 2,999
Primary industry: Sports & Entertainment
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: True to You’ is a phrase that acts as a foundational pillar at the core of the Atlanta Hawks. This phrase drives us to constantly put our team members at the forefront of our business decisions. Coming out of COVID-19, we knew that prioritizing health, wellness, and work-life balance would allow us to help our team members with what really matters. Because of this, we offer a hybrid work environment for team members and encourage the use of wellness resources both at home and in the office. Team members can access free programs and software such as Headspace, Happify, and iPrevail. All of these act as a form of mental health resources like meditation, positive mindfulness, and therapy in the form of lessons, activities, and coaching. Physical health is just as important as mental health, which is why we hosted a flu shot clinic and a department yoga class. Additionally, hearing from professionals through our partners in the health and wellness industry in the form of webinars and workshops on an array of topics ranging from managing stress to adapting to the new normal of a hybrid work environment has helped us remain true to our team members over the past year.
Giving back to our team members takes on many forms. Over the past year, we have increased the hourly rate. We have also found new ways to support our staff who are committed to bettering themselves through education. In tandem with our full-time tuition reimbursement program, we have launched a new scholarship program that supports our part-time team members. New programs have also been introduced to team members who invest in their personal and professional development, such as Mindtools, which curates learning “playlists” for team members to utilize at their convenience. Part of fueling the mind is feeding the body, which is why we provide a free meal to our team members before every show, game, or event. On certain days we even have an additional game day lunch for team members to take the time to reconnect with their colleagues and take a breath on days that are typically fast-paced and busier than others. This leads to our commitment to fostering a sense of connection, community and belonging in our organization. Our eight employee resource groups (ERGs) launched last year to assist with this goal. ERGs are integral to the success of our workforce and a vital part of our culture. These groups help us to assess the opportunities to improve the employee experience, diversify our workforce, and help our workforce feel more connected, valued, respected, and appreciated. Our ERGs have allowed our team members to start new traditions at our organization, such as “Hawksoween,” where team members dressed up with their departments and brought their families to trick-or-treat around the office. Over the past year, we have also championed diversity by celebrating team members from different ethnic or cultural backgrounds through team member spotlights. These are shared throughout the organization as we celebrate different months throughout the year, such as Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Asian American and Pacific Islander Month. Through these spotlights, team members share stories about their heritage and even their favorite recipe from their culture.
The Atlanta Hawks also live by the phrase “True to Atlanta.” Being True to Atlanta goes beyond a mantra or hashtag. It’s about us having a presence throughout our communities and honoring the city of Atlanta’s culture. Our team members bring True to Atlanta alive daily by living our purpose, mission, and guiding principles. We understand our team member experience is equally as crucial as our fan experience. For that reason, we are True to Atlanta for our fans and communities. This means that we participate in yearly city-wide events such as the Atlanta Pride Parade and 404 Day. The Hawks Foundation is at the heart of our organization, and it is how we give back to our Atlanta community. The mission of the Hawks Foundation is to be a community asset by building bridges through basketball to communities, providing safe access to play, and opportunities for mental and physical well-being and economic empowerment. Over the last year, we have done this by hosting various events, the most recent being the Innovation Expo and Technology Gifting event, where students learned from IT professionals how multiple technologies are used. The stations included participating in a 3D printing station, drone station, STEM kit station, and a video editing and mirrorless camera station. We also support community initiatives focusing on youth mental health, which is why we host events and support organizations such as the GreenLight Fund and Silence the Shame. Throughout the year, we raised over $20,000 to empower local women at Dress for Success Atlanta and $650,000 through the annual Black History Month Assist Challenge to support lifesaving research towards Prostate Cancer.
One of the best things about our True to Atlanta mantra is that it seeps into our fans. To honor active and retired military personnel and their guests, we hosted a ‘Crowning Courage’ event. As an expression of gratitude for their service, Hawks’ Season Ticket Members generously donated their courtside seats to more than 180 veterans and their guests to watch a Hawks game. Last year we wanted to make sure we celebrated all the essential workers who got us through the pandemic. We unveiled a new basketball hoop and mural, paying tribute to the historic Atlanta Fire Rescue Station No. 16. April 1 marked the 59th anniversary of Station 16 becoming the city’s first fully integrated fire station. During our games, both Atlanta Hawks and our G-League affiliate team, the College Park Skyhawks, hosted themed games that celebrated military, first responders, teachers, faith community members, and more. We also recognized Atlanta Public School (APS) teachers for their exemplary service contributions throughout an unprecedented school year as a part of the ‘Year of the Teacher’ initiative. School supplies, tickets, and Clorox cleaning supplies were gifted to the teachers.
Here at the Atlanta Hawks, we prove to be ‘True to You’ and ‘True to Atlanta’ year after year. We are committed to expanding upon our efforts and community involvement each year, never satisfied with one achievement because there is always something more we can do. Our goal is to continuously make a profound impact on our team members, community, and the environment with hopes to become the best sports and entertainment in the nation and to create memorable experiences for our fans in the city we love and call home.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): An example of some of our efforts as described above are as follows. Last year we were able to bring back our community day of service, which is called Million Meal Pack. Over one day, we had over 5,000 community volunteers, players, and hundreds of employees packing meals at State Farm Arena to give back to the community. The total was 1,020,672 meals packed and 131,128 pounds of food! Food insecurity and hunger, unfortunately, play a role in the city we call home, which is why we host other events throughout the year, such as Pack the Pantry. Continuing our work to fight food insecurity, the Hawks and State Farm opened the ‘Good Neighbor Pantry’ at Meals on Wheels Atlanta. To help open the newly renovated space, the organizations hosted a ‘Stock the Pantry Party’ service project where employees and executives sorted food, stocked the shelves, assembled breakfast bags, and wrote inspirational cards for those receiving food.
Over Thanksgiving, we provided over 400 free meals to families throughout the city, and $122,500 was also donated as part of the ‘Good Neighbor Giveback’ Campaign benefiting the Atlanta Community Food Bank. In addition to efforts to fight food insecurity locally, The Hawks have opened eight Good Neighbor Clubs across metro Atlanta. This is a place where youth can come to do everything from playing basketball and watching movies to completing after-school activities such as homework. These Clubs are equipped with multi-sensory inclusion rooms that feature a quiet area for students of different sensory needs, flat-screen TVs for gaming and movies, a video game console and iPads, mobile writing surfaces, and classroom tables for homework assistance. These rooms are designed to be a calm space that includes sensory equipment for those who may have developmental or behavioral challenges.
After a two-year hiatus, the Atlanta Hawks Basketball Academy hosted its Jr. Hawks Summer Camps, which totaled over 20,000 youth in attendance. The camps took place over five weeks, including one week dedicated solely to young female athletes. The inaugural event was dubbed the ‘Lady Ballers Summer Hoop Fest presented by Gatorade,’ and more than 75 girls attended the camp to sharpen their basketball fundamentals and strengthen transferable life skills such as teamwork, leadership, and self-confidence. Hawks Basketball Academy also offers professional-development programs and educational resources to thousands of coaches at every level. Atlanta Hawks Head Coach Nate McMillan and the entire Hawks Coaching Staff hosted 650 coaches at State Farm Arena for the Hawks Coaches Clinic. In addition to the coaches clinic educational program, hundreds of youth coaches utilized the resources provided on the Hawks at Home virtual platform.
Being true to our team members and city would mean nothing if we weren’t true to the planet in the process. In April 2022, State Farm Arena earned TRUE (Total Resource Use and Efficiency) Platinum certification, the world’s first sports and live entertainment venue to receive this recognition. The Hawks and the venue worked closely with our sustainability partner, Novelis, the world leader in aluminum rolling and recycling, who provided guidance and operational knowledge to organize, sort, and recycle aluminum and other materials. We now have over 37 streams of diversion coming from our organization! At the Arena’s Resource Recovery Room (R3), the Zero Waste Squad (ZWS) sorts and processes all Arena waste. The ZWS manages fan-generated waste from the 120+ annual major events and handles a considerable amount of waste from the many Arena departments. We successfully diverted more than 2,503,745 pounds of all waste from landfills throughout the 2022 slate of Hawks’ basketball games, concerts, and ancillary events. To break those numbers down, we recycled nearly one million pounds of materials (998,260 pounds). This primarily included aluminum, plastics, cardboard, glass, and more. We then composted 734,775 pounds of food and organic material. Any food that could not be donated was composted. Composting is the natural process of turning organic matter, such as food and compostable service ware, into a valuable fertilizer used by local farmers. This means we reused or donated 610,656 pounds of materials like food, electronics, clothing, crates, pallets, and more. Finally, we reduced annual waste by 160,054 pounds by eliminating paper tickets, individual condiment packets, disposable service ware, and more. Most recently, we announced a partnership with the Oak View Group, Fenway Sports Group, and Jason F. McLennan to team up to launch GOAL – a comprehensive sustainability platform for arenas, stadiums, convention centers, and other venues of public assembly. This provides venues with a tactical roadmap, easy-to-use tracking tools, a library of resources, and access to like-minded leading operators, vendors, and sponsors, all committed to operating more sustainably and more urgently.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Camye’s passion for people shows through all of the work showcased above. She is an advocate and champion to for all to help drive initiatives, get the support that is needed, grow and develop employees, and make sure they have the opportunity to be heard and see their ideas and hard work put into action.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: The risk can be defined by her relentless pursuit to support, grow, develop, and promote her employees.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 4 – 6 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 4 – 6 years
Nominee Name: Cindy Blendu
Nominee Title: Chief Transformation Officer, Chief People Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Clearwater Analytics
Nominee Company’s Website: www.clearwateranalytics.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $200 million – $499 million
Full-time employees globally: 500 – 2,999
Primary industry: FinTech
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: When Cindy Blendu joined Clearwater Analytics in 2018, she was hired as its Head of Transformation Office since. She didn’t have a traditional HR background. In May 2019, Cindy took on the CHRO title to lead all people-related processes globally from hiring, onboarding, training programs, total rewards, and employee engagement. In her CHRO role, she leads global workforce management, headcount analytics, and the performance reporting of Clearwater’s most senior leaders.
Clearwater Analytics is a high-growth SaaS company that went public in 2021. While we’re a global company seeking expansion, we treasure our Boise, Idaho roots. We don’t just pay lip service to our values which are reflected in seven attributes starting with being infectiously passionate about who we are and what we do. We hold them up every chance we get. In addition to being infectiously passionate, we value our clients, teams, and our ability to create differentiated offerings. While who we are and what we value hasn’t changed, our approach to growing the company has, and it continues to evolve.
Cindy’s approach has been to focus on the fundamentals, do those fundamentals well, and then focus on continuous improvement instead of dramatic changes. Given her time in the role and the fundamentals in place globally, Cindy and her team are ready to help Clearwater accelerate its growth and global expansion.
Two years ago, Cindy introduced Clearwater Academy which provides MBA-level courses and frameworks to all employees with some variation for managers and top talent. Cindy’s team has created these new, leading programs while supporting international expansion and increased headcount growth over the last 4 years. For example, when she joined in 2018, less than 10% of Clearwater’s workforce was outside the U.S. Today, 50% of our employees are outside the U.S. supporting our clients globally, gaining access to talent, and providing “follow the sun” capabilities to our clients.
Cindy continues to focus on gradual improvement and plans to continue to introduce 1-2 new programs each year. For example, in 2023 she will roll out a comprehensive Graduate Accelerated Professional Program (GAPP) for those employees with less than three years of professional experience. In 2023, she is also co-leading the launch of a formal ESG program that we expect our employees to really rally around.
Cindy is not unlike other CHROs who had to deal with the “Great Resignation” in 2021 and 2022 – especially with Clearwater being a tech company. Attrition review and analytics in 2021 revealed that much of the attrition came from our tenured employees, which has far-reaching consequences on skills and company culture. In response, she effected structural changes to policies to better align them to the new reality, e.g., career tracks, pay bands, hiring strategies, new hybrid policy, recognition programs, and other areas. We made these changes deliberately to what we thought was market, fair, and based on who we are as a company – our Clearwater Way.
In 2022, our attrition has come from more junior, less tenured employees but the pressure to pay more, give special bonuses or titles, or greenlight counteroffers has been significant. Despite the pressure, Cindy took the risk and stayed true to our pay bands and compensation practices. It was by no means an easy task, but that is the reason Clearwater is now better equipped to deal with the cost structure impact and disparity that many companies are now facing. How is Clearwater doing now? Our stock price is doing well compared to our competitors in tech. Clearwater should end with a 10% improvement in voluntary attrition between 2021 and 2022 and our October employee satisfaction survey results tied for the highest score in the last 4 years.
In her role as CHRO, Cindy has made a strong impact on Clearwater Analytics at every level of the organization. She has partnered with our leaders across the globe to develop programs that will enable them and their goals as well as create a compelling employee proposition. As of January 1, 2023, Cindy will also lead Clearwater’s Global IT and Facilities functions. These functions will be complementary to her remit today and will support a new vision she has: Drive productive and engaged employees through a positive experience, effective leadership, and scalable growth.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Similar to other tech companies, about 80% of Clearwater’s costs are our people. HR plays a critical role in how these costs, or our workforce, are utilized. Cindy and her team take a lead role to support our leaders with their workforce strategy, programs to ensure their employees are being productive, and initiatives to drive employee engagement or retention. Cindy feels very passionately that she doesn’t want HR to provide a parallel set of programs or be the “people police”. Instead, she wants HR to drive our Clearwater Way – which we are very proud of – and be integrated with how our business leaders want to achieve their goals and lead their teams.
Clearwater as a company has changed significantly since 2018 when Cindy joined. In four years, Clearwater has grown leaps and bounds. In addition to going through a recapitalization in 2020 and IPO in 2021, here are some specific highlights on how Cindy has supported Clearwater’s growth and transformation from when she joined:
Cindy’s philosophy is that the business must hire to grow, but also retain talent and have the fundamentals in place to grow smart. By staying focused on growing smart by doing the fundamentals well and on gradual improvement as opposed to drastic changes each year, she has been able to help minimize some of the disruption that comes with creating a leading HR organization while supporting double digit growth and international expansion.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Cindy’s almost 15 years in management consulting have set her up well to deal with the growth, pace of change, and outcomes required at Clearwater through effective partnerships with our business leaders and managers. Cindy is an analytical, programmatic, and hands-on leader. All that has been shared have been programs that Cindy has led. To know Cindy is to know she takes pride in her work, enjoys having impact, and plays a key role in the initiatives she or her team are leading.
When Cindy drives initiatives, she starts with a focus on fundamentals. When she took over HR in 2019, she focused on building out the Executive Leadership Team, developing a global job architecture with pay guidelines, building a highly efficient recruiting engine, and creating foundational programs for onboarding, manager training, and top talent. These have all been successfully executed.
Since 2019, Cindy has continued to drive continuous improvement by being data-driven and taking feedback from business leaders, and subsequently unveiling 1-2 new programs each year. As part of the company governance, she has a new scorecard each year for how her performance will be measured and identifies the set of strategies or initiatives with targets in support of that. Beyond that, Cindy has also moved with agility and pivoted to ensure HR’s initiatives best support Clearwater. For example, the response to Covid required a change in priorities and she led the company response. She also made structural changes in 2021 and other changes in 2022 as a result of the “Great Resignation” – with tremendous results.
Cindy has demonstrated a track record of success in how she drives results. If you speak to her, she will say she is a program manager at heart in how she leads initiatives. The recent few years have no doubt been turbulent and uncertain and being in HR has been challenging. To our benefit, Cindy has been steadfast, consistent, and committed to the policies, frameworks, and programs in place in order to best support the business and Clearwater’s goals.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: As mentioned above, it was tough not to be reactionary when faced with the “Great Resignation” as so many other companies grappled with. Cindy made the decision not to deviate from Clearwater’s established framework for job titles, pay bands, and other compensation practices. She stood behind the Clearwater Way established for these policies and lived up to these beliefs. She didn’t allow the company to be conditioned by externalities and throw money at the problem like other companies. This strategy proved to be successful.
Today, while many tech companies are conducting lay-offs or hiring freezes in addition to dealing with significant disparity across its workforce, Clearwater has stayed the course. Clearwater wants to be a company that hires talent to support the skills required and acknowledges the positive impact from our more tenured employees. It was not easy for Cindy to “hold the line”. She is proud when she speaks about the alignment all of our employees have to our set job titles, levels, and pay bands. We have maintained parity across the organization. Also, as mentioned above, we have had one of our highest employee satisfaction results ever and have seen a significant reduction in our attrition. We have been able to consistently hire to meet our hiring goals.
The next area requiring a thoughtful, committed approach is related to the workplace — working in the office, remote, or hybrid. Clearwater implemented a hybrid policy in 2022. While we support employee flexibility, we still hire around 87% of its workforce out of one of its offices to promote engagement, professional development, and innovation. Cindy has strong opinions on this topic. While she believes in a hybrid model, she also believes in the value of face-to-face interaction – especially with our more junior and less-tenured employees. However, the one comfort that Clearwater employees can take is that Cindy will address this challenge with data, exercising a business-driven approach and taking a long-term view.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 4 – 6 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 4 – 6 years
Nominee Name: Anne Buchanan
Nominee Title: SVP, CHRO
Nominee Organization/Company: The Guitar Center Company
Nominee Company’s Website: www.guitarcenter.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 10,000 – 24,999
Primary industry: Music Industry
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee:
Community
With a strong sense of giving back, Anne serves on the Guitar Center Music Foundation board. They support at-risk music education programs by providing instruments and promoting the benefits of music education. Giving vulnerable youth a chance to play music speaks powerfully to her experiences growing up.
Through her work at the Foundation, students have shared that playing music is their lifeline for mental health and has created a tangible future leading them to unlock opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible such as college scholarships, becoming professional musicians, and pursuing a variety of careers in the music industry.
Workforce Initiatives
The technological trend influencing the Human Resources landscape is all about the Associate taking part in decision-making and feeling like their voices be heard. For the Guitar Center Company, this comes through in the products we continue to invest in for our people.
We launched 5 People System products in 2022, and each one has a feedback option that has been integrated. or each product launch, we created user feedback groups. This allowed us to develop a community vs. a top-down approach and contributes again to our engagement and collaboration. It reduces intimidation as well as the fatigue associated with launching new technology. Perhaps the most important in this area is the right engagement tool for annual surveys. Culture Amp has been a great partner for us as we look to understand engagement, the onboarding and exit experience, diversity, inclusion, and belonging as well as direct feedback on their manager and leadership. We also launched the following: 1. AwardCo – to provide on-the-spot awards to our Associates. 2. Learning Studio – our new LMS site. 3. Trakstar, our new performance management system, allows our Managers and Associates to align on expectations and track progress on goals regularly with transparency! 4. PlanSource: Our new benefits platform where Associates can access, enroll, and compare benefits plans. It offers a clean, user-friendly dashboard experience for enrolling, quickly comparing, and accessing plan information—all in one place. It also features chat support and a mobile app is available.
Employee Engagement
Our Internal Communications sits in the HR department and recently launched a new intranet site focused on engagement and business acumen. Leveraging a Microsoft Office 365 platform to create a citizen and business-led innovation, our mobile-friendly site called Backstage is designed to help our Associates efficiently locate the information they need to be successful in their roles. Additionally, all our five brands can connect across the organization, helping to break down silos and create transparency in the way we work – not to mention engage with each other! Because this transformation included our Associates in every step, from design to user feedback, we have seen our engagement change tenfold.
Jobvite
In Retail, it is normal to have higher overturn rates than in other industries, given the nature of the business. This is why Relationship Management is critical to our talent pool.
To manage this, we started to look at what systems made sense where we could create a community of applicants and build engagement with our Company. We wanted to create ongoing interest from the talent pool while providing our Store Managers a place to go, so their applicant pool was always plentiful.
After looking at other peer retailers, we saw a hole in this area because only a couple focused on relationship management. We knew our next step had to be a game-changer.
We determined that having a CRM was paramount because we wanted to be embedded in our communities and have them think of us and be excited when job postings became available. Creating interest in our culture and developing engagement in our actions was our vision for the future.
We took a risk by engaging with Jobvite because we knew our Associates had a comfort level with the current systems, and training thousands of Associates would be challenging. New systems equal new workflows, making them digestible was even more critical. Training programs had to be created, and when you are a retail organization where the focus is 100% on the Customer every day to meet goals, it must be easily understood, and the enhancements must make sense for their buy in.
The results have been so positive for our business. Now, Store Managers have a pool of applicants they can tap into when they have a vacancy. They can also search by keyword and zip code, saving so much time in the application process. This is money and time saved, which speaks to our Customer First core value.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s):
Engagement:
The Company is comprised of 14,000 Associates, with about 8000 of those in our retail stores. Due to labor laws, those retail Associates can only read email or our intranet when at work (except Store Manages). This creates a challenge when trying to communicate timely messages.
Our resolve was to figure out how first to create engagement and change the behavior of our Associates so that there was a sense of urgency in reading emails and the news once they arrived for their shift.
How? The number one way was to develop our innovative changes with a citizen and business lead strategy so that feedback was built in along with user experience sessions and our retail Associates felt heard and became engaged in the process.
Once we launched our new intranet, the results were incredible. We went from 17% of our Associates in STORES reading the daily messages to almost 60%. Our two support centers (Corporate) went from 22% engagement to over 90%.
When we post people stories or share more about our Associates, our analytics tell us that we have tripled the article readership and the impressions/likes of the articles doubled.
This is what is changing how we communicate with our Associates.
Community
Anne’s work with the Guitar Center Music Foundation has contributed to almost 1.4 million in donations over the last 3 years, resulting in over 200 musical programs supported and 13,000 students impacted. Thus, showing that learning to play an instrument can have a significant impact on human development. From improving social and academic skills to building confidence, nurturing creativity and relieving stress, the benefits of making music are limitless.
Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging
In 2022 we implemented a new Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging strategy where the concept was to educate 1350 Leadership and Managers with live sessions so that we could upskill them leading them to own and manage our overall DIB goals. We kicked off these sessions in the Spring, and by the Fall, those 1350 leaders lead sessions with their teams, resulting in a domino learning effect to the entire organization – in total, over 8K Associates have been trained on a myriad of DIB topics that help our organization grow.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 9
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Anne’s approach as a leader is entrepreneurial. This is because of her proven history of building high impact organizations aligned with strategic objectives and her innate ability to cultivate relationships and drive accountability in all directions; She is passionate about focusing on the “why” in every situation and is a firm believer that it’s the questions that matter, not the answers.
This is the approach she takes when driving our initiatives. There is an entrepreneurial and collaborative approach to ensure the right people are involved from the beginning. She delivers clear timelines and is thoughtful in an internal PR campaign to get other leaders excited and creates this “allin” feeling. She also brings everything to our Management Committee so that we have their buy-in as well, and they ensure their leaders are supporting the initiatives. Her policy is to bring her the challenges we bump into so she can support us.
For the above initiatives outlined, this meant calling the CEO or President of the technology organization to re-negotiate contracts when needed or meet with our Finance department to understand any financial implications as it relates to human rights benefits, as well as stand up in front of 14,000 Associates and communicate that we are an inclusive Company first and foremost and we will not tolerate any other behavior
Anne is our leader of all initiatives and sets the tone first and foremost. Then she will dig in by rallying the proper troops, and finally, she ensures that we feel supported.
In the almost three years I have been here, I have seen our parent organization tap Anne to drive initiatives at the other companies in their portfolio because of the success we have had and their goal to model it. I think that speaks volumes.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk:
People Systems
In a retail organization of 14000, disrupting them to learn new systems when their focus should 100% be on the customer at all times can be VERY daunting and RISKY! It is also something that has to be timely in terms of working with Retail Operations to be sure that disruption can be done at a time when there aren’t sales events or other tentpole activities. Mitigating risk is also the approach Anne takes because if one system fails, it can affect an entire business day.
How does she do this? She enrolls our IT department from the beginning to allow us to do testing in the LAB – our technology space that is a store model where we can run programming and tests on new systems to see how it works in a real store environment. These tests give us an idea of performance and install time in a true store environment.
Anytime we have to disrupt a store, it is a true risk to our bottom line.
Trans Rights
We are a culture of belonging here at the Guitar Center Company, and our six brands must deliver on that at all times. Anne made a commitment to the Trans community, which is not only our Associates but our Customers as well. She took a stand with our Trans Associates and community by promoting compassion and understanding, as well as offering several healthcare benefits that build belonging. She made it clear in communication and company-wide meetings that we do not tolerate discrimination based on gender identity or expression.
Anne was not blind to the fact that our expression of support could create discomfort among those that didn’t support our efforts and that it could create attrition at a time when that was the last thing we needed. As the HR community knows, 2022 was not an easy year to fill roles. But that did not matter. She communicated that we must be an organization that sets the example of what inclusivity means, and that meant ensuring our trans Associates had the benefits they needed to live their authentic life.
Not to mention that in a year where healthcare premiums were hitting an all-time high from Covid, was this the right time? The answer to Anne was – YES – it was.
Women’s Rights
Similar to our efforts around Trans rights, taking a stand for Women’s healthcare rights was risky. In a time when our country has been so divided, and the aforementioned retention was beyond challenging, taking a stand on an issue that is so profoundly personal and tied to a perceived cost was going to more than raise eyebrows. For Anne, it came down to staying focused on being an inclusive employer and ensuring our Associates, Customers, and future talent knew that. Anne took the stand and met with Finance, our benefits team, our Comms team, Talent Recruitment, and Legal in 48 hours to be sure the support was there for this risk. This risk was paramount, and it needed to be supported internally so that we had a firm backbone to stand on. And it did. When you have a strategic focus on women in the music industry, you must show that you are willing to do what you can to support them.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 4 – 6 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? More than 10 years
Nominee Name: Melissa DiMuro
Nominee Title: Chief People & Culture Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Limbach Holdings, Inc.
Nominee Company’s Website: www.limbachinc.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): $500 million – $999 million
Full-time employees globally: 500 – 2,999
Primary industry: Construction & Service
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Melissa DiMuro joined Limbach Holdings in January 2021 as the first Chief People and Culture Officer at the company. The organization was completing a massive organizational change in our portfolio of work, requiring new talent and capabilities across the organization than we have ever had before. Additionally, the construction industry is experiencing the perfect storm of talent dynamics, with over 1 million workers needed beyond current labor force capacity, the recent great resignation and a population whose retirement rate far exceeds the supply of new talent coming into the industry. As a new CHRO in a brand-new industry, Melissa leveraged her expertise and influence to drive organizational change across the Company. In 2022, Melissa led a comprehensive ‘Employer of Choice’ strategy to address these dynamics. Specifically, this strategy focused on 4 key areas: 1) Retention, 2) Leadership development, 3) Succession planning and 4) Culture evolution.
First, Melissa was relentless about using data analytics to influence the leadership team on key drivers of attrition and solution strategies, resulting in a 29% reduction in attrition YoY. Utilizing survey data, as well as personal debriefs with every individual and their manager, Melissa coached leaders on new behaviors, provided real-time data against aggressive reduction targets and improved processes for proactive retention. The organization implemented stay interviews, improved career development tools, provided leadership development and created engagement events to create community. She implemented a monthly reporting process where each business unit presents the progress against corporate initiatives to become the employer of choice in all business units. What’s measured will improve. Between the training, coaching and scorecard measurements in place, the company has realized a dramatic improvement around retention, which is mission critical in the current employment picture.
Secondly, Melissa and her team designed a full suite of leadership development programs to improve the leadership acumen in the organization. This small, but mighty team designs and delivers a 3 tier structure of leadership development courses (from 3 months to 1 year commitment), bi-monthly Limbach Leader Way micro-learning sessions and a full suite of functional learning opportunities to accelerate our leadership talent. Leadership programs are filled by self and leader nomination, with more self-nominees submitted each year than capacity, demonstrating the strong culture of learning which has been created. Additionally, a new, structured onboarding process has been developed (average NPS 5 stars) to guide new employees to the Company through an intensive first week, as well as a customized 30/60/90 day plan. The full suite of learning and engagement strategies will be recognized externally by Training Magazine at their annual APEX award winner gala in February 2023.
The third area of impact is succession planning. Melissa and the People & Culture team have designed a comprehensive succession planning process for the top 30 roles in the Company (this will be taken to an additional 50 in 2023), a first for the Company. By mapping the critical capabilities for each role, successors are evaluated on the potential succession plan, provided feedback on their strengths and development areas and provided with a development plan to accelerate their growth. Additionally, it provided the executive team and the Board of Directors with insight into the health of the pipeline and areas for continued development.
Finally, Melissa has led the evolution of the Company’s culture through the DEIB strategy we call “EMBRACE”. EMBRACE is a fully voluntary, self-formed forum whose mission it is to advance the Company’s culture of diversity, inclusion and belonging. This forum has been designed to focus on attraction, development, retention and promotion of diverse talent within the organization. Additionally, the organization has expanded the ERGs from one (Women in Construction & Service) to two (Unidos – Hispanic employee forum) in 2022. The company has increased the qualified diverse candidates at manager screen to 50%+, hired an average of 45% diverse candidates, promoted 45%+ employees (salaried employees, through October ‘22) and doubled the leadership program diversity ‘22 – ‘23 incoming classes.
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Melissa leads the People & Culture strategy for the Company, which employs roughly 1,600 team members across the US (including sub-contractors, roughly 3,000 team members). Please see the specific data relative to the above strategic impact areas:
1) Attrition: Under Melissa’s leadership, we have reduced our attrition by 29% (for our salaried team, this equates to 40 more people remaining with the Company than the prior year. In very conservative cost of replacement ($60K/each), this saved our company $2.4M in 2022.
2) Leadership Development: On average, 100 people are engaged in our core leadership programs annually. The average Limbach Leader Way reaches 100+ participants. Accelerating our leadership not only affects retention and culture, but also allows us to make the business strategy change a reality and compete in the current labor market where leaders are in short supply. We are ranked in the top 100 (specific number to be announced in February) for the Training Magazine APEX awards.
3) Leadership Succession: We now have succession & development plans on the top 30 leader roles in the Company.
4) Culture evolution: Diversity resumes at manager screen is 50%+. Diversity hiring averages 45% diverse, internal promotions averaged 45%+ (salaried employees, through October ‘22). Leadership program diversity doubled for the ‘22 – ‘23 incoming classes. The EMBRACE forum and ERGs led Construction Inclusion Week, Women in Construction Week, Hispanic Heritage Month and leadership training delivered in-house (unconscious bias, generational diversity, Board member panel discussions, etc).
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Melissa is an active member of the Senior Executive Team known as the G7 at the Company, and leveraged this forum to solidify a common mission. She collaborated with key leaders such as the CEO, COO, CFO and Board to ensure alignment with the business and talent strategy. Melissa drove the operational rhythm, data/metrics and core areas of the strategy with the business and her team.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe that risk: Melissa was a brand-new, first time CHRO who stepped into this role without any experience in our industry. She quickly built credibility and drove relationships to bring the organization along behind her. She was very strategic on how she partnered, utilized data to drive decisions and coached the leaders across the Company. A very strong communicator, Melissa revamped the brand of the function in a very short time.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 1 – 3 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 1 – 3 years
Nominee Name: Sarah Fass
Nominee Title: Chief Human Resources Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Bridgewater Associates
Nominee Company’s Website: www.bridgewater.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): More than $1 billion
Full-time employees globally: 500 – 2,999
Primary industry: Financial Services
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Bridgewater Associates is the world’s biggest hedge fund, focused on delivering unique insight and partnership for the most sophisticated global institutional investors. One of Bridgewater’s most important guiding principles is: “Meaningful work and meaningful relationships are mutually reinforcing.” This means that the success of our professional endeavors depends on the quality of our relationships with each other, and vice versa. Because of those values, we want our employees to feel like they can maintain both a great life and career and we know their ability to do so is directly correlated to the benefits, decisions, and norms we put in place.
As Chief Human Resources Officer, Sarah Fass is a leader on the cutting edge of reimaging and shaping the most impactful aspects of the employee lifecycle. Transformative efforts undertaken by Sarah and her team include an overhaul of our time off policies to better support inclusion, re-designing the employee experience on Bridgewater’s campus – including launching programs surrounding work flexibility and employee wellness – as well as a comprehensive COVID response and ongoing support program.
A substantial initiative driven by Sarah and her team over the last year was a differentiated step-back on mental health and wellness across the firm, that not only resulted in a bolstering of Bridgewater’s policies, but re-emphasized and normalized a holistic approach to employee care and community building. During the pandemic, as the lines between work and home blurred, Sarah quickly recognized the potential for employee burnout and partnered with leadership on implementing not only unlimited paid time off, but minimum PTO requirements with accountability to managers for ensuring a sustainable balance in their teams and tracked through metrics. Employees are required to take a minimum of 15 days off a year and are offered unlimited additional PTO beyond that. Sarah and the leadership team also realized that, for many employees, regular extended weekends could be particularly restorative, which resulted in six new company-wide holidays, for a total of 16 company holidays often landing before a three-day weekend for four-day breaks. Some of these four-day firmwide breaks include Presidents’ Day weekend, Memorial Day weekend, and Labor Day weekend. The specifics of the policy are critical because they shape not just what employees are entitled to, but how encouraged and supported they feel to actually take the time away.
In addition, Sarah designed and launched Bridgewater’s workplace flexibility program and Work Away benefit. In 2021 the firm permanently adopted a flexible work model, where the vast majority of employees work 2-3 days from home and 2-3 days at the office, with deliberate choices around when we all come together (every member of the company is in the office on Wednesdays, while virtually every member of the company works from home on Mondays and Fridays). A critical component in designing and implementing this flexible working model was Sarah’s goal to build a program that would both accommodate the shifting talent landscape while allowing Bridgewater to continue to foster the deep community connections and collaboration that are essential to our success. Over the course of the pandemic, Sarah and her team observed how productive our people were with – and how much they valued – increased flexibility for where and how they work. Her team gathered this signal from a majority of employees, with significant feedback from parents, caregivers, and others (e.g., employees from or with family in other countries) about the positive impact it had in navigating work alongside other elements of their lives.
In 2022, keeping with the momentum of transforming how we work together and evolving our benefits to better enable every employee to have a great life and a great career, Sarah and her team introduced another offering called Work Away, where people are able to work for up to 4 weeks per calendar year in different domestic and international locations. Many of our people enjoyed working effectively from locations other than their primary residence over the last two years and Sarah worked to make that possible in an ongoing way. Additionally, Sarah and her team also built and launched a Work From Anywhere Program, which enables certain employees to permanently work remotely, and approximately 18% of our workforce now works from home in locations across the globe. To evaluate the success of these programs and ensure continuous improvement, Sarah’s team launched employee surveys specifically designed for the individuals utilizing these programs to understand how they experience the programs and to ensure that any lack of on-site presence is not affecting our firm’s community, culture, and way of being with each other.
In concert with initiatives to reimage flexibility and how we work, Sarah was also responsible for leading the firm’s specific COVID-19 response efforts, including ensuring our employees were well cared for, and setting and overseeing related policies and controls, including designing and standing up our COVID testing program, establishing a nine-member team to serve as full-time case managers to assist employees or family members (most commonly children) who suspected they had the virus, and worked with other leaders at the firm to facilitate regular company-wide calls to discuss the virus and subsequent implications for our population, our related policies, and any questions from employees.
After the initial shock of the pandemic, Sarah co-led the firm’s return to campus and employee experience/wellness effort. Some of the new wellness offerings for our community include on-site access to chiropractic and massage services, ready-made meals for purchase to bring dinner home to loved ones, nutrition counseling with an on-site dietician, and on-site exercise class offerings. The firm’s approach to returning to campus aims to take valuable learnings on remote-work environments while also acknowledging the deep sense of connectedness created by coming together in person. A key dimension of these efforts was anchored in being explicitly inclusive of the needs of individuals and groups. As a complement to structural changes, Sarah also shaped further programming to create spaces to inspire, educate, and enable employees on mental well-being. This included a firm-wide observance of Mental Health Awareness Month, which culminated in a fireside chat with employees and Co-CEO Mark Bertolini on mental health and reducing the stigma surrounding mental health. You can watch a clip of that conversation here. (https://www.bridgewater.com/bridgewater-recognizesmental-health-awareness-month)
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): A majority of the efforts driven by Sarah and the HR team are firmwide in scope, affecting Bridgewater’s approximately 1300 full-time employees. Sarah and her team led the efforts related to the firm’s return to campus, which included consolidating our workforce under one roof from five separate work locations and ensuring all facilities enable productive hybrid work for inclusion of fully-remote employees.
The firm’s new long-term incentive program allows for profit-sharing with a subset of the population to reward those who exhibit dedication to the firm and impact the results we deliver to our clients.
Bridgewater has an AUM of $150 billion and we have noted the band in the revenue multiple-choice section that is closest to this number. As the firm does not disclose revenue publicly, this is the best measurement to determine the size and scale of the firm.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 8
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: Sarah is responsible for the design, launch, and implementation of firmwide programs related to our employees’ experience of the workplace. She generates ideas and leads her team through the subsequent execution. Sarah is also the individual who delivers updates and fields questions from the firm’s decision-making committees as well as the co-CEOs.
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 6
Also, please describe that risk: There is substantial risk associated with the launch and delivery of firm-wide employee and operational initiatives for the world’s largest hedge fund. Sarah’s vision and decisions directly impacted the business continuity (both now and in the future) of Bridgewater’s operations. For example, the COVID programs determine who can work, who can’t, and in achieving their goals, actively prevented people from becoming sick (For example, testing programs identified dozens of asymptomatic cases). More broadly, the decisions Sarah led around flexibility and the firm’s work posture directly influence how top talent view Bridgewater as an employer and long-term place to build their career. Getting any of this wrong comes with big implications for our people, our outcomes, and our long-term ability to deliver for our clients.
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 7 – 9 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 1 – 3 years
Nominee Name: Melissa Morrow
Nominee Title: Partner, Chief People Officer
Nominee Organization/Company: Calcium
Nominee Company’s Website: www.calciumusa.com
Operation regions:
Annual global revenues (in $US): Less than $50 million
Full-time employees globally: Less than 500
Primary industry: Healthcare Marketing
Describe the key initiative(s) led by the nominee: Under Melissa’s leadership, the Calcium People + Culture Team was awarded the 2022 HR Department of the Year (small/midsize category) by the HR Awards in Philadelphia. Furthermore, she was asked to become a judge for these awards to counsel future nominees. In 2021, she was also recognized as Talent Acquisition Leader by PM360, a leading industry publication.
We also offer on-the-job training through the Pharm Fellows internship program, including collaborative “Milkshakes” for each department to teach employees more about the industry. Lastly, 23% of our current employees have received 2022 promotions based on growth. Current Calcium programs we have successfully launched include:
Describe the impact of the nominee’s initiative(s): Notable accomplishments include hiring 75 new staff members in 2020 and continuing that talent acquisition pattern to the present day. Due to her recruitment and hiring efforts, Calcium grew its staff by 72 new employees 2021, representing approximately $8.14 million in salary. Of these hires, 48 were the direct result of Melissa’s 2021 sourcing.
In 2022, one of many achievements included 15 hires based on her recruiting effort directly. The start of 2023 was busy for Melissa, coming off three new business wins at the end of 2022 which required a significant lift in number of staff. Melissa sourced 16 people in the first two weeks of 2023! This saved Calcium a significant amount of revenue by not utilizing outside recruiter(s) to meet these demands.
Calcium increased employee retention rate by 10% in 2022 and implemented a quarterly HR-manager-focused meeting series with 100% participation across all departments.
Please rate the extent to which the nominee drove this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 10
Also, please describe how the nominee drove the initiative: See Above
Rate the individual reputational or professional risk the nominee took for this initiative on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being very little and 10 being completely: 8
Also, please describe that risk: See Above
How long has the CHRO been with their current company? 4 – 6 years
How long has the nominee held a position as a CHRO, both with their current organization and all previous organizations? 7 – 9 years
