Oates-Forney moved from WM, an environmental services company, to military-focused financial services giant USAA.
A positive development from the pandemic is how companies came to value their HR leaders as crucial to helping them survive a tumultuous period, she notes. “Now, every single company understands that unless you get the people equation right, your ability to win as a company is going to be suboptimized,” she says. “The value of our position has been elevated, and we have to show up differently than before—as business leaders who happen to be leading HR.”