Top Women In Wellness And Hr Awards 2022 Winners

Alexandra McGroarty

McGroarty & Co Consulting, LLC

Alexandra McGroarty coaches, writes and leads on DE&I

Her company’s focus is on making sure executives have the knowledge they need to provide employees with an equitable workplace. Alexandra McGroarty is a winner in the Executive Coach category of Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

A diversity professional, a coach and author of the book “Bridging the Gap: Reducing Gender Bias in the Workplace,” Alexandra McGroarty of McGroarty & Co. works with nonprofit and public sector clients on a variety of topics in executive coaching and diversity, equity & inclusion. “I get to develop one-on-one relationships with my clients,” says McGroarty in an article on the Mentors web site. “That leads to better solutions for your business.”

Take a look at some of what McGroarty has accomplished over the past year:

She revamped multiple nonprofit handbooks and policy frameworks to ensure they have both a DE&I focus and appropriate DE&I measures to be compliant with the law.
McGroarty coached executive leaders in health care on return-to-work philosophy and how to empower teams at the manager level to build a healthy employee experience.
She coached executives on diverse talent acquisition strategies and how to build diverse talent pipelines to keep their organizations healthy.
McGroarty developed corporate sustainability frameworks for DE&I and team member experience that included building employee resource groups and aligning with best practice diversity metrics

Also, to give back to the community, McGroarty recently signed a five-year commitment to support the Greater Philadelphia YMCA’s Best Buy Teen Tech Center. The Tech Center is open to teenagers in urban areas without access to technology; it aims to bridge the digital divide and allow teens to learn coding, e-sports, music production and more, building the skills necessary for careers in tech.

Amber Wiseley

Intel Corporation

Amber Wiseley redefined work at Intel

The pandemic’s toll required a shift to a more hybrid approach to work. Wiseley’s cross-functional team engineered new benefits solutions for Intel’s new remote workforce. She’s a Rewards & Benefits Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 90% of Intel employees worked at five core locations, and working at an office was a deeply ingrained part of the company culture.

The pandemic changed all that, and Amber Wiseley, Intel’s vice president of benefits, recognized an opportunity to redefine the future of work at Intel.

Over the past two years, Intel’s recruiting process shifted from hiring and relocating people to hiring employees to work from home, and the number of employees located outside the five core locations increased tenfold.

Understanding Intel’s need to support flexibility, Wiseley activated a broad cross-functional team that included IT, corporate services/space planning, HR, communications and more to address the far-reaching implications of the new “way we work.” As a result, Intel was one of the first companies to move permanently to hybrid work and adopt a more robust remote option.

Intel’s hybrid-first approach allows employees to split their time between home and the office. Rather than mandate a certain number of days in the office, Intel let employees and their individual work groups decide, empowering teams and individuals to do their best work.

Wiseley helped Intel design new benefits as well, including reimbursement for home office equipment and ergonomic chairs and a monthly WIFI stipend. Her team also recognized employees may need to work from somewhere other than their primary location, so they designed and implemented a “Temporary Remote Work Policy,” allowing employees to work remotely for up to 60 days.

Wiseley is also a vocal advocate for mental wellness. She worked to add new benefits to help support employees through the pandemic and the transition afterward. Intel rolled out a robust mental wellness support model to improve awareness, reduce stigma and increase access, offering new digital access to therapy and coaching, increased EAP availability to 10 visits and an awareness campaign.

Andria Greeney

The New York Times Company

Andria Greeney focuses on employee wellness in all dimensions at The New York Times

She’s passionate about mental health, physical wellness and even financial wellbeing for everyone at the paper, making her a Rewards & Benefits Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

As director of benefits with The New York Times, Andria Greeney keeps her focus on total wellness encompassing mental, physical and financial health around the company. Multiple programs Greeney has introduced and actively manages help to drive awareness and engagement with The Times’s offerings.

Greeney is particularly passionate about mental wellness. She spearheads a mental health speaker series for Times employees that tackles a wide variety of issues, and also was a key leader of the team to launch a first-of-its-kind mental health hub on the company intranet; the team created an organized, central space for employees to learn about and access all of the company’s mental health services and resources.

On the flip side, physical wellness also is a core area of Greeney’s focus. She champions The Times’s popular Vitality wellness program and has initiated wellness challenges to encourage engagement and fitness.

Plus, to encourage employees’ financial wellness, she worked with the Society for Financial Awareness (S.O.F.A.) to create an event series to educate employees and provide them with individualized financial guidance.

Beyond all this, Greeney revamped The Times’s annual enrollment education and communication effort, offering support tools that led to an unprecedented number of election adjustments. In addition, she works to make sure people understand and take advantage of company programs, maintaining a strong partnership with the internal communications team to keep wellness initiatives top of mind with Times employees around the world.

Finally, she’s the go-to person for questions about benefits, fielding queries and concerns consistently, quickly and accurately.

Annalisa DeMarta

Ridgeline Insights

Annalisa DeMarta exemplifies commitment to work-life balance and wellness

DeMarta has worked to instill a positive culture in her role as co-founder of Ridgeline Insights. It’s earned her recognition as a Workplace Culture Leader in Ragan’s 2022 Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Annalisa DeMarta has always had a major focus on making Ridgeline Insights a great place to work. Her commitment to creating a culture of collaboration that has been able to withstand even the tough times of the COVID pandemic and the Great Resignation is a testament to her hard work and the value she places on employee experience.

At the heart of DeMarta’s strategy is a major emphasis on open and honest communication. She wants her employees to know that they can be themselves and open without any hesitation, and this is reflected in Ridgeline’s business practices. The company has open-book financials, works to have all employees involved in the organization’s annual planning process, and encourages all employees to share their experiences in order to better serve clients and their fellow workers. This honest nature extends to all levels of the organization to ensure that all employees feel their contributions are valued.

Although she does know that working hard is necessary, DeMarta recognized early on that she wanted to make work life much less burdensome for employees at Ridgeline. With practices such as no-meeting Fridays, unlimited PTO, remote work, office closure at the end of December, and a commitment to outdoor activities, DeMarta wanted to make sure that her employees had the right amount of time to live their fullest lives outside of their jobs. Whether it’s going on a Friday afternoon hike or attending their child’s baseball game, employees at Ridgeline have the flexibility to be their best selves thanks to her efforts. Additionally, she works to come up with office events to build team bonding like brewery trips, boating days, and adventures to the ski slopes around the office in Boise.

Anne Erni

Audible

Anne Erni amplifies the voices of women and under-represented people at Audible

Her ‘Returnship’ program offered opportunities to people returning to work after caring for a loved one. She’s also helped female representation in leadership at the company soar. Anne Erni is a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

As chief people officer at Audible, Anne Erni leads the company’s DE&I strategy and initiatives, focusing on providing equitable opportunities for women and under-represented groups, all the way from the hiring pipeline to the leadership suite. Many of her innovations have developed into long-term programs that continue to evolve.

One successful project, Audible’s Next Chapter Returnship program, is a 16-20-week fulltime paid internship open to professionals with at least five years of experience who have left the workforce for at least one year to care for a child or other dependent. Interns come from all walks of life, but the focus is on individuals who would otherwise be overlooked in the recruiting process. The pilot program, launched in 2020, saw 81% of returnees receiving full-time offers at Audible, all of which were accepted.

Erni also works on Cornerstone, Audible’s paid, on-the-job training program hiring local talent in the Newark, New Jersey community where the company’s headquarters is located. To find people, Audible partners with organizations like Newark Workforce Development Board, Covenant House and Newark Alliance to advertise the program and its potential for full-time employment.

Erni also is committed to growing diversity in Audible’s leadership, where the portion of women at the VP level and above increased 11% in 2021 over the previous year. She also helped create the company’s Impact Groups — internal groups that provide community and resources for employees with varying backgrounds and identities. She sponsored the creation of Moms@Audible and is currently the executive sponsor of Unidos, a group designed to positively affect the lives and amplify the voices of Latinx/Hispanic employees, creators and community.

Beyond her job at Audible, Erni is active in Women In America, a professional development and mentoring program for women, where she mentors minority female executives and helps them fulfill their professional and personal potential.

Christie Horton

Kansas State University Foundation

Revamping the performance management system was a challenge, but Christie Horton rose to it

The Kansas State University Foundation system needed a major overhaul; Christie Horton spearheaded the project and triumphed, making her a true Dynamic Do-er in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

For more than 17 years with the Kansas State University Foundation, Christie Horton has demonstrated her ability to evolve and grow to support a changing organization. One big change occurred in the past year, as Horton, director of talent, culture and human resources, spearheaded a complete overhaul of the foundation’s performance management system.

The system has many components. Each position is slotted into a competency group with five predetermined competencies. Employees complete self-reviews twice a year addressing both the progress on goals and their competency behaviors, with managers doing the same. In the first and third quarters, employees and managers have a check-in conversation focusing on specific questions about employee strengths, progress toward goals, challenges, and obstacles.

After five years with only minor changes, Horton realized that the system was ripe for revamping. Competencies didn’t fit as well as they once did, employees and managers felt stymied by the lack of choice and personalization available and the quarterly check-ins needed to be more responsive to changes in employee expectations in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Horton gathered feedback from an employee engagement survey and a work group of managers and got to work. Personalizing the competencies was a difficult task, but now each employee and manager has a menu of behaviors to choose from. The menu is broken up into four categories, and each person chooses one competency for each category, based on where they are in their career and how they want to progress in the given year. Horton’s changes have buoyed employee confidence and supported growth in the employee-manager relationship.

Horton then turned to the quarterly check-ins. To freshen up these conversations and keep the information pertinent for the managers and employees, three check-ins now occur: a stay interview format; a manager accountability format; and a format focusing on the employee’s progress toward goals, individual strengths, and obstacles they may be facing.

The outcome of Horton’s work is a dynamic framework that supports employees’ personal career progress, measures performance, encourages managers’ development and offers insight into what employees need — a huge challenge that Horton met and conquered.

Clare Eason

Lumanity

Clare Eason pushes Lumanity’s CSR goals to make work and the world better

Clare Eason tied a Ukraine fundraising campaign to employee wellness, launched a video series and created a cookbook to raise funds for food banks, making her a Social Wellbeing Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Clare Eason has worked for consulting firm Lumanity and its legacy brands for 14 years. As global head of corporate social responsibility, she is constantly in search of opportunities for Lumanity to participate in activities that support local, regional and global communities and causes, working also to ensure that Lumanity is involved in employee wellbeing, sustainability and efforts to give back.

One of her missions is supporting Lumanity’s companywide mental health initiatives, which include creating and driving mental health awareness training for managers. Eason also launched a Ukraine relief fundraising and wellness initiative, the “Our Movement” campaign, where global employees track physical activity in various forms to raise funds for Ukraine. In addition, she helped create the company’s Health Evolution program, engaging employees and experts to build solutions and support to thrive in all areas of their lives.

Eason also helped launch a new wellness support resource for staff, Journey Live, which provides videos and classes — both live and pre-recorded — in short lengths starting at just five minutes. The classes cover a range of wellness topics, including a series on stress management. She also launched Cook for Good, where she collected recipes from staff to collate into a cookbook, raising funds for food banks in the UK, U.S., India, Germany and the Netherlands.

She’s also helped launch employee volunteering programs, which encourage employees to highlight campaigns that matter to them. Plus, Eason works to support Lumanity’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2023 by helping to raise awareness, commitment and support to drive action and change. In Lumanity’s annual Green Week, for example, the company concentrates on mitigating the climate emergency and working together to support the UN Decade of Restoration.

Deepika Hebbalalu

AB InBev

Rising Star Deepika Hebbalalu is a sought-after expert on DE&I

She’s established a bootcamp for underrepresented entrepreneurs and advises venture capitals (VCs) on improving DE&I. This Rising Star is a winner in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Deepika Hebbalalu’s role at AB InBev, the world’s leading brewer, is devoted to advancing the diversity, equity & inclusion (DE&I) agenda of ZX Ventures, AB InBev’s global investment and innovation group. In that capacity she works to support a culture of belonging, provide people with greater access to opportunity and help eliminate systemic barriers to success.

Case in point: Hebbalalu led the development of the Early Entrepreneur Bootcamp, an initiative from ZX Ventures, the AB InBev Foundation and Future Founders. The bootcamp offers support and guidance to underrepresented people in the early stages of building their companies, providing six months of virtual training, coaching, programming and skills development workshops. People who complete the bootcamp receive a $5,000 grant to help kickstart their business.

Hebbalalu has been the driving force behind every aspect of the Early Entrepreneur Bootcamp, developing its community-focused strategy and recruiting early-stage founders and expert coaches. She also created an inspiring “Pitch Day” event for participants with entrepreneurial goals like reshaping food systems, creating career paths in medicine, building a marketplace for Black and Hispanic women artists and more.

As a first-generation American, Hebbalalu’s insights and solutions make her a highly sought-after DE&I expert in the industry. She’s improved how ZX Ventures supports startups in its portfolio and built a research-based framework to guide entrepreneurs on their DE&I journey.

In addition, Hebbalalu sits on the advisory board of Diversity VC, a nonprofit organization committed to building a fairer and more diverse venture capital industry. As a board member she participates in community roundtables, sharing best practices and advising VCs on improving their DE&I strategies and assessments.

Elena Garcia

Cornerstone Research

Elena Garcia works for safety, community and diversity at Cornerstone Research

She’s provided a flex program for hybrid working, COVID antigen tests, ‘pulse meetings’ and more. Elena Garcia is a Workplace Culture Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

As chief human resources officer of Cornerstone Research, Elena Garcia knows the culture of a company is measured by the success of its people. Garcia’s commitment to Cornerstone’s 700-strong staff during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath can be seen in the initiatives she introduces to help employees be their best.

Returning to the office after working from home for two years was going to be difficult for employees, so Garcia and other leaders implemented a flex program in March 2022 that provided for a hybrid work environment, a program based on employee interviews and surveys.

Garcia also worked to provide free rapid antigen tests and contact tracing protocols to reassure employees that the office was a welcoming and safe environment, and ensured that resources were readily available to address mental health issues and assist employees through this very stressful period.

To promote a sense of community across the firm, especially when staff were working remotely, Garcia and her team launched small group discussions facilitated by a third-party professional counselor to offer strategies for employees dealing with anxiety or stress.

“Pulse” meetings were launched to supplement Cornerstone’s annual engagement survey. These were one-on-one interviews in which managers met with team members to understand each other’s goals. The perspectives gathered informed the programs, benefits, and opportunities Garcia and her team have launched to support and retain talent.

Garcia also serves on the DEI Council, which is responsible for maintaining the firm’s inclusive culture. With targeted surveys and companywide awareness trainings on microaggressions and preferred pronouns, the DEI Council strives to elevate awareness and enhance engagement. In addition, Garcia organized the launch of seven employee-led affinity groups to provide a platform for employees to connect openly.

Cornerstone Research was recognized as a “Best Workplace” by Inc. magazine in 2021, and Vault named it a “Best Consulting Firm,” demonstrating Garcia’s success at the center of programs that ensure the company remains a place where employees feel supported, valued and empowered to succeed.

Emily Woll

Stage Marketing

Emily Woll takes care of employees and clients with equal gusto

As COO of Stage Marketing, Emily Woll applies her core values of integrity, positivity and persistence to her dealings with employees, clients, contractors and partners. That makes her a Dynamic Do-er in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Emily Woll, COO of Stage Marketing, was tasked with guiding the marketing agency through a corporate rebrand in the past year, aligning the company’s resources to the talents of its growing team so it could better serve clients in creative ways over multiple platforms. The rebrand was designed to reflect the company’s core mission of guiding clients’ marketing strategy and services through different stages of growth, from startup to small business to enterprise.

Under Woll’s leadership, Stage stepped up to provide strategic, creative, lead generation, live-event planning, and managed services across traditional and digital channels.

At the same time as the rebranding, Woll also spearheaded the adoption of the company’s new human resource information system, Rippling, for scheduling PTO, tracking payroll and managing benefits and apps. The system gives employees information at their fingertips, delivered with enhanced visuals for improved understanding.

Woll also has been instrumental in strengthening Stage’s hiring practices, where she and her team are charged with recruiting the best people and then creating a position that fits their individual talents — as opposed to simply hiring for whatever position may be open at any given time. This approach has served the company and its clients well, and also increases employee satisfaction and retention.

Woll also champions the advancement of women in the workplace. Stage Marketing’s staff is more than 50% female, with women holding positions in management and top leadership.

One anecdote illustrates Woll’s commitment to both employees and Stage’s clients: A discussion among employees broke out one day over the difficulty of clients requesting immediate remote meetings when some employees hadn’t previously arranged childcare. After a quick meeting between Woll and the company’s founder, Stage Marketing announced it would provide in-office childcare for anyone needing it to attend a client meeting — a solution on the fly that fit everyone’s needs.

Jaclyn Senner

AB InBev

Jackie Senner leads the DE&I charge at AB InBev

Jackie Senner developed the company’s first DE&I strategy, helped earn an important certification and implemented inclusive new employee benefits, making her a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Over the past year, Jackie Senner has established herself as a companywide expert on DE&I, leading workshops and training sessions on topics ranging from inclusion, race and privilege to inequity, gender and identity. As global vice president, diversity & inclusion for AB InBev, the world’s leading brewer, Senner and her team serve 169,000 associates in more than 50 countries, helping AB InBev create an inclusive, empowered and equitable future for colleagues, customers, consumers and communities.

Among her accomplishments, Senner developed the first DE&I strategy for ZX Ventures, AB InBev’s global investment and innovation group, and introduced tools to assess and improve the organization’s recruitment and hiring processes, leading to more diverse candidate slates and hiring teams.

Senner also was instrumental in ZX Ventures earning Level 1 Certification from Diversity VC, which assesses a company’s recruitment, culture, and other policies related to DE&I best practices. To further develop and retain diverse talent, she offered one-on-one executive coaching and launched a “ramp on” program to help parents transition back to the workplace after taking parental leave.

In addition, Senner led the creation of the Early Entrepreneur Bootcamp, an initiative empowering people from underrepresented backgrounds by providing tools, resources, support and funding to launch their own businesses.

Senner is building a DE&I-focused strategy to track key metrics and gain insights to translate the company’s DE&I strategy into concrete actions for colleagues in all areas of the business.

Currently, Senner leads a team helping to provide AB InBev’s new 10-year strategy with diverse teams to innovate and anticipate shifts in consumer needs. To that end, Senner has partnered with colleagues across the company to help drive DE&I learning throughout the value chain.

During Senner’s tenure, AB InBev has introduced new inclusive benefits, such as gender affirming medical support for trans colleagues in the U.S. and name change support for trans colleagues in Brazil.

Jamie Evans, MD, MPH

Array Behavioral Care

Clinician, heal yourself: Dr. Jamie Evans provides mental health support for those helping patients

Dr. Jamie Evans takes the lead in preventing burnout in her staff so they can do their jobs effectively, making her a Mental Health Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Externally, Dr. Jamie Evans’ role as medical director at Array Behavioral Care involves overseeing psychiatric care for underserved individuals in crisis. Internally, she supports the wellness of Array clinicians and employees by creating an environment where they can achieve work/life balance and thrive.

For Evans, the mental health of Array’s patients depends on the mental health of its behavioral health clinicians — the people who shoulder so much while patients live through some of their most challenging times. Clinicians often go home from work mentally and physically drained, with barely any energy for family or friends, especially as COVID-19 increased the demand for mental health care.

During this stressful time, Evans built training into the orientation process around burnout symptoms and options to relieve stress and created a dedicated “Clinician Wellness” resource page to help make clinicians aware of Array’s internal and external support resources. She hosted two virtual clinician community events on preventing, identifying and treating burnout, and also provided complimentary access to the CALM app, Stresspal’s resiliency course and a biweekly live mindfulness-based stress reduction training.

Evans implemented a single-question burnout rating scale that clinicians answer whenever they schedule meetings with an Array clinical leader. The system alerts Array of a clinician’s wellbeing in real time, and allows Array to funnel support to them, while also collecting data on aggregate trends. In addition, she’s set up a peer-to-peer program and rolled out employee resource groups, both of which help build connections between staff members and lets people feel seen even while working remotely.

Under Evans’ leadership, Array saw a 33% improvement from 2020 to 2021 in employees feeling that Array provided adequate stress and burnout support, and a 46% improvement in Array’s Clinician Net Promoter Score.

Kelly Lewis

Array Behavioral Care

Chief people officer transforms the culture and environment at Array Behavioral Health

Kelly Lewis, chief people officer with a telepsychiatry service provider, is on a mission to transform access to quality, timely behavioral health care; she is being recognized as a Workplace Culture Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Kelly Lewis is chief people officer at Array Behavioral Care, a telepsychiatry service provider. Her personal experience has given Lewis a strong connection to Array’s mission to transform access to quality behavioral care services through innovative applications of technology. She brings that passion to her work every day.

She joined Array in late 2020 when the organization went through some major transitions including a merger and a rebrand. Lewis took the lead to refocus the organization’s core of creating an excellent culture and environment for its team. She began with an assessment of what the organization needed and then began to staff and resource her vision.

By July of 2021, she had established a comprehensive people services division and began to make swift progress on her goals of cementing Array’s reputation as the employer of choice for behavioral health clinicians.

One of the biggest areas she resourced was an engagement program that rested on four key pillars: transparent communication, multi-faceted wellness, training & development and culture & connectedness.

The results of her work: Array saw a 46% improvement in Array’s clinician net promoter score and a 33% improvement in employees feeling that Array provided adequate stress and burnout support (Q4 2020 compared to Q4 2021). Array hired a record number of new clinicians and improved its retention rates throughout 2021, a significant feat given the ‘great resignation’ climate and the extremely competitive behavioral health workforce landscape.

Some of the key programs rolled out to enhance Array’s culture included:

Robust DE&I committee including a DE&I Charter.
Peer-to-peer program.
Affinity Groups (Employee Resource Groups).
DE&I-focused internship program.
New learning management system.
A continued education committee.
Wellness and burnout reduction supports including training, discussions and the CALM app.
A strong focus on building rapport, performance and quality discussions between clinicians and their clinical supervisors.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction programs.

Lewis has contributed so much to improve Array’s culture, communications, talent acquisition and diversity and inclusion efforts. Many who have worked with Lewis have heard her say “be someone’s bright.” She is committed to encouraging employees to bring their unique selves to work and her passion, drive, incredible energy, and openness have truly been a beacon of “bright.”

Lanett Austin

Curaleaf

Lanett Austin cultivates DE&I in the cannabis industry

At Curaleaf, Lanett Austin has launched a DE&I task force, championed mentoring, arranged HBCU tours and much more, earning her Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Curaleaf, once a small medical cannabis provider, has evolved into a global company and undisputed industry leader. Hired from its New York regional office in 2018, Lanett Austin has similarly grown into her role of vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion and talent management.

Austin has been instrumental in a wide range of programs and initiatives that have improved Curaleaf culture and empowered team members. Here’s a short list:

Curaleaf’s diversity, equity & inclusion task force. Austin formalized and built out the company’s DE&I task force and also launched six employee resource groups (ERGs) to provide monthly activations and accountability around Curaleaf’s DE&I initiatives. Some of the ERGs include a “Black in Cannabis” panel, AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) awareness and LGBTQ+ education.
Austin leads the company’s pilot mentorship program, which is focused on empowering and elevating women within Curaleaf and the cannabis industry by fostering talent, career growth and engagement. She’s working toward rolling out the program companywide in 2023.
HBCU tours. Austin has forged partnerships with several historically black colleges and universities to increase cannabis career opportunities. The effort engaged more than 2,000 students, resulting in internships for students and increased company visibility and branding among communities of color and the underrepresented.
Unconscious bias/anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training. Using an innovative and science-based approach, Austin helped Curaleaf address and manage unconscious behaviors in the workplace, creating a culture that fosters inclusion and celebrates diversity.
LinkedIn Learning program. Austin led the rollout of a digital learning platform that provided opportunities for team members to gain and grow skills. Through the program, Curaleaf employees earn certificates and attain personal and professional goals.

“Cultivate the Leader in You” development program. Austin created and launched a three-month leadership development program with leadership courses and roundtable discussions for team members interested in growing and developing their leadership skills.

Leah Huganir

Endo International

Leah Huganir’s efforts helped propel Endo’s culture programs

Endo HR People Operations Manager Leah Huganir supports the company’s high-touch, purpose-driven culture in its global team of 3,000 workers. Her efforts have been recognized with one of Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards in the Workplace Culture Leaders category.

Leah Huganir welcomes about 70 new team members per quarter and passes on the company’s vision, mission, values and behaviors during new hire orientation. She also teaches DE&I principles of respect and inclusion during onboarding sessions.

Huganir launched the Endo Student Development Program this spring, partnering with Endo’s DEI and Talent Acquisition departments to recruit students from the community and build a pipeline of diverse, entry-level professionals.

Huganir onboarded 33 interns at the company and aided in their professional development by offering networking, wellbeing and career advancement seminars.

She launched the Endo Experience program, which included picnics held in the fall and spring at the company’s two corporate offices. The events allowed the Endo CEO Blaise Coleman and other leaders to reconnect for the first time in person since the pandemic.

Other Endo Experience events included wellbeing-focused webcasts, biweekly “Wisdom Wednesdays” trivia games, vision boards, stretch breaks and mindfulness meditation sessions.

Huganir also reinvented the company’s Endo Gives corporate giving program by planning in-person and virtual opportunities to give back to local communities. Further, she planned donation and food drives during the holidays, where 45 team members assembled 400 personal hygiene kits for food insecurity organizations. A virtual giving program she established donated $9,700 to several hunger organizations.

She also managed Endo’s first-ever corporate Living Our Values Awards, which honored 25 (10 individuals and two teams) for how they embody corporate values and behaviors.

Lindsey Hoeft

Amazon

Lindsey Hoeft’s holistic approach at Amazon helps improve overall safety at work

An assertive leader at Amazon is being recognized as a Workplace Safety Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Lindsey Hoeft consistently demonstrates her super strength as a compassionate and empathetic leader under the most ambiguous and tough circumstances. Despite significant challenges presented due to COVID-19, days after joining Amazon, Hoeft hired and ramped up a team of six within two months and helped drive the deployment of Huddles (safety program educating employees on proper body mechanics to prevent injuries) to over 300 sites, reaching 587k employees.

To further structure all health promotion programs holistically, Hoeft developed a vision for a health promotion organization. This team’s priority was to optimize performance by focusing on the top risk factors for chronic conditions: mental health, nutrition, physical activity and smoking. She developed and led media and public relations tours of Amazon’s WorkingWell program, supporting the foundation of the WorkingWell PR announcement and local public policy tours in May 2021.

During COVID-19, Hoeft’s efforts resulted in the deployment of Huddles to over 300 sites (vs. goal of 32 sites), reaching 587k employees and resulting in a 17.3% reduction in musculoskeletal disorder-related injuries (compared to employees who did not complete the training). The EatWell program she pioneered increases healthy options for sale in vending/markets onsite to 50%+. The program has scaled to 98 sites and 71% of survey respondents said they have purchased healthier food/beverage options since the increase in availability.

Additionally, Hoeft also revamped the IPS (Injury Prevention Specialists) Fellowship program. She drove regulatory and compliance, legal and HR reviews of the program and her efforts helped host two student cohorts (8 total). Her work to address program gaps improved NPS scores from -16.7 to 100 within a month.

Hoeft believes in a holistic approach to improving safety at work, one that involves not just focusing on injuries but addressing the overall wellbeing that covers all aspects of health.

Mary Lasky

Accolade Inc.

Lasky champions mental health in a three-month program

Mary Lasky’s Mental Health Awareness Quarters offered employees at Accolade tips and tools for coping with their challenges, making Lasky a Rewards & Benefits Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

As director of benefits at health care company Accolade, Mary Lasky is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the health and wellness benefits plans for the company’s 2,500 employees, ensuring they attract and retain talent, enable people to bring their best selves to work and help people feel seen and included in the organization. In the past 12 months, Lasky has spearheaded many health and wellness benefits campaigns. One of her most successful was the Mental Health Awareness Quarter.

Spanning three months, the initiative was packed with inclusive, helpful content and perspectives from mental health professionals within and outside Accolade, along with personal stories designed to break through the stigma in talking about mental health.

Mental Health Awareness Quarters focused on a new topic each month: grief, addiction and self-care, exploring those themes each month in a variety of ways. For the monthly theme of grief, Lasky looked at how the last two years have amplified grieving for all of us. She provided weekly topics on grief such as “Grieve Your Way to Feeling Better,” an expert blog from one of Accolade’s mental health clinicians and a webinar on “Moving Through Grief and Loss.”

For the theme of addiction, Lasky published a blog about her personal experience as a family member of someone dealing with addiction, along with resources for Accolade staff to encourage open dialogue and help bring awareness to a topic too often swept under the rug. For self-care, Lasky challenged staff to carve out time for themselves, partnered with external partners like Headspace Health to provide resources on self-care, and offered tips via Slack messages in the company’s #Wellbeing channel, prompting employees to find activities to support their own self-care.

Mental Health Awareness Quarter resonated across the organization. Each piece was included in Accolade’s weekly newsletter, “In Case You Missed It,” and click-thru analytics showed that the content performed exceptionally well. The campaign had a direct impact on employees’ engagement and satisfaction within the organization.

Megan Driscoll

EvolveMKD

Culture, diversity and thought leadership are at the top of Megan Driscoll’s list

The founder and CEO of EvolveMKD strives to embody her credo ‘Be kind, don’t suck’ as her agency grows. She’s an Innovator in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Megan Driscoll founded PR and digital marketing agency EvolveMKD as a one-woman show in her apartment. Despite its exponential growth since then, Driscoll has continued to sustain EvolveMKD’s credo of “Be kind, don’t suck,” maintaining the same culture and family feel she founded the firm with.

For example, in 2021 Driscoll partnered with Grant Thornton to perform a compensation audit and ensure that EvolveMKD’s salary and benefits were not just competitive, but top tier. She gave the entire team rewards statements comparing their benefits to the market, and increased entry-level compensation to give more people the opportunity to live and work in New York City.

She also revamped EvolveMKD’s DE&I processes, establishing an in-house committee and partnering with an external organization to facilitate meaningful conversations and hold DE&I team meetings. The committee shares opportunities for the team to get involved for different events and days in the agency’s #culture Slack channel.

To boost the agency’s thought leadership, in 2021 Driscoll spearheaded its first owned research initiative, “The Evolution of Communications,” a two-part survey and report that explored the connection between mental health and communications.

The survey data showed surprising differences between men and women: in particular, women experienced more of an impact on their mental health through communication, and the impact was more negative, contrary to the myth that women are stronger, better communicators. As the head of a communications agency mostly run by women, Driscoll felt it imperative to address and explore these findings to develop insights and tools that can help women address their mental health and its ties to communication.

Driscoll presented the findings to established and new clients, and at conferences, earning more than 1.4 million impressions, 375 conversions, 116,300 post engagements and 831,000 video plays across social and PR tactics.

Megan Mulka

Lincoln Financial Group

Megan Mulka: Committed to employee wellness year round

At Lincoln Financial Group, Megan Mulka provides a wide range of resources and services designed to keep employees healthy and happy. She’s a Mental Health Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Motivated by her mission to help the employees of Lincoln Financial Group lead healthy, satisfying lives, Megan Mulka helped develop Lincoln’s four pillars of wellbeing: emotional, physical, social and financial. She continues to drive these forward every day, with a special emphasis on mental health throughout the year.

Mulka is committed to supporting Lincoln’s employees in dealing with everyday issues as well as major crises. Here’s how she champions wellness efforts at Lincoln:

Monthly wellness communications. The topics include nutrition, stress management and preventive health. They also serve as reminders of Lincoln’s wellness programs.
Quarterly wellbeing webinars. Webinars focus on subjects like coping with anxiety, fighting the stigma of mental illness, managing emotions under pressure and the importance of brain health.
Enterprise-wide wellness challenges. These monthlong activity challenges provide employees the opportunity to join virtual teams to help build some new healthy habits, earn wellness points and win prizes.
Annual Be Well Guide. Every year, Mulka and her team create a resource guide to provide employees an overview of all the wellness programs offered at Lincoln.

Wellness program partnership. Mulka manages the partnership with Lincoln’s wellness program partner, which uses gamification to offer employees tools to get active, get healthy and live better every day.

Employee assistance program (EAP). Mulka also manages the vendor relationship with Lincoln’s EAP, which helps employees with a wide range of personal and work-related topics such as counseling, online tools for stress and mindfulness, cognitive gaming, work/life support and senior care living.

In addition, Mulka works on Lincoln’s annual campaign promotions, including:

Show Us Your Red contest during American Heart Month.
Wear Blue for Men’s Health each June to raise awareness about men’s health issues.
Seasonal flu shots at no cost to Lincoln employees.

Annual health screenings at no cost, providing employees with a health snapshot, measuring key numbers such as height, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass index and glucose.

Megan Nail

NFP

Megan Nail is all about total rewards

She’s a sales champ at NFP, has co-written a book and wins clients over with her ‘Total Rewards Halo.” She’s a Rewards & Benefits Leader in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

As vice president of total rewards practice for NFP — a benefits consultant, among other business roles — Megan Nail focuses on helping clients assemble well-rounded compensation and benefits packages that employees appreciate and value, assisting clients in recruiting and retaining top talent.

One of Nail’s tools is the Total Rewards Halo. It’s a circle with eight wedges, each wedge representing aspects of the central employee experience like compensation, benefits, wellbeing, community impact and more. The halo is meant to show the impact of NFP’s total-rewards approach on attracting and engaging job seekers and employees.

It must work. In 2022, Nail led her team of compensation consultants in more than 300 projects, uncovering clients’ needs and getting involved in actual project work. Her efforts have generated more than $2,000,000 in sales to her Total Rewards practice.

Within her organization, Nail has been named a top producer in the central region for two consecutive years. On a national level, she was selected to be part of the highest producers award called the Producer Council, an elite group of 28 top performers nationwide — one of only four women to earn this recognition.

Nail’s HR peers chose her to serve as state director of HR Indiana Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM). Speaking regularly around the state to local chapters, she is a thought leader on trends in the human resources and total rewards areas. This experience also led to Nail being named to SHRM’s Membership Advisory Council for 2022.

Her peers at NFP turn to Nail for information, analysis and insight. In 2021, she was asked to give close to 50 talks on the “Total Awards” employee compensation approach, as well as other topics. Her co-authored book, The JoyPowered Organization, is a resource for leaders nationwide.

Melinda Foster Sellers

Mary Kay Inc.

Melinda Foster Sellers maintains founder’s vision for Mary Kay

Melinda Foster Sellers has continued in the legacy and footsteps of Mary Kay Ash to continue the Mary Kay corporate vision allowing everyone to have the opportunity to rise while demonstrating their unique talents and desire for personal and professional growth. Her efforts earned her a win in the Workplace Culture Leaders category of Ragan’s 2022 Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Melinda Foster Sellers is the chief people officer at Mary Kay, leading the efforts that landed the company in the 70th percentile for its level of employee engagement by the Kincentric consulting firm last year.

Mary Kay’s annual survey attracted 91% participation in 2021, up 6% from the previous year.

In the survey, almost nine out of 10 employees responded affirmatively to the statement: “This organization’s mission provides meaningful direction to me.” Among the other credos that can be attributed to Sellers:

Mary Kay ranked No. 8 in io’slist of “The Companies Employees Don’t Want to Leave.”
Almost 50% of U.S. Mary Kay employees have been with the company for over 10 years. Workers have said it is due to the family culture at the privately held company.
Forbes recognized Mary Kay as one of America’s Best Midsize Employers in 2019, 2020 and 2022.

As a founding member of the Mary Kay Culture Committee, Sellers works to understand the importance of preserving the company’s unique culture and passing on Ash’s values (to treat people fairly, value different perspectives and “where thinking like a woman” is an asset) to the next generation.

She worked to ensure that employees felt connected to the company and each other while working remotely during the pandemic. She continued to prioritize company culture as employees navigated the shift to a hybrid schedule and returned to the office.

Sellers and her team also introduced an “ONEderful” new tradition in April when Dallas-area employees celebrating their first anniversary at Mary Kay are treated to breakfast hosted by the executive team.

Nirali Matalia

Saama

Nirali Matalia recruits top talent for Saama and champions diversity everywhere

Nirali Matalia recruits with an eye on business needs and employees’ goals; she also ensures all employees get fair treatment, making her an Innovator in Ragan’s 2022 Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

As vice president of operations and people at life science company Saama Technologies, Nirali Matalia has raised the HR bar in the life sciences industry and challenged the status quo.

Identifying and recruiting top talent for the company, Matalia’s goal is to optimize existing talent to fulfill both Saama’s business needs and employees’ own career aspirations. Her efforts have helped Saama build a multilayered structure of professionals working individually and as a team to contribute to the company’s success.

Under Matalia’s leadership, Saama hired more than 20 directors in the last year, with Matalia ensuring that fresh talent had a positive onboarding experience and providing the correct infrastructure to flourish. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, she also focused heavily on employees’ physical, mental, behavioral and financial wellness.

Among her other duties, Matalia leads Saama’s diversity, equity & inclusion (DE&I) initiatives, leading to the number of female employees in leadership positions growing from 17% to 42% from 2019-2022, as well as increasing the number of female employees overall 20-27% and minority ethnic employees in leadership positions 26-48%.

Matalia spearheaded a gender pay parity analysis and disparate impact analysis, a project to ensure that underrepresented employee groups are treated fairly, and launched a referral program to identify underrepresented candidates. She also oversees the Women@Saama Lean-In group, a monthly empowerment forum to highlight womens’ voices and concerns.

Matalia represents Saama at industry conferences as well, speaking at Bright Talk’s 2022 business-to-business webinar on DE&I, as well as other HR-related conferences.

In 2021, Enterprise World named her a Dynamic Women Business Leader to Watch, and Insights Success recognized Matalia as a Women Influencer for the 21st century.

Sharon Braddy-McKoy

Southwest Gas Corporation

Braddy-McKoy leads the charge for women in the utility industry

The first Black VP at Southwest Gas, Sharon Braddy-McKoy leads DE&I efforts and encourages women to apply at the company. She’s a Trailblazer in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

When Sharon Braddy-McKoy joined Southwest Gas in an entry-level position in 1998, there were no Black women in the company’s executive leadership. During an annual performance appraisal, she expressed her desire to be in leadership so she could guide younger generations of Southwesters. Told that she would need a graduate degree, Braddy-McKoy got her Master’s and started working to get promoted. In 2015, she was named vice president, human resources — making her the company’s first Black vice president.

As VP, Braddy-McKoy has created programs designed to improve what was already a positive company culture. The recent launch of a robust diversity, equity & inclusion initiative serves as an example. The DE&I program was designed mainly for awareness purposes, intended to introduce the concept of being an ally for unappreciated groups.

Braddy-McKoy’s vision has helped the program grow, evolving into multiple employee resource groups, pipeline chats and other avenues that give the company’s 2,200 employees the ability to speak freely about their lives, struggles and goals.

She’s also committed to showing young girls the opportunities awaiting them. While volunteering at a Las Vegas elementary school one day, a student told Braddy-McKoy she didn’t know girls could work at Southwest Gas because only men showed up at the school’s career day. She responded that this would change and promised that a woman from Southwest would be at the school’s next career day — potentially changing the path of many young girls’ lives.

Actually, Braddy-McKoy has already paved the way for future generations of women in the utility industry. She encouraged a family friend to join Southwest Gas in a nontraditional role. That person became the company’s first female construction technician and is now flourishing in her job because she followed Braddy-McKoy’s advice.

Shazzia Khan

Havas Health & You

Khan juggles HR duties and volunteer work without dropping a ball

Shazzia Khan of Havas Health & You has enhanced employee onboarding, leadership development and more, also volunteering her time to the NAACP. She’s a Dynamic Do-er in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Awards.

Shazzia Khan wears several hats at Havas Health & You. She’s global chief of staff of the agency network, as well as global chief talent officer, a role that oversees talent management, learning, development, corporate social responsibility and overseas diversity and inclusion efforts. Additionally, Khan partners with the company’s global CEO on strategic business initiatives and special projects.

Khan spearheaded recent changes and improvements in Havas’ benefits programs, including enhanced EAPs, parental leave, family planning and assistance, and more. The HR team at Havas ensures that new hires receive a robust onboarding, especially while working remotely, with its Polaris program providing a toolkit for learning about the agency and the brand team.

The agency’s learning and development programs help employees develop their skillsets in leadership or in technical skills like Adobe Suite. As Havas navigated the world of remote work, Khan and her team set up programs to ensure employees stayed close to each other and the agency — for example, instituting a virtual buddy system to connect people with one another and running a weekly global virtual trivia game for several months with prizes for the top three winners of each game.

Khan began working her way up through the ranks of the New York advertising world right out of college. Before joining Havas in 2004, she worked with top advertising agencies on the account management side, honing her at Maxwell House Coffee (Ogilvy & Mather), Snapple (Deutsch), Jockey International (Grey) and others.

Outside the office, Khan is a Board member for the NAACP, volunteering her time to the NAACP Image Awards and Membership committees. She also volunteers for Developments in Literacy, which builds schools for girls in rural areas in Pakistan.

Tyneeha Rivers

Curaleaf

Curaleaf’s chief people officer creates a winning culture for all

Curaleaf Holdings hired Chief People Officer Tyneeha Rivers in 2022 to help create a “people first” culture at the organization. Her track record of successfully creating strategic initiatives to build positive cultures earned her a win in Ragan’s Top Women in Wellness and HR Award for Workplace Culture Leader.

Since joining Curaleaf, a cannabis consumer products company, as chief people officer, Tyneeha Rivers hit the ground running, placing emphasis on four key areas: culture; learning and development; diversity, equity and inclusion; and health and wellness. The company currently operates in 22 states, employing over 5,700 team members. Working closely with Curaleaf CEO Matt Darin, the organization understands that a positive workplace culture will ensure they attract and retain top talent globally.

Some initial strategic initiatives championed by Rivers include:

Ensuring that high performers are paid competitively through very detailed benchmarking parameters.
Creating a “Culture Champion Award” that recognizes team members who embody company values, mentor and motivate those around them, while epitomizing a strong and positive culture.
Creating a learning and development curriculum for emerging leaders, ensuring team members across all levels of the organization feel recognized and empowered to grow.
Creating 30-, 60- and 90-day development plans for all new hires.

At a previous employer, Rivers organized and implemented a company health fair that promoted and raised awareness of wellness resources, enhanced benefits programs, a walking program and weekly mental health awareness webinars — all of which Rivers is now bringing to Curaleaf’s health and wellness programs.

She also has built culture committees, appointed culture ambassadors and encouraged celebration of employee birthdays and anniversaries, making employees feel empowered, valued and respected. She encourages employees to share stories and ideas that promote DE&I efforts through employee resource groups and book clubs while providing a safe space to discuss DE&I topics in-depth.

Upasana Talukdar

Saama Technologies

Upasana Talukdar achieves success with a dedicated approach and steadfast commitment

Upasana Talukdar, director and head of people at Saama, has been instrumental in the success of the organization’s human resources function through programs around mental health support, pride month and an aspirational management program. She’s a winner in Ragan’s 2022 Top Women in Wellness and HR Award for Workplace Culture Leader.

As part of her role at Saama, a life science clinical technology platform company, Upasana Talukdar has oversight of a number of programs that have helped the organization create a more positive workplace culture. Among those programs:

Lean In Program for Women. This program attracted more than 25 women from different phases of life and career. The program guides participants in the next phase of their careers, while also helping them to navigate through the aligned life phases.
Mental Health Support. During the pandemic, the mental health of employees was of utmost concern. The organization wanted to ensure associates felt heard and cared for, so Talukdar coordinated a mental health awareness program and partnered with professional counselors so employees could talk freely and anonymously about their mental health issues.
Pride Month for Saama. With talk about diversity, it was important to ensure the organization embraced and embodied it. To achieve that, Talukdar led a pride month awareness program that included a quiz about people’s diversity awareness, and sessions for employees and management on how they can be more inclusive in their day-to-day life.
Building Employee Skillsets. Talukdar helps direct Saama’s Capability Development Program, which ensures that each associate learns at least two additional skills that will help them to take on a new role or move faster to promotion.
Aspiration Management Program. The organization identified 15 associates who wanted to change their careers within the organization. Talukdar coordinated individual training, mentoring and coaching for each to help them navigate through their career change.

“Upasana has been instrumental in inculcating Saama values across the organization in our day-to-day operations,” says Nirali Matalia, vice president of operations and people at Saama Technologies. “Upasana’s dedicated approach and steadfast commitment is truly commendable.”

Top Women in Wellness and HR Honorees, Class of 2022

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