Manage HR Magazine: Specials Magazine
As Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer at Montage International, I have the privilege of thinking about one of the most important elements of our business: the people who bring our brands to life. In luxury hospitality, experience is our product. It is expressed through design, service, culinary artistry and a sense of place—but ultimately, it is delivered by people. That makes the Associate Experience (AX) far more than a human resources initiative or a collection of programs. It is a business strategy and a deliberate approach to how we attract, select, engage, develop and transition our people. At Montage International, we have intentionally built our Associate Experience around five interconnected pillars: Attract/Select, Belonging, Leadership, Growth and Transition. Together, they provide a framework for considering the full associate journey—and for creating the conditions in which people can do their best work. Attract/Select Our commitment to AX begins before someone ever joins Montage. We are intentional about the talent we attract and select because we know that luxury hospitality requires more than technical capability. It requires curiosity, empathy, judgment, generosity and an authentic desire to serve. That begins with how we tell our story. We want our employer brand to authentically reflect our values and the culture associates will experience once they join us. The question is not simply, how do we fill a role? It is, what elements of our culture are we highlighting to attract the right talent? At the leadership level, Talent Plus assessments help us understand how an individual’s natural talents align with the demands of the role. Five years of analyzing assessment data alongside performance and associate data have helped us establish meaningful benchmarks for high-performing talent. Data informs the decision, but it does not replace judgment. We are looking for people whose character and capabilities ali
Recruitment
A startup can have product-market fit, funding, customers and a strong roadmap and still lose ground because it can’t hire the team it needs to build fast enough. AI is accelerating how quickly companies can build and it’s also intensifying competition for great technology talent. Startups and rapidly growing technology companies across the U.S. are competing for engineers against top AI labs and tech giants that can offer compensation, equity and benefits many growthstage businesses cannot match. The result is a tighter domestic talent market and companies spending months trying to make critical hires. Miami-based Resourceful Talent Group (RTG) gives them another path. RTG has built deep, trusted networks of highly skilled engineering talent across Europe and Latin America, giving U.S. companies access to proven engineers they might otherwise never reach. RTG knows these markets, understands where the strongest talent sits and has spent years building relationships with engineers who can perform at the level U.S. technology companies expect. “The integration is amazing. They function as a seamless extension of our in-house group,” says Steve Kalalian, Founder and CEO of CoCreativ, a creative production company serving leading brands, retailers, agencies and entertainment companies.
Top Organizational Stability Advisory Service 2026
An organization can meet its goals, deliver on its mission, and appear remarkably healthy from the outside while carrying fragility at its core. For mission-driven organizations, visible performance does not always tell the full story. An organization may continue delivering programs, maintaining momentum, and achieving results while depending heavily on a key founder or funder, operating through unclear decision pathways, or relying on committed staff to compensate for systems that no longer fit the way the organization works. These conditions rarely present themselves as obvious failures. More often, they emerge gradually as organizations grow, responsibilities shift, markets change, or once-effective processes begin to strain under new demands. The result is an organizational paradox: strong external performance can coexist with internal conditions that are far less sustainable. That is the space in which Talented Tenth Advisory operates. Founded by Christiana Wilson, Talented Tenth Advisory helps mission-driven organizations strengthen the structures, systems, processes, and leadership conditions that support sustainable performance. Through organizational assessments, tailored advisory, and professional development, the firm helps leaders identify less visible sources of strain, clarify responsibilities and decision-making, strengthen organizational capacity, and build the resilience needed to adapt as conditions change. “We help organizations examine whether the conditions supporting today’s performance are strong enough to sustain tomorrow’s demands,” says Christiana Wilson, Founder & Principal. Christiana’s approach often begins with curiosity rather than urgency. Leaders may come to Talented Tenth Advisory asking whether they are overlooking something, missing an emerging issue, or adequately preparing for what comes next. Because many organizational conditions develop over time, the firm takes a deliberate approach: understanding the context, examining how the organization operates, and developing recommendations that fit the organization rather than forcing it into a predetermined model.
Top 10 Organizational Development Leaders - 2026
Tom Olney, VP of Organizational Development at Velera, brings four decades of experience helping organizations develop talent, strengthen leadership pipelines and manage change. Through succession planning, leadership development and change management, he focuses on preparing employees and leaders to grow with evolving business needs. As Velera navigates a CEO transition, fiscal year planning and evolving workplace demands, Tom Olney, VP of Organizational Development, is preparing its leaders for what comes next. With an internally developed successor replacing a CEO who served approximately 12 years, the organization faces a period of adjustment as it establishes priorities for 2027. For Olney, the challenge is preparing people for changes whose implications are still emerging. His leadership philosophy emphasizes building development strategies around organizational evidence instead of predetermined programs, identifying where leaders need support and existing strengths can be extended. "We know that the organization is going to adjust and there'll be some changes that'll trickle down top to bottom," says Olney. Building Leadership Readiness through Organizational Insight Olney believes effective leadership development begins with understanding organizational needs. At Velera, he draws on retention rates, employee engagement findings and conversations with senior leaders to identify development priorities. Gallup's employee engagement survey provides detailed visibility into workforce experiences. Its team-level results help leaders identify opportunities to strengthen management practices. Olney uses these findings to guide development across senior leadership, frontline management and the broader leadership pipeline. His focus extends beyond identifying development needs. He believes leadership effectiveness depends on consistently practicing the fundamentals of good management. This perspective shapes how he prepares individuals for greater
Organizational Effectiveness
Navigating the Rapids: Leading Change And Building Organizational Effectiveness
Cristina Barreira, Manager, Organizational Effectiveness & Experience, Ocean State Job Lot
Employee Benefits
Making Every Benefit Dollar Work Harder
Julia Quinn, Total Rewards Manager, Caltrol Inc
Recruitment
Turning HR Processes into Better Employee Experiences
Latania Hunte, Payroll Administrator and Human Resources Generalist, Bonnell Aluminum
HR Compliance
Putting People First: Building a more Human Workplace through HR
Deanna Wurm, Director of HR, ERL Inc.
HR Strategy
HR Doesn't Need a Seat at the Table. It Needs to Understand the Business
Jackie Tussey, SHRM-SCP, Director, HR Business Partnering, Ferraro Foods
IN MY OPINION
Executive Search
The Two Forces behind a Thriving Workplace
Sandi Judson, VP of Human Resources, Behler-Young Company
LAST WORD
Employee Benefits
Why Talent Acquisition Still Needs a Heart
Laura Caron, Director Talent Acquisition, Edgewell Personal Care
IN FOCUS
Organizational Stability Advisory Redefines Workforce and Business Resilience
Organizational stability advisory services strengthen workforce stability, support effective workforce planning and help improve employee retention.
Offshore Software Engineering Partnerships Transforming HR Talent Management
Offshore software engineering partners help HR teams access technical talent, improve workforce planning, streamline recruitment, strengthen coordination and manage staffing costs effectively.
EDITORIAL
Where People Strategy Meets Business Performance
Human resources leadership continues to evolve as organizations place greater emphasis on employee development, organizational stability and workforce planning. This edition of Manage HR recognizes leaders and specialist firms whose areas of expertise reflect the breadth of people management and its connection to business performance.
Mandy Holloway, EVP and Chief People Officer at Montage International, appears on the cover as Chief People Officer of the Year 2026. The honor reflects how central senior HR leadership has become to workforce strategy and to aligning people priorities with business goals. It also underscores the executive responsibility that comes with the Chief People Officer role.
The edition also recognizes Tom Olney, VP of Organizational Development at Velera, as one of the Top 10 OD Leaders 2026. That’s a clear indicator of the importance of OD as a separate and distinct area of leadership within HR. The featured companies take it further by looking at the range of specialist services that are available to support the organization and its workforce.
Talented Tenth Advisory, named Top Organizational Stability Advisory Service 2026, brings organizational stability into focus, while Resourceful Talent Group, recognized as Top Offshore Software Engineering Partner 2026, represents the role of specialized talent partnerships in software engineering. Together, these recognitions span leadership, organizational development, advisory services and talent partnerships.
The issue also features Deanna Wurm, Director of HR at ERL Inc., and Jackie Tussey, SHRM-SCP, Director of HR Business Partnering at Ferraro Foods. Their inclusion adds perspectives from professionals working in HR leadership and business partnering, broadening the edition’s focus on the responsibilities involved in supporting people and organizations.
Explore this edition of Manage HR to learn more about the featured leaders and organizations and the approaches their work brings to the wider conversation on people management.
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