NetWorkWise Presents: Who's Who in HR

Justine Mitsock is currently the VP - Strategic Partnerships & Client Development at Lane Health where she leverages her expertise in developing and executing employee benefits programs as well as her unique global perspective from public and private companies across various industries. Justine has spent 16+ years in various Human Resources leadership roles with responsibility for the strategy and operations of all employee benefit programs including retirement and health and wellness programs. Previously, Justine was the Head of Global Benefits for IHS Markit covering over 15K employees across almost 40 countries. There she introduced innovative wellness programs and generated significant savings by creating efficiencies. Prior to then, Justine was the Head of Total Rewards and HR Operations at CHANEL where she built compensation, benefits and HRIS functions. Justine also held various roles at Citigroup including SVP of Compensation and VP of International Benefits. Justine earned a B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Stockton University and has passed Exams 1 through 4 of the Society of Actuaries.

Sebastien Girard serves as Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer at Centura Health. Supporting a team of 21,000 outstanding caregivers, Seb is on a mission to serve, elevate and care for every community, every patient and every associate. Seb is an accomplished human resources leader with talents and practical skills in workforce planning, talent acquisition and management, HR technologies, and market disruption. A native of Montreal, Canada, Seb joined Centura from Atrium Health in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he served as the Senior Vice President responsible for workforce engagement and workforce operations. He previously served as the Chief Workforce Officer at Parkland Health and Hospital System in Dallas, Texas. He spent nearly fifteen years with Randstad, a Dutch-based global human resources consulting firm, in executive and operations roles in both the United States and Canada. Seb has a Master of Business Administration degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Sloan School of Management. He completed Randstad’s prestigious international Senior Executive Program and the Human Capital Institute’s strategic workforce planning development program. He also serves as an advisory board member with three independent HR companies innovating in nurse staffing, professional nurse development, and health care workforce managed solutions. In addition to his deep professional experience, Seb passionately supports giving back to the community and has engaged in international humanitarian projects to recruit and attract some of the world’s best engineers to support those living in India with mobility obstacles.

Douglas Parks is Chief Administrative Officer at the boutique cruise brand, Azamara, where he leads the development and growth of the shared service teams including HR, Tax, Legal, IT, Risk and Supply Chain. Prior to joining Azamara, Parks served as Chief Human Resources Officer of Healthnow, New York BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York. There he was responsible for establishing and driving organizational development and driving human resource and talent strategies to optimize employee skills and value across the organization. Known for his leadership through high-risk change, Parks heads business transformation initiatives, performance improvement, culture, engagement, and capability and capacity building. Prior to joining BCBS-WNY, Parks served as EmblemHealth’s Vice president, Human Resources Strategy and Business Transformation, where he led a business transformation project resulting in a 20% reduction in administrative expense and a 28% improvement in core engagement scores. Before EmblemHealth, he was the Global HR Leader at Mercer Consulting, overseeing all people-related initiatives for Mercer’s consultants across more than 40 countries. Parks has also held several other HR leadership roles during the course of his career, including Senior HR Business Partner at Exelis (now part of Harris Corporation), Founder and President of the successful consulting business, Parks Management Consulting, and Managing Consultant at IBM Global Business Solutions. Parks serves on the board of directors of Evanta, a Gartner Company Board of Governors, Buffalo Preparatory School, and the Buffalo Workforce Investment Board. He is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), and the National Association for African Americans in Human Resources (NAAAHR). Parks has a Master’s degree in learning and organizational change from Northwestern University, and a Bachelor’s degree in organizational leadership from Purdue University.

Kenneth W. Meyer, SHRM-SCP, SPHR. Ken is currently Chief Human Resources Officer/VP, Human Resources for a Federally Qualified Health Center providing Primary Care, Behavioral Health, and Care Coordination to the underserved populations of New York City. He is an accomplished HR professional experienced in all areas of HR Management. Ken has spent his career working in the healthcare field and started his career in HR in 1986. MS-Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University & Bernard M. Baruch College and BA-Economics from Herbert H. Lehman College, Member of the Beta Gamma Sigma and Golden Key National Honor Societies and holds SHRM-SCP and SPHR certifications. He is also the President-Elect for New York City SHRM, the longest-existing local chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management and has served on its Board of Directors as its Board Secretary and as Board Director. He was a recipient of the Lifetime Ambassador of Laughter Award from the Gotham Comedy Foundation and was a long-time volunteer with his local Little League, the North Riverdale Baseball League.

Raquel Crystal is Head of Human Resources & Operations at Sio Gene Therapies (f/k/a Axovant Gene Therapies). Ms. Crystal has 15 years of human resources experience across different industries. She previously served as Head of Human Resources and Talent Acquisition at Roivant Sciences, Inc. Prior to that, Ms. Crystal was the Head of Human Resources for CoreOne Technologies, LLC, a financial technology firm, covering Europe, Asia and North America. She also held multiple roles in human resources at Morgan Stanley and Ambrose Employer Group, LLC. She holds a B.S. in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.

Lorna Hagen is a Human Capital executive with over 20 years of experience focused on building high-performance companies. Today, she is the Chief People Officer at Guild Education. Prior to Guild, she was Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer and iHeartMedia where she successfully rebuilt their HR function and transitioned the company to fully remote during Covid. Lorna helped lead a successful IPO at OnDeck Capital and lead the organization to 16 “Best Companies to Work For” awards. At Dow Jones, she executed a transformation of their HR technology, team, and work practices inclusive of global compensation, recruitment, learning and development, and benefits administration. As a Latina executive, Lorna is passionate about taking D&I from talk to action and is committed to building equitable career opportunities for all employees.

Laura Birk is the Vice President of Human Resources for Barilla America, Inc. where she has been for over 15 years. Laura is responsible for all the talent management and people processes supporting the Americas business which includes Canada, U.S., Mexico and Brazil. She is a Board Member for the company and has the pleasure to serve almost 1,000 employees across the Americas. Laura’s recently been recognized by OnCon as a 2020 Top 50 Human Resources Professional and Chicago Business Crain’s 2021 Notable Leaders in HR. She also leads a great team who has won several industry awards for diversity, wellness, employee benefits, and talent management and development activities. Laura serves on the Board for Missouri State University Advisory Board, and former Board Member for the Tyler Clementi Foundation. She supports and volunteers at the Cradle Adoption agency, Special Olympic, Walter & Connie Payton Foundation, Hispanic Alliance Career Enhancement (H.A.C.E.), and several other Diversity and Inclusion organizations. She received her degree from Drury University and prior to her current role, Laura spent 10 years at Morgan Stanley.

Alyssa Perlman is a self-proclaimed benefits nerd. As a high user of benefits herself, Alyssa draws from her own experiences to design programs that are centered around the real needs of employees and their families. As the Senior Manager of Global Benefits for UiPath, Inc., Alyssa manages the benefits, wellbeing, and retirement programs worldwide with a focus on employee experience first. It’s no accident that Alyssa’s team continues to develop programs that land the company on top benefits lists and wellbeing spotlights. We all make tough choices every day, but Alyssa challenges her team to prioritize care and compassion in choosing where to allocate resources for maximum impact. Alyssa has previous experience managing benefits programs across multiple industries, including consumer packaged goods and advertising. Alyssa earned two bachelors degrees from the University of Connecticut in Management and Psychology. Alyssa recently moved from New Jersey to the Atlanta area with her husband and looks forward to exploring the area and settling in.

Shaun Snyder is a Certified Employee Benefits Specialist (CEBS) with over seventeen years of benefits and human resources experience. He has strong expertise in self-funded health plans and plan administration. He currently holds the designation of ISCEBS Fellow and is the Past President of the Georgia Chapter for ISCEBS. He also holds the SPHR designation.

At Blue Shield of California, Christopher drives the planning and execution of human capital plans, providing strong leadership skills leveraged to lead the HRBP team. He develops people strategies that connect and enable the successful execution of business strategies; execute leadership assessments, coaching talent management programs; consult and guide business leaders and their teams. He leads high performing teams through training & mentorship and executive coaching. He is enabling the culture through the organization to ensure there is Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at all levels of the organization. Christopher has his BFA from Webster University, He previously advised the Building Innovative Leaders program in partnership with Stanford University, Stanford Executive Education. He designed the Growing Innovative Leaders program in partnership with National Taiwan University EMBA School. He is a Six Sigma Green Belt, is a certified NeuroLeadership Institute Facilitator and a frequent panelist and lecturer at Golden Gate University.

Joan joined Edward Rose & Sons in 2021 as its Chief Human Resource Officer and is excited to be part of a highly collaborative team. Her focus is to promote actions that create an environment of integrity and trust to build a productive and healthy workplace. During her career she has worked for organizations across several industries, including health care, retail, automotive, human services, education, construction ,and property management. Culture advancement has been and continues to be a top priority. Her favorite thing to do is remain curious and ask the question “Why do you work here and what keeps you here? Want to know what she hears? Ask her. Joan has earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Kendall College of Design and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She studied with the Gallup Organization, Toyota University and Peking University as part of her master’s degree experience. She treasures time with her family traveling, gardening, and creating art pieces for others to enjoy. Joan considers her family and friends her greatest treasures.

Alhassan is a recovering actuary, now situated in HR, he uses data to make connections, tell a story, deliver evidence-based solutions, improve the bottom line of the business and enhance the lives of employees. As the Vice President of Human Resources – Total Rewards, Alhassan manages compensation, benefits, wellbeing and executive compensation functions at a global business process outsourcing organization providing services Alhassan lives outside of Washington, DC and enjoys doing anything outdoors with his wife and twin 9 year daughters.

Josh Friedlander is the Chief Human Resources Officer for Latham & Watkins, LLP. In addition to leading the global Human Resources function, Josh is an active member of the Firm’s Diversity, Security and Legal Professional and Paralegal Committees and the Firm’s EEO Review Board. Josh is also a part of World 50, a private community for C-level executives at globally respected organizations to discover better ideas, share valuable experiences and build relationships that make a lasting impact. Prior to joining Latham, Josh was the Managing Director of Human Resources responsible for Marsh Inc.’s US and Canada Division. During his tenure at Marsh, Josh was also responsible for Human Resources for the Global Infrastructure and the Consumer line of business as well as Consulting Services Group of MMC’s Kroll Inc. and Marsh Risk Consulting. The Global Infrastructure included IT, Operations, Finance, Compliance, Strategic Planning, Operational Risk, Corporate Communications and CSStars, LLC. The Consumer line of business included Marsh’s Affinity, Private Client Services, Executive Benefits, and Private Client Life Insurance businesses. Josh joined Marsh as the Manager of Corporate Staffing function and was responsible for staffing permanent and temporary positions at all levels within the organization and the development of national staffing and background verification policies and processes. Before joining Marsh, Josh was with Online Benefits, Inc., a benefits communication company. As the Vice President of Human Resources and Relationship Management, he was responsible for the management of Human Resources and the supervision of the group that established and maintained relations with distribution partners and clients. Prior to his work at Online Benefits, Josh held various domestic and international positions in Human Resources with brandwise LLC, GE Capital, and Exxon. Josh earned a Masters Degree in Labor and Industrial Relations from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. In addition, Josh has a General Course Certificate from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Kevin is a proven Human Resources and thought leader with international experience from world-class consumer packaged goods organizations across sales, marketing, and manufacturing. Kevin has lived and worked in New York City, London, UK and now resides in the Chicago area. He has recently been spotlighted on Chicago Crains Notable Business Leaders in HR list, earned a Top 50 placement on ONCON’s Peer voted Top HR Professional List and is a frequent speaker on current business topics. Kevin is known for his strategic nature and commercial focus that enables him to make a significant contribution to an organization’s success. Leveraging experiences from multiple geographies, Kevin aligns human resources with the business vision to drive growth and performance. Kevin quickly assess organizational challenges and opportunities and sets clear strategies aligning talent with key business objectives. His specialties include data analytics, talent management, diversity and inclusion, succession planning, labor relations, employee engagement, and driving organizational performance. Kevin recently joined the Career Placement Advisory Council of the not for profit “because I said I would” as part of helping design and improve career placement methods across multiple charitable programs. Kevin believes that culture and top talent bring competitive advantages. He focuses on building a world class talent base with the capabilities, skills and behaviors to sustain performance. Kevin’s passion is to develop talent and help people achieve their full potential –raising employee engagement, productivity and retention along the say. Kevin is currently CHRO and SVP of Human Resources for WernerCo, a growing $1+ billion company with 5000+ employees globally. The WernerCo portfolio includes industry leading brands including; Werner, KNAACK®, WEATHER GUARD®, Youngman®, BoSS®, Centaure, Duarib, Abru, Haemmerlin, Bailey and Zarges. Before joining WernerCo, Kevin was the CHRO of UGN Inc, an International Tier One automotive supplier. During his time there, UGN was recognized as an Illinois Best Place to Work in the large employer category. Prior to UGN, Kevin led human resources for a$2 billion foodservice business unit of the multi-national Pactiv. There he instilled the organization’s standards and best practices across several acquired organizations. Earlier in his career, Kevin spent 11 years in human resources with the$17 billion global beverage company, Diageo, where he led change management projects, built an employee engagement program and developed sophisticated global recruiting programs. These initiatives supported his former employer being named the 11th best global company for which to work.

Over the last 20 years, Cristyn has been a key contributor in helping organizations to recruit, train, and retain top talent. Her focus has been on overseeing people operations, upgrading talent and managing performance for optimal results. Cristyn led the Human Resource function at online technology retailer Bluefly. As VP of HR she worked closely with Bluefly’s CEO, and management team regarding the overall people strategy for the business. Her focus was spent on recruiting, talent management, compensation & benefits, culture, and employee relations. Prior to Bluefly, Cristyn held the role of Director of Human Resources for Victorinox Swiss Army overseeing Human Resources for several divisions including: Apparel, Retail, Merchandising, Cutlery, Wenger, and Canada operations. She also led the HR function for luxury bath retailer Waterworks, which included the corporate office and 40 retail stores across the country. Cristyn has also worked for sports and entertainment organizations such as the NY Giants and Madison Square Garden. Cristyn has an MA in Psychology and is a Certified Personal Trainer and Yoga Instructor.

Keith Bogen, SHRM-SCP/SPHR is the Senior Human Resources Business Partner and Business Development Consultant for Medbar Group, a progressive and extremely innovative concierge healthcare organization. Originally founded to bring dental services to the workplace, pandemic times saw a broader way to help the world, so the company has grown to become a leading nationwide provider of an array of medical services at the workplace, including Covid testing, vaccinations, hearing and vision screening, biometrics and annual physicals. Keith is a 25-year HR practitioner, serving as Director, Manager, Business Partner and Consultant for a variety of companies and clients across many industries, most notably healthcare, technology and pharmaceuticals. The founder of well-known networking group for human resources practitioners, Whine & Dine Networking, he has developed a global network within HR of tens of thousands of participants in all 50 states and 40 countries around the world. An avid softball player and driving enthusiastic, he is known for bringing people together for business and social purposes and demonstrating the theory of six degrees of separation and how it impacts everything in life. Hang around long enough and you will know all about his two sons, Justin who is a senior accounting major at the University of South Carolina and Jeremy, a freshman computer science major at Ohio State University. Developing networking machines... they just don’t know that yet!

Rajesh Ahuja is the Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Infosys.

A social scientist disguised as a business leader, Brandon Bennett leverages his research background and MBA to create people solutions to organizational needs. Currently, he supports Lamb Weston as a Sr Director of HR. In this role, Brandon is able to leverage both his startup and large corporation backgrounds to build new processes for a culture that is a hybrid of the two. Prior to Lamb Weston, Brandon worked to create and implement HR processes to transition Mohawk from a startup to a publicly-traded company. Brandon gained OD expertise and HR Generalist experience at Nature’s Bounty as he transformed the North American supply chain into a High Performing Organization, restructuring culture, compensation, training, organizations, and teams. Additionally, he gained expertise in talent management while working at the Kellogg Company as a recruiter and leadership development specialist. Brandon received his MBA with an emphasis in Org Behavior and Human Resources from BYU’s Marriott School of Management. Fascinated by the stories people and organizations tell themselves, Brandon is most engaged when helping individuals and groups do things they've never considered to achieve what they never thought possible. He sees the future as a cyborg, with leaders confident in leading people and technology. Brandon learned Organizational Effectiveness by necessity to manage his family of seven. Everyone has a role and responsibilities as the family camps, hikes, and explores the country through the National Parks and Monuments.

Bradford Wilkins is a strategic Chief People Officer with a history of success developing integrated "People" functions from scratch in fast-paced, growing global companies. He was most recently the VP, People for Collibra, a tech unicorn that provides enterprise data intelligence products for enterprise customers across the world. Prior to joining Collibra, Brad was the Chief People Officer for Altisource (NASDAQ: ASPS) where he built the People Solutions function globally for ~7,500 employees in North America, Europe, India, Uruguay and the Philippines. He joined Altisource after serving as the Vice President, Talent Management and HR Services (Chief People Officer) at Adcap Network Systems. While there, the company was recognized two years in a row as the #1 Overall Best Place to Work in Atlanta by the "Best and Brightest" and was named a top three company in the U.S. overall for its hiring practices by TheLadders.com. Brad was named the “2019 HR Rising Star” in Atlanta by the Atlanta Business Chronicle, one of the Top 25 HR "Game Changers" Under 40 globally by Workforce Magazine, one of the Top 100 Millenial Leaders globally in “Back to Human” and the #1 Recruiter in the U.S. by TheLadders.com and the SHRM-Atlanta Pegasus Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in HR. He has been a featured speaker for LinkedIn, Hacking HR, the Talent Management Alliance, The Ladders, Workforce Live, TLNT, ALI, Conference Board and featured in multiple publications including an interview in Forbes, contributing to the book “Back to Human” and several articles in Talent Management Magazine. Brad received his degree from the University of Maryland-College Park and currently lives in Atlanta with wife Marissa, a physician at Emory Hospital, their son Jonah and a newly arrived baby girl. His passionate hobbies include basketball, theater, travel and food.

Saran Johnson started her career as an HR professional in the public accounting industry over 20 years ago and has more than 15 years of human resource management experience. Saran has extensive knowledge in the areas of recruiting and retention, employee relations, organizational development and strategic planning as well as resource management. Saran is a diversity, equity and inclusion champion who focuses on identifying and analyzing organizational issues and subsequently developing programming and policy recommendations. Saran is a graduate of Hofstra University where she earned her BA in Psychology and Molloy College where she earned her MBA in Management. Saran is professionally certified in human resource management and regularly speaks on industry topics.