Kerry Connor serves organizations, higher education institutions, executives and emerging leaders looking to expedite their impact through translating strategic plans into operational excellence which lives within all internal systems and the culture. Services include hiring at all levels and system level performance management systems as primary services. Assignments to date have focused on performance management, goal setting and best practices for organizational effectiveness and design; toolkits for setting up all functions within human resources; staff engagement surveys and culture initiatives to increase engagement; and hiring and onboarding both at the system and individual levels, with an orientation toward diversity, equity and inclusion embedded within all efforts. Clients to date have included those within education, higher education, youth development, criminal justice reform, international development, and immigration reform.

Served on the organization’s executive team for 5 years and provided interim oversight for national organizing and family engagement, national marketing and communications, national digital and the TN operation. Oversaw performance of recruitment and onboarding efforts up against aggressive time to hire, diversity and operational targets, increasing racial and linguistic diversity of staff; increasing retention of new hires through effective hiring and onboarding; and received an excellent rating on aligned customer service surveys for the recruiting function for all components ranging from candidate diversity to overall fit with role requirements to efficiency which was aided by creation of customized recruiting and onboarding toolkits for all roles to increase retention, performance and satisfaction of new hires. Oversaw full performance management lifecycle for organization, including annual goal setting process, aided by the implementation and 100% adoption of an online platform, strengthening performance outcomes for the organization with alignment of national and state based priorities and outcomes. Restructured compensation based on a new compensation philosophy with greater internal equity across levels and roles, including internally modeling that which we advocated for within districts to hold performance as a primary condition linked to compensation and merit increases.Oversaw setting of measured cohort leader expectations and the annual staff retreat for organizational leadership to increase engagement and performance , with improved retention of solid performers and overall staff engagement increasing by 25 percentage points.Achieved top leadership scores for employee engagement organization-wide and the highest leadership and management competency ratings of any leader within the organization every year except 2015, with up to 10 direct reports at any time (VP, Director), including oversight of the largest dotted line national functions.

Hiring: Oversaw all hiring activities network-wide, leading the recruitment team in identifying, attracting, and selecting high-caliber talent for all national and regional offices, receiving the 2008 Aaron Lieberman Award, awarded annually by Jumpstart’s President to one national employee as the highest recognition within the organization.Alliances: Established strategic partnerships with internal and external stakeholders to support recruitment, fundraising, and branding efforts, leading to onboarding staff from diverse groups such as HBS Social Enterprise Initiative to FAO Schwartz Fellows or doubling the number of AmeriCorps VISTA, incurring financial savings with partnerships to prepare organization for scaling efforts. Technology: Implemented new applicant tracking system to enable scaling of recruitment operations and streamlined recruitment processes, decreasing time to hire and administrative load.Management: Oversaw a recruitment team of two, including directly managing a recruitment coordinator and a Talent Management AmeriCorps*VISTA, ensuring succession planning within the team and continued execution on time to hire, quality of hire, and service delivery in a distributed network spanning 19 states.

Launched a series of marketing initiatives to strengthen organizational visibility and highlighting volunteer opportunities, resulting in an increase in training participants of 275% from the previous year.Managed the content development and execution of a 60 hour Office of Emergency Services Crisis Intervention Training held five times annually.Led the recruitment, cultivation, training and scheduling for 60 sexual assault advocate volunteers, attaining 100% volunteer coverage on a 24/7 program by increasing volunteer hours by 300%.Provided crisis counseling on a local hotline that received approximately 370 calls a month.