My Story

When I was in college, I was sure I wanted to be a lawyer. For fun, I interviewed for a few jobs and was offered a position with the Quaker Oats Company as a Production Manager at their manufacturing facility in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Something about the role really appealed to me and I decided to forego law school to give it a shot. It was my first serious job and I developed a keen interest in what motivates people to deliver their best results, and what it takes to build productivity in a team. Next thing I knew I was moving into Human Resources and have been focused on operational effectiveness and employee impact ever since.

Now, over 40 years later, I have a rich history of experiences that enable me to help organizations excel.

After 13 years at Quaker Oats working in various manufacturing locations and headquarters, I joined PepsiCo where I had the opportunity to get my first international experience and run the HR function for a large organization. I served in a range of HR leadership roles in their beverage and foods divisions over 10 years, including leading HR for Pepsi Cola Company’s business units in North America, and culminating with the CHRO role for Frito-Lay, overseeing 30,000 employees. Given the pace of change in the business, our focus there was primarily on organization effectiveness and change leadership. Although FritoLay’s Sales organization was considered the gold standard by many companies at the time, I led an initiative to modernize our Sales function, rethinking our sales profile, selection and training systems, and the company’s measurement and compensation practices.  Even when you know your organization is strong, there are always opportunities to build its capacity for impact.

Wanting to expand my international and industry experience, I took the top HR job at Starwood Hotels & Resorts, who had a significant global footprint of 130,000 employees in 80 countries. Starwood had just acquired the Sheraton and Westin brands and their priority was building a new common culture for the combined enterprise. We changed everything – from our name to our values to our systems and even how we paid employees – and then took on the task of creating separate personas for each of the brands so we could hire, train, and deliver a customer experience consistent with each brand. In the hotel business, acquisition and divestiture is a way of life, and HR played a big role in making sure those transitions went smoothly – all with the added complexity of doing business all over the world.

Continuing to broaden my experience, I next took a CHRO job in the media industry at The New York Times. A combination of change leadership and M&A were the primary demands there. The business was experiencing an unprecedented assault by the availability of news and advertising online, and we had to wind down the print business and quickly grow new online capabilities. The 150-year-old newspaper was now competing with Google and Yahoo for business and talent. How about that for dramatic change!

Financial Services was next with my decision to join People's United Bank as its CHRO. At a time when many banks were struggling, People’s strategy was all about accelerating growth through acquisition and we tripled the bank in just 10 years, growing assets from $17B to over $60B. In over 20 deals during that time, I played a critical leadership role in due diligence, merger agreement negotiations, pre-close and post-close transitions, and employee and culture assimilation – ensuring that the function was bringing new thinking, raising the bar on performance, and keeping everyone focused on driving the business along the way.

Across all these great experiences there was a common theme in my accomplishments – building great HR organizations and developing HR leaders who could drive significant and lasting impact. Several times I inherited a poorly organized HR function with subpar talent and no discernable strategy. No surprise, they lacked the credibility to serve the organization as leaders. Of all my accomplishments, I am proudest of turning those situations around to establish the function as a key contributor to the business and developing HR professionals into exceptional leaders to drive HR’s mission forward. I have developed talent at every level, but I remain particularly proud of the HR executives I have prepared to lead the function across a range of industries. At last count, there are over 30 CHROs who worked for me earlier in their career, most of whom are at Fortune 500 companies.

So, if you want to significantly improve the impact of your HR organization, take an HR leader to the next level of performance, or create an HR strategic plan that can propel the function forward, NortonHR is the partner you want. As I’ve learned firsthand, regardless of your industry, your company is only as successful as your employees are capable and motivated. And a well-run HR organization with top talent and strong business focus will ensure those capabilities are embedded in your workforce, help build the reputation of your company for recruiting new talent, and boost business results.  Whatever challenges you may be facing today, I would welcome the chance to hear more about them, and to offer my perspective and expertise to help you achieve your goals.