HORSHAM, PA--(Marketwired - Oct 21, 2015) - Human Resource Executive®, the leading HR business magazine, named Tracy Keogh, executive vice president of human resources at Hewlett-Packard Co., its 2015 HR Executive of the Year.
In addition, the magazine named to its 2015 HR Honor Roll Marcia J. Avedon, senior vice president of human resources, communications and corporate affairs at Ingersoll Rand; Joseph A. Bosch, executive vice president and chief HR officer at DirecTV; Sallie Larsen, managing director and chief human capital officer at LPL Financial; and Michelle Link, senior vice president of HR at PRA Group Inc.
Winners will be recognized on Oct. 29 during a special awards dinner sponsored by Workday at the Trustee Ballroom at Boston University.
"The HR Executive of the Year award recognizes human resource leaders who have made outstanding contributions to their organizations and who exemplify the increasingly strategic role of HR in business today," says David Shadovitz, editor and co-publisher of Human Resource Executive®.
As Hewlett-Packard's chief HR officer, Tracy Keogh has been at the center of the company's ongoing transformation and its pending separation into two companies: HP Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise.
Since the separation was first announced in 2014, Keogh has led the effort to keep employees apprised of developments regarding the split and has spearheaded a global organizational design-and-selection process to align the approximately 300,000 employees with the two new entities.
In addition, she has helped to build the boards of the two new organizations, aiding in the recruitment and selection of 13 new directors. She also helped to create the "The HP Way Now," a revamped take on the company's famous "The HP Way," which has helped to increase the organization's employee-engagement numbers.
Keogh also launched "Shape the Strategy," a global initiative designed to overhaul HP's approach to all things HR, including talent development, compensation, staffing and culture.
The four executives named to the 2015 HR Honor Roll were recognized for the following contributions and achievements, just to name a few:
Marcia J. Avedon led the HR work at Ingersoll Rand to spin off Allegion, including the organizational design, compensation and benefits programs, and selection of the new company's CEO, top leaders and board members. Concurrent with the spin-off, Avedon worked closely with IR's CEO and executive-leadership team to determine a new organizational design that would refresh the company's business strategy. She has played a key role in improving IR's organizational effectiveness through a heightened emphasis on leadership development, employee engagement and communications -- connecting leaders and employees alike to the company's purpose and goals.
Joseph A. Bosch, who left DirecTV upon the completion of its sale to AT&T, has been instrumental in building a strong management-development program and talent-planning process, which now includes 360 reviews, annual top-leadership meetings, new courses on coaching and leadership, and annual talent reviews. He also helped overhaul DirecTV's performance-management program, doing away with formal ratings and replacing them with ongoing dialogue between supervisors and employees. In addition, he played a key role in creating a more customer-focused culture within the organization.
Sallie Larsen has helped transform LPL Financial into a smarter, simpler and more personal company by focusing on three strategic imperatives for the human capital function: attracting, developing and retaining talent; accelerating the company's leadership agenda; and enhancing its performance culture. She's also played a key role in creating a new online HR portal and HR Solutions Center to address employee questions, along with a new onboarding process to enhance assimilation in the company.
Michelle Link has been instrumental in helping to drive PRA Group's international growth by developing global talent and development functions, revamping the company's compensation and benefit structures, expanding payroll and employee relations, and implementing a new HRIS system. Under her leadership, HR has become much more data-driven, relying on analytics to help shape and develop employee-related decisions.
Judges for this year's contest were Richard Antoine, president of AOConsulting, past president of the National Academy of Human Resources and former global human resource officer of Procter & Gamble Co.; Dennis Donovan, vice chairman of Cerberus Operations & Advisory Co., and HRE's 2003 HR Executive of the Year; Fred Foulkes, director of the Human Resource Policy Institute and professor of management policy at the Boston University School of Management; Susan Meisinger, author, speaker and consultant on human resources, and former president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management; and Human Resource Executive® Editor and Co-Publisher David Shadovitz.
The judges based their selections on the following criteria: the candidate's ability to handle significant problems or obstacles in the human resource field, the candidate's role and/or success in establishing the human resource function as an integral part of his or her organization, the candidate's management skills as demonstrated within the human resource function and his or her contributions to the HR profession as a whole.
Honor Roll candidates are divided into two categories: employers with fewer than 7,500 employees and employers with 7,500 or more employees. This year, two executives were selected in the under 7,500-employee category and two were selected in the 7,500-or-more-employee category.
The 2015 HR Executive of the Year and HR Honor Roll winners are profiled in the October 16 issue of Human Resource Executive®, which has a circulation of more than 75,000 HR vice presidents and directors. It is published by LRP Publications and is based in Horsham, Pa. On the Web, it can be found at www.HREOnline.com.