This month in our HR Advisory practice we are recruiting for the following Advisory job roles:

• Senior Human Resources Advisor
• Senior Talent Acquisition Advisor
• Human Resources Business Partner
• Director of Human Resources
• Vice President of Total Rewards
• Senior Compensation Advisor

Interested? Please contact us to learn more at candidate@fredericksonpartners.com.

Schmitz joins Frederickson as an executive leader, technology entrepreneur, and experienced operator with a long history in attracting and leading top-performing teams and pioneering disruptive technologies into new and established markets. As a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, he founded five technology companies including eIQ Mobility, the leading software provider of zero-emissions mobility planning solutions acquired by NextEra Energy; Jacent Technologies, a leading natural language processing (NLP) speech automation platform, acquired by YUM! Brands,, e-commerce innovators iCommerce and Breakthrough Software, Inc., and high-end web development and hosting firm Internet Business Solutions, acquired by Entertainment Digital Solutions. In addition to raising $45 million in financing as an entrepreneur, Schmitz has held senior Sales and Business Development leadership roles at fast growth pioneers Workboard, Ascendify, Voxology, and Redwood Systems, acquired by CommScope.

We’re excited to have Randy join as we move ahead with new opportunities as part of Gallagher.

Welcome, Randy!

We worked with Newsela to place Holly Cafiero as Chief People Officer. In her new role Holly will be responsible for building and leading the People function within Newsela. Newsela values collaboration wherever its employees are located, so the organization will rely on this leader to help develop and implement innovative People programs that can be scaled with this in mind. Working closely with the Newsela executive team, Cafiero will help drive the People strategy including talent acquisition, performance management, compensation, change management, culture, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Cafiero will report to the company’s CEO, Matthew Gross.

Cafiero joins Newsela from Druva Inc., where she served as a Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), developing company strategy and paths for growth acceleration. She was responsible for translating company goals into People vision, strategies, and subsequent global execution, and led talent acquisition efforts, competing for top global talent in the most aggressive labor markets. Previously Cafiero worked at Cloud Technology Partners, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company as Senior Vice President (SVP), People and Culture, Chief of Staff for almost three years, actively partnering with peers to influence best business and People decisions. Her earlier positions include SVP, HR for Enernoc Inc., SVP, HR for Hologic Inc., and Director, HR-Total Rewards, HRIS, North Americas Business Partner for Vistaprint Limited. Cafiero holds a Bachelor of Science, HR from Northeastern University.

Holly, congratulations on joining Newsela as Chief People Officer!

• Indeed announced the appointment of Priscilla Koranteng as its new Chief People Officer. With over 20 years of HR experience, Koranteng joins Indeed from Kellogg Company where she served as VP Global HR, Talent Management and Chief Equity Diversity Officer. Earlier roles include Global Head of HR for DXC Technology, VP Global HR and Senior Business Partner at T. Rowe Price, HR Business Partner at JP Morgan Chase and HR Manager for The Home Depot. (Announcement)
• AgileThought appointed Gonzalo Mones Cazon as Chief People Officer. Mones brings over a wealth of global HR experience, having recently served as Head of People and Country Manager, Argentina at Wildlife Studios. Prior roles include Chief People Officer at PedidosYa, Regional HR Director ALMEA for OLX Group and Recruiting Manager at Globant. (Announcement)
• Liberty Mutual promoted Jen Ughetta as the company’s first ever Chief People Officer. Ughetta was previously Chief Talent Officer, Global Retail Markets for four years. Previously, she worked at Munich Reinsurance America during a 20-year tenure, holding various HR leadership positions including the SVP, CHRO role. (Article)
• Cornerstone OnDemand welcomed Carina Cortez as Chief People Officer. Cortez brings exceptional HR experience to Cornerstone, most recently as CPO for Glassdoor. Her previous roles include EVP of Human Resources for Ellie Mae, VP of HR at Walmart eCommerce, Senior Director of Learning and Organizational Development at PayPal, and Director of HRBP for Visa USA. (Announcement)
• Quaker Houghton welcomed Melissa Leneis as Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer. Leneis joins from InterDigital, Inc where she served as Executive Vice President, CHRO. She has held HR leadership and executive roles during her more than 20-year-old career at companies including Johnson Controls, Tyco, MEI and Lockheed Marti. (Announcement)
• ShipBob appointed Lara Morgenthaler as Chief People Officer. Morgenthaler brings over 20 years of HR experience to ShipBob, having most recently served as Head of HR at Epic Games. Previous roles include Director of HR for Amazon and Director and VP of HR roles for different departments at Newell Rubbermaid during an 11-year period. (Article)
• Appian appointed Susan Charnaux as Chief People Officer. Charnaux bring over 20 years of experience in professional services and human capital to Appian. Her previous roles include Managing Director of HR at Accenture and Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company. Charnaux was also Principal and Founder at Fairhill Ventures (Announcement)
• UDR, Inc. announced Patsy Doerr as Senior Vice President, Chief ESG & People Officer. Doerr is an active member of CHIEF, a private network built to drive women into positions of power and previously worked at Credit Suisse as Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion. (Announcement)
• Owens & Minor, Inc. hired Tammy Gomez as the company’s new Executive Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer. Gomez joins from Cardinal Health after a 23-year tenure as an HR executive. There she most recently served as SVP, Global Centers of Excellence and HR Services. (Announcement)
• MEI Pharma welcomed Anne Frese as the company’s new Chief People Officer. Previously Frese served as CHRO for Vyripharm Enterprises, Inc. Earlier roles include VP of HR at Artiva Biotherapeutics and Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, as well as SVP, HR at AMEC Environment & Infrastructure. (Announcement)

As part of our series of insights from People leaders, we spoke with Damien about his top HR priorities for Komaza in 2022. The company partners with small farmers to build micro forests, with an exciting vision of planting one billion trees across Africa by 2030.

Q. How large is your workforce at Komaza?

Right now, we have a small U.S. team that is mostly executive and administrative, and about 600 employees in Kenya. The bulk of them work on the ground with our farmers, to educate and help them plant and grow the trees.

Q. What is your top HR priority in 2022 for Komaza?

As an organization going through a growth phase, the most critical aspect is the development of our people. To scale a large on-the-ground workforce, we need to find means to engage and develop them. In the forestry industry our model is unique. As a result, we can’t find the skill sets on the market for a lot of our roles, so we must invest in their development.

Q. Is that development focused mainly on leadership training, and how do you approach that?

With the workforce so large and distributed, it is a difficult job situation for managers. Leadership, soft skills and manager development are going to be critical for our success. One of the reasons I was brought on board was to help that training process scale.

For a distributed workforce we need to think about content delivery. With employees not visiting offices, we have limited touch points for training and mentoring, so we leverage zoom meetings and a mobile platform to train our people. We need to determine what that platform will look like and how we can develop curricula for it.

Q. What is it like leading a team that’s in both North America and Africa?

The time and geographical differences are really a challenge. I will visit Kenya four to six times per year. In the first month I was able to spend two weeks driving around Kenya visiting teams to really understand the challenges that our employees face. I am meeting with my direct reports daily for 15 minutes to ensure we are building strong relationships and I am responsive as things come up. In addition, we have one hour standing meetings to dive into projects. We will also leverage asynchronous tools such as Asana, and great dashboards for the recruiting teams so everyone on a team is on the same page.

Q. What is the size of your People/HR team?

In the U.S. it is only me; in Kenya we have an HR manager and Talent Acquisition manager. They are both amazing individuals, who are managing three to six people.

Q. Is your HR strategy unique in any way?

The immediate priorities we have are standard, in needing to build the infrastructure required to scale. I am assuring that we have basic tools in place to manage a volume of employees, and we are building dashboards to understand how we are doing, and to inform staffing decisions.

As we start leveraging the applications that we have built for employees to deliver HR talent tools and services, we will be doing unique things in this space.

Q. In addition to your team on the ground, do you also have a team of tech employees?

Yes, the tech team is amazing. We have three people on the data science team in the U.S. with another 12 in Kenya. It is an effective working group, able to collaborate across the U.S. and Kenya to understand what we need to develop for internal users. They have done a wonderful job. And as we enter this growth phase, we will start ramping up our internal tech teams to scale the systems we have built.

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