Hanold Associates Seeks Chief People and Culture Officer for Save the Children

October 13, 2022 – Broad and lasting changes to the workplace have advanced a more integrated approach to talent management built around culture, according to executive recruiters. Organizations that used to synchronize their talent to corporate vision, core values and strategic objectives are now aligning people around purpose. And for good reason: Building sustainable cultures in the long run will attract, engage, and retain talent – and give organizations with strong cultures a key competitive edge.

Where all of this typically comes together is in the chief people officer suite where culture is more often than not taking center stage. Save the Children U.S. recently retained Hanold Associates HR & Diversity Executive for its chief people and culture officer search. The firm’s Neela Seenandan, Sarah Kennedy, Sandra Peña, and Adam Watson  will lead the search for this critical role.

Save the Children’s new chief people and culture officer will join the organization at an exciting and critical time for the non-profit and serve as a key member of the organization’s leadership team as it continues to grow and evolve, said Hanold Associates. This leader will lead the talent strategy for the organization’s U.S. operations while serving as a global partner and advisor.

Save The Children works to protect the lives of children in need in the U.S. and around the world. For more than 100 years, the organization has been dedicated to quickly and effectively resolving struggles children face, such as poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease through providing food, medical care, and education. Headquartered in Fairfield, CT, Save The Children has grown to more than 1,400 employees in the U.S. and 25,000 globally across more than 100 countries.

Respected HR Consultants

Hanold Associates is a boutique executive search firm focused on HR and diversity and inclusion officers. Its client list is diverse across industries, geographies, and business scenarios, and culture is at the core of everything the firm does. Its clients include the National Football League, Zoom, Domino’s Pizza, Under Armour, Gucci, Tom Brady’s TB12, Kohler, REI, Live Nation Entertainment, Dick’s Sporting Goods, McDonald’s, Major League Baseball, Kellogg, Apollo, Big Ten Conference, Blackstone, TPG, L Catterton, Northwestern University, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Electronic Arts, Fiat-Chrysler, SC Johnson, eBay, Moderna, Hillrom, Great Place To Work, Fossil, Vail Resorts, AbbVie, Carnival Corp., Biogen, Allstate, Bridgestone, Wikimedia, ClubCorp, Nike, Abercrombie & Fitch, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and Ford Motor Co., among others.

Ms. Seenandan is co-managing partner at Hanold Associates and leads the firm’s global diversity, equity, and inclusion practice and its HR advisory practice. She provides interim executive advisory services in senior-level HR roles, serving clients such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Madison Dearborn, and the New York Times. Ms. Seenandan joined the firm from Nielsen, where she served as SVP of human resources for North America consumer.

Related: Hanold Associates Recruits Chief People Officer for AHEAD 

Ms. Kennedy is a partner with Hanold Associates specializing in recruiting HR executives and diversity and inclusion officers with a passion for non-profit, mission-driven and philanthropic organizations. Prior to joining Hanold Associates, she worked as a corps member with Teach For America and taught in a head start preschool classroom in the West Englewood community of Chicago.

Hanold Associates Recruits Chief People and Culture Officer for Major League Baseball

Hanold Associates HR & Diversity Executive Search has placed Michele Meyer-Shipp as chief people and culture officer for Major League Baseball. Jason Hanold, CEO and co-managing partner of the search firm, led the assignment. “Michele is an exceptional leader and an inspirational person,” said Mr. Hanold. “She will have an incredibly positive impact on Major League Baseball in this newly created role within the commissioner’s office.”

“I am very pleased that Michele is joining us to fill this vital role for Major League Baseball,” said commissioner Robert D. Manfred. “Michele’s outstanding record of accomplishment will be a valuable addition to our senior leadership team, the hiring and development of our employees, and industry initiatives. We are excited for her to get started.”

Ms. Peña, a partner with the search firm, focuses on the recruitment of human resource professionals across industries including learning and development, talent management, HRBP, total rewards, talent acquisition, organizational development, and diversity and inclusion. Previously, she was an executive recruiter for Korn Ferry where she specialized in recruiting chief financial officers and finance executives. Before Korn Ferry, Ms. Peña was senior director of business development and account management for Latin America and the U.S. for the Corporate Executive Board in its information technology practice.

Mr. Watson, head of communications for Hanold Associates, is based in Salt Lake City, UT. He specializes in employee communications and has a passion for building company cultures that are transparent, productive, and safe for all team members, according to the search firm. He brings more than a decade of marketing and communications experience across multiple high-growth technology companies, including three different unicorns based in the Silicon Slopes. Prior to Hanold Associates, Mr. Watson served as director of communications for InMoment, a B2B tech company in the customer and employee experience space.

Recent Search

Patagonia, a high-performance outdoor apparel and accessories brand, has appointed Lisa Ramirez as head of people & culture. Hanold Associates HR & Diversity Executive led the search. Hanold Associates was seeking an executive with an exemplary track record of at least 15 years of experience in organizational development, human resources, training and coaching, and leading significant change management processes including equity transformation in complex institutions that are diverse by race, gender, class and sexual orientation.

Ms. Ramirez fit that bill. She previously served as a senior regional human resource manager at Amazon, leading an HR team that supported 25,000-plus employees across a region of distribution centers. Prior to that, she served as the human resources business partner for the product development team for Pearson, a K-12 technology organization. Ms. Ramirez also spent six years as an HR manager with Lowe’s Companies.

Related: Hanold Associates Recruits Chief People Officer for PE-Backed Hydrow

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media