I work with organizations to start and scale their People Analytics and Communications Analytics capabilities and to address specific initiatives in advanced analytics, product design, learning, and technology selection and implementation. The math is solvable, and the systems issues are addressable, but the hard work is leading organizational change and driving analytics adoption.I also offer executive coaching to people analytics and HR leaders. People analytics leaders often have a technical background and need to present themselves as HR and business leaders. They also need to learn how to navigate organizational politics and lead change. Many HR leaders did not grow up in the world of big data, analytics, and artificial intelligence yet have to lead and manage in an increasingly "analytics everywhere" environment. I serve on the advisory boards of the Society for People Analytics and RedThread Research and am a Distinguished Principal Research Fellow at The Conference Board. I have also served on the advisory boards of Mathison, R-Squared, TrustSphere (sold to BigTinCan), and PaddleHR (sold to LinkedIn).Prior to 2018, People Analytics Success did business as Nelson Touch Consulting. The company's mission was to maximize the return on human capital through strategy, incentives, and analytics. I named the company after my boyhood hero, Horatio Nelson, whose innovative leadership style in 18th-century naval warfare was known as 'the Nelson touch.' He explained his battle strategy to his captains, who then had the freedom to execute it depending on their situation. The firm has enjoyed several long-term engagements, including Program Director of the Intelligent Automation Council at The Conference Board, VP of HR at The Medicines Company (acquired by Novartis in 2020), and Director of Research at the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp).

SemperVirens is an early-stage venture capital fund investing in workplace technology, healthcare technology, and financial technology companies that have a strategy to sell to and through employers. The firm has an ecosystem of executives, industry analysts, and distribution partners that serve as a proprietary platform for accessing, analyzing, and amplifying the most promising companies in its target sectors.

I have the privilege of teaching "People Analytics: Building a Talent Advantage." This started as a two-day in-person workshop at the Stanford University campus and, after the pandemic, became an 8-week synchronous online course taught in the Spring/Fall or Summer/Winter quarters. The course is an introduction to people analytics with a comprehensive curriculum based on my people analytics experience. I ensure that each cohort's specific learning needs are addressed. The reading list includes classics from the People Analytics canon as well as recent research and current articles. Each class features a unique roster of distinguished people analytics leaders. The Stanford Continuing Studies team offers superb support. I learn a lot from my students and the guest speakers, and teaching the course gives me great joy.

I am proud of my long-standing association with The Conference Board as a Research Fellow, Program Director, Council Member, and Conference Speaker. Before becoming a Distinguished Principal Research Fellow in Human Capital in 2024, I was the founding Program Director of the Intelligent Automation Executives Council. I've been a member of the Compensation, Workforce Planning, and Strategic Communications Councils and a founding member of the Human Capital Analytics Council. As part of my DPRF accountabilities, I serve on the Leadership and Coaching Institute within the Human Capital pillar.

I was recruited into Takeda's Global Corporate Affairs leadership team to transform the corporate affairs function into a more data-driven, analytical, and digital organization. Global Corporate Affairs includes the global Communications, Public Affairs, Sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility and Security teams.Takeda is a 243-year-old, values-driven, Tokyo-headquartered, decentralized biopharmaceutical organization striving to become more digital and AI-driven. I couldn't resist the temptation to temporarily step away from the exciting world of People Analytics to help transform another corporate function based on my experience introducing analytics to the human resources function and my recent doctoral research on the role of organizational change and leadership in the adoption of analytics.In accordance with my three-year roadmap, we achieved the Data Analytics and Insights team's aspiration of setting the standard in the industry for a data-driven communications capability. Key to our success was recognizing that we were on a change journey that required us to assemble a unique team, create a common language of data and analytics, build platforms to shorten the distance between data and insight, and empower communicators through a learning journey that made them comfortable, then confident and, ultimately, capable in data-driven decision-making and storytelling.The key to sustaining the transformation is the Global Corporate Affairs Leadership Team's modeling of using data for decisions, continued investment in evolving the increasingly AI-driven digital communications and knowledge management platforms, and support of the necessary learning and development opportunities. I am super proud of the brilliant Data Analytics and Insights team that will elevate the Global Corporate Affairs team even further.

I was recruited into to Wayfair's Talent Leadership Team to help prepare this fast-growing Fortune 500 company for scale, complexity, and international expansion while remaining nimble and continually improving employee experience and market competitiveness. I led the Talent Strategy & Analytics, Internal Communications, and Compensation teams. The teams' key results included: a Talent Strategy single-threaded organization (STO) vision, strategy, and roadmap; a data model and secure talent data warehouse as foundations for talent analytics infrastructure in partnership with product, engineering, and business intelligence teams; democratization of talent data and insights via a secure, global, on-demand talent analytics platform with standard enterprise metrics to enable the best decisions about people, whether individuals, teams, or organizations; a capability in text analytics to extract signals from untapped unstructured data in surveys, performance reviews, and job descriptions to examine sentiment and inclusion and detect potential bias; and updated compensation policies and pay structures and new capabilities in executive compensation, equity compensation, and field (e.g., supply chain, customer service, sales) compensation

I was recruited into Apple's Human Resources Leadership team to build a wholesome people analytics capability and transform and elevate HR. I was fortunate to start with a very strong team that we grew from four to thirteen as our accountability expanded to employee sensing, talent development, and executive coaching. We delivered on our three-year roadmap to bring order and security to the data environment; develop enterprise measurement standards; systematize HR reporting and align it with HR Operations; integrate HR and finance reporting as a foundation for workforce planning; democratize talent insights across HR through a custom, comprehensive and intuitive Tableau platform; engage directly with business leaders to enable data-driven talent decisions; drive leadership accountability for progress in inclusion and diversity through data access and transparency; build recruiting, mobility, performance and reward applications to address legacy system gaps and critical needs; and build comfort with data and generate an organic "pull" for people analytics products and services across HR. The culture of trust, accountability and results within the People Analytics team; support from our HR and Finance functional partners; and direct funding from the product businesses were key to our success.

I was recruited into the McKesson (then ranked 11 on the Fortune list) Talent Management and Diversity leadership team to build a workforce intelligence capability and assuage a growing demand for workforce analytics and workforce planning. A "skunkworks" had already begun, under a brilliant and visionary leader, an I-O psychologist whom I was fortunate to retain on the team consisting of an analyst, a reporting specialist, a project manager and a systems developer. Together we built a brand new Workforce Intelligence center of expertise (COE) and also gained accountability for talent management operations. We initially met basic needs while assessing the data and systems environment and culture to develop a three-year roadmap. This was a vital device to communicate our intent, secure buy-in and identify resource needs. We also built strong partnerships with IT, Finance, Corporate Strategy and analytics practitioners spread across the company. We built a workforce planning prototype, called Integrated Headcount Tracking (IHT), to begin the systems and culture change required to evolve toward true workforce planning. IHT was implemented as a pilot in two business units and was nominated for the 2014 Chairman's Award for Innovation and Collaboration. The team also implemented Visier, a people analytics platform, across the company.

I was increasingly enjoying my new role at IBM, growing beyond compensation and benefits, getting involved with SAP and PeopleSoft systems implementations, and getting used to leading very large project teams, when Goldman Sachs came calling. It was a hard offer to refuse. It was in some ways the pinnacle of the compensation profession that I had entered a few years ago through Towers Perrin.I had a global team of over 20 people, comprising talented analysts and associates and seasoned VPs. We had a number of challenges, including developing compensation-based counter-measures to stop the draining of talent to private equity and technology firms and building a brand new bonus system in time for the year-end compensation cycle. We were in the midst of 'norming and forming' as a team when the global financial crisis hit Wall Street. My tenure at Goldman Sachs was cut short by a resulting position elimination. I'm very proud that those members of the Firmwide Compensation who remained at Goldman are now MDs there and those who left have achieved success elsewhere.

Associate Partner, Human Capital Management, IBM Global Business Services, New York, NYDirector, Compensation and Benefits, IBM India, BangaloreDirector, Compensation - Product Units, Somers, NY