In this role, I orchestrated HR strategy and policies across a 500 employee, multi-state business encompassing manufacturing, retail and call center operations. To that end, I lead and coach 14 HR Managers, Specialists, and Administrators in a continuous improvement framework. I identify opportunities for business partnering to deliver long-term organizational goals. In addition, I served as a sponsor on several special action teams. I act as a champion of corporate culture for this significant nonprofit organization.• Introduced talent review and succession planning processes.• Redesigned robust performance review process.• Established strategic leadership development practices.• Improved turnover and reduced time to fill positions.• Revised talent acquisition process to improve customer experience and brand image.

At Walmart, I devised and implemented the HR strategy for a geographically dispersed three-state region of 102 retail stores with a workforce of 22,000 employees. I leveraged business partnerships to drive process improvements that standardized practices across the region. Additionally, I directed cross-functional project teams to manage change. I collaborated with learning and development leaders to align leadership development programs for high-potential talent. Finally, I was trusted as a Subject Matter Expert in compensation strategy and practices, including disciplinary action.• Spearheaded empowerment initiative that contributed to $9.2B in sales across all facilities.• Reduced time to fill key management positions by 25%.• Steered administration of annual performance management processes to 100,000 employees over four regions.• Improved employee engagement scores for region by 9% within first year and delivered annual improvement for eight consecutive years.• Led staffing to support 10% store opening growth over five years.• Selected Director of the Year for entire organization.• Reduced onboarding time by 30% through development of more effective process for newly hired field HR managers.• Established workforce development partnerships with targeted universities and local community organizations that drove 20% increase in quality external hires.• Launched succession plan and mentoring program that enabled aggressive growth strategy aimed at 30-store expansion over two years.

In this role I organized the organizational development and training team to support company-wide new initiatives process improvements, mergers, and acquisitions with timely and cost-effective training. During my tenure I managed a $5, 000,000 budget and directed team of 23 personnel in training service delivery for an employee population in 320 locations across four states. • Re-engineered the on-line training curriculum and renegotiated a service delivery agreement with third party vendors resulting in a cost saving of $150,000 annually. • Led instructional designers partnering with management to assess annual training and development needs and worked within budget demands to deliver training programs on time and within budget. • Drafted guidelines and processes that adhered to federal and state financial annual certification and compliance training that avoided costly fines and penalties. Redesigned compliance training that achieved 100% completion and prior to targeted timeline. • Directed and facilitated system/service training and devised change navigation programs that facilitated acquisition of eight-branch bank and supported conversion of new operations system.• Within first year, re-engineered organizational leadership competencies and succession plan to support strategic initiatives. Providing a more consistent process for talent review and identifying high potential talent.• Coordinated across organization in redesign/redevelopment of performance management system to more closely align competencies to corporate strategic initiatives. • Organized training of over 150 commercial bankers to support a key initiative to drive consultative selling. The program was completed in seven weeks partnering with a third-party consulting firm.• Improved the annual and semi-annual performance review process and implemented modifications and provided training as needed.

At Ace Hardware I devised a succession planning program and identified 60 top notch leaders for participation. I also developed and deployed employee/cultural change surveys focused on alignment of strategic growth initiatives with organizational cultures. • Conceptualized and built Ace University, a multi-media online learning and personal development technology; realized training participation increases of 50-60% per year.• Co-designed a competency based performance evaluation system, aligning career goals to organizational objectives.• Orchestrated management development conferences, a series of two day seminars focused on leadership skills development for 240 mid-level managers.• Increase participation of company sponsored tuition reimbursement program by 300% in the second year of implementation.• Established a training initiative in response to a retail store customer/associate engagement survey.• Redefined the leadership competencies in support of company strategic initiatives.• Conceptualized and created a two year strategic plan focused on redesign of training/development programs for existing stores and personnel; culminated with deployment of a retail store online learning model.• Earned the Workforce Magazine Optimus Award and ATD’s Excellence in Practice Citation for the creation of a training ROI study.• Designed training initiatives which impacted 5,000 corporate associates, 15 distribution centers, and more than 60,000 retail employees across 4,800 stores.• Directed a team of 20. Surpassed budgeted sales and profit goals annually.

As the Manager of Developmental Resources I developed the overall focus for a newly created position. I designed and conducted consultative training initiatives in support of company and licensee home improvement businesses, in-store sales members, and call center employees. • Impacted 5,000 in-home sales members and 25,000 store employees.

In this role at Sears I served as the regional leader for the corporate university and management programs at Sears Retailing. I also executed recruiting, hiring and training for the corporate executive training program.• Contributed to the design of the corporate university and management programs.• Directed the creation, schedules, and delivery of all training courses. Consulted on the course design for region and district managers. Programs impacted 5,800 managers, 145 classes and 120 national trainees in four years.• Delivered recruiting, hiring, and training for the corporate executive training program. • Executed and tracked performance of training programs which were designed for new management trainees.• Served as national training manager; held additional roles across the Midwest/Northwest.

Held various manager positions at Sears stores and store support facilities.