25 People-First People Leaders to Watch in 2025
Illoominus is pleased to unveil the inaugural People-First People Leader Awards!
Meet the leaders investing in data-driven strategies that transform organizations into people-first workplaces.
These are Chief People Officers, Chief HR Officers, VPs and Heads of HR who:
Leverage HR data to measure and track workforce sentiment, representation, retention and program effectiveness
Invest in strategic programs and benefits that support employees professionally and personally
Implement a culture of transparency and reliable communications with all employees
Value representation at all levels of the organization
Make people a part of every strategy business decision
“Learning from and supporting amazing people leaders is my favorite part of building Illoominus. Each day we’re fortunate to hear about their stories, their challenges, and their creative initiatives to create people-first workplaces,” said Illoominus founder and CEO, Noelle London. “These 25 leaders are laying the foundation for what best-in-class people programs look like.”
Without further ado, here are our 25 award winners:
Caroline Skinner at Tupelo Honey
Caroline was Tupelo Honey’s first HR leader. She grew into the COO role and has taken a people-first approach within the business because she knows that their people are their business. As Caroline has grown within the organization, she's also helped other leaders to grow alongside her.
More about Caroline here.
Kelly Costanza at Cava
In hospitality especially, taking care of people is taking care of business. For Kelly, people data is a large focus of store operations, contributing to Cava’s high performance quarter over quarter.
Laura Stanley at Harver (formerly)
Laura is a pioneering people leader, bringing metrics to the table — like employee lifetime value and quality of hire — that allow organizations to understand how employees impact their business and what leads to high performance. Laura has also created a strong community of People Leaders that shares best practices.
Jada Reese at Schnuck Markets (formerly)
Jada’s engineering background shines through in her work of bringing data-driven decision-making to the HR function. The retail industry traditionally faces high turnover, so Jada emphasized retaining employees through certifications, scheduling systems, and clear criteria for promotions to improve the employee experience — and by extension the customer experience.
More about Jada here.
Oracio Galindo at The Los Angeles Rams
Oracio brought his strong corporate background to build a foundation for employee experience at the LA Rams. He’s a champion for employee engagement, with a focus on retaining and developing high-potential employees. As he’s built these systems, Oracio is also known for sharing best practices with his peers throughout the sports industry.
Jill Anelli at Tanner Health
In the healthcare industry that is evolving quickly with AI and automation, Jill not only thinks about how to manage people, she thinks about how to bring together other people-first leaders. Jill sees that the healthcare industry needs to be improving internal mobility, up-skilling, and re-skilling for employees so they can move around in an organization as needs continue to change.
Anna Dane at Mercedes Benz Stadium
A sign at Mercedes Benz Stadium says: “What [fans] will remember is how they were welcomed, served, and appreciated by the associates who work here. That will be the stadium’s lasting legacy.” Hospitality is core to the fan experience, and Anna is a leader who understands that investments in employees directly impacts the fan experience.
More about Anna here.
Veronica Knuth at Quantum Health
Veronica is building systems to understand a changing employee population, with a focus on creating strong foundation of HR data and people insights. Quantum Health has evolved in the last couple of years. What creates a strong employee for Quantum Health is one that can grow with the organization. Veronica is working to show the ROI of people initiatives to support that.
Barb Cadigan at Affirm
Barb emphasizes people metrics and regular reporting. Strong reporting brings credibility to the HR and people function, shows the health of the organizations, and creates high-performing employees. Barb leads the way on how to best track people metrics and how to use that data to tell the story about what creates a high-performing team.
More about Barb here.
Gisele Moncure at Signet Jewelers
With Gisele’s people-first leadership, Signet continues to build a culture of innovation and agility. With an average employee tenure of 6.3 years, Signet stands out in the retail industry. This is largely due to Gisele’s emphasis on employee engagement and fostering productivity.
Kelly Skoloda at Monumental Sports
Kelly is leveraging HR data and people insights to help the business understand how to best support people as the organization grows. As an organization with many frontline and seasonal workers, Kelly’s team has focused on how to attract top performers to return year over year. Kelly uses data on the entire employee experience to inform talent management, planning, and diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies.
Caroline Grubbs at Racetrac
Caroline knows that investing in workforce management is the way to truly differentiate in the convenience store industry. Traditionally, the industry faces higher turnover. Caroline is working to have a holistic, data-driven picture of what creates an engaged workforce across various store locations.
Camye Mackey at The Atlanta Hawks
Camye has helped make it part of the Atlanta Hawks mission to create a strong employer value proposition for employees. Camye connects employees with the broader Atlanta community, and that has become an important part of the Hawks people strategy. Camye continues to use HR data and people insights to answer key questions for the business.
Simon Lee at H Mart
H Mart is a beloved brand and place that people shop at to connect with where they're from, and it even has a book written about it. H Mart prioritizes its diverse customer base and employees, which is Simon’s focus. For example, everything at H Mart is translated into different languages for its employees, whether that be Korean or English. Simon is one of those people-first leaders who is thinking about how to best serve a unique employee base.
Caralyn Cooley at FanDuel
Caralyn recently joined FanDuel after establishing herself as an important leader in the HR community of New York. Keep an eye out for Carolyn's strategy, where she will likely focus on how to create an environment that fosters very best talent in the industry, creating high-performing teams. Carolyn is investing in the operations and the data foundation to allow her to scale that work in a data-driven way.
Valerie Jackson at Zuora
Valerie’s career has progressed through people analytics and diversity, equity, and inclusion work that influences how she leads at Zuora. Her people analytics background influences everything Valerie does with her team to simplify and build the data foundation for the organization.
Anthony Onesto at Suzy
Anthony is leading the charge on innovative ways to measure the entire employee journey. He has pioneered models to grow part-time employees into full-time employees with a seasonal workforce. Anthony’s strategy ultimately improved the employee experience and brought down the costs of recruitment and has continued to be a voice in shaping the community.
Anna Bruns at PlayOn! Sports
Anna is known for creating data foundations for scale and has been hyper-focused on what creates a high-performing team. Her data-driven approach focuses on how to best enable people managers and department leaders.
Robert Vipperman at Alex Lee
Robert focuses on training, certifications, and learning development for Alex Lee, which contains some of the most lovable grocery brands, like Fresh Market, that depend heavily on a strong culture of hospitality and trust. As grocer brands continue to see consolidation, having visibility across store locations and the ability to continue measuring the impact of people initiatives will be crucial.
Sabrina Kelly at Techstars
Sabrina recently rejoined Techstars and knows that better understanding the organization’s workforce and overall employee journey allows her to better understand how to support the business globally. Kelly emphasis on people analytics and employee experience data helps her to be increasingly agile as Techstars continues to evolve.
Jacqueline Beckwith at Overtime Elite
Jacqueline is setting a strong data foundation for a unique company that sits at the intersection of sports, technology, and media. Jacqueline sees the importance of being able to segment HR data to better understand impacts of factors like geographic location on performance and have the data to tell that story.
Evan Pierce at The Boston Celtics
Evan is a respected leader within the pro sports community. As a former student athlete himself, he often talks about the role mentorship has played in his experience, and he has instilled this mentorship model in his work at the Celtics. He’s often seen convening and sharing best practices with other HR and people leaders.
Erin Rucker Oto at The Bay Club
The Bay Club has a strong brand of wellness and health clubs on the west coast, and as the organization is expands across the country, it’s important that those locations represent the Bay Club brand, quickly integrating into the company culture. Erin is likely prioritizing visibility across locations to ensure organizational health.
Lisa Bettinger-Buckingham at U.S. Soccer Federation
As the U.S. Soccer Federation continues to grow and add new teams that each have their own unique personalities, Lisa’s has continued to build a strong data foundation for understanding employee experience and creating growth opportunities. Lisa has been a pioneer in adopting technology to better support organizational growth, and that’s sure to continue.
Brendan Reidy at Acushnet
After many years at reputable corporate brands, Brendan brought his data-driven strategy to Acushnet. With a growing and dynamic portfolio, Brendan knows that setting up systems and a data foundation will translate into high impact decision-making. What stands out in Brendan’s strategy is his understanding that you must empower your managers to take your work forward through regular data access and incentive structures.
