Sharon Ray

Founder/CEO

2017 - Current

I founded this consultancy with the mission to assist organizations in developing and optimizing their HR strategies and practices. Our services encompass new hire procedures and processes, benefit and payroll software recommendations, the creation of employee manuals and policies, and more. We help growing companies craft comprehensive HR plans tailored to their specific needs and evaluate management in established organizations to identify and address gaps. Leveraging my expertise, I focus on developing managers who understand their impact on the entire organization. This includes strategies for retaining top talent and fostering an inclusive and welcoming culture.

Head of People and Operations

2019

General Partner 2 Flo Ventures

2021

2Flo Ventures is a start-up studio and early-stage healthcare investor. We aim to facilitate the flow of resources to underserved communities and reduce disparities in healthcare outcomes.

Chief Member

2021 - 2023

Chief is a private network built to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there. Chief is the only organization specifically designed for senior women leaders to strengthen their leadership journey, cross-pollinate ideas across industries, and effect change from the top down.

Head of HR

2020 - 2020

Chief People Officer

2018 - 2019

Solstice brought me in as a short-term consultant and retained me full-time as their first Chief People Officer. I was tasked to design and structure the People organization to support the growing firm of 450 employees in the U.S. and Argentina. I led a geographically disbursed team of 20 including, HR Operations, Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, Performance Management and HR Business Partners. I restructured the People organization to ensure a cohesive approach to delivery service to support an organization that did not have a management structure and developed a plan to create manager roles throughout the company to increase organizational capabilities in the management structure.

Chief Talent Officer

2017 - 2017

I joined this start-up offering recruitment and hiring services on an interim basis to lead the overall operational processes and the delivery of recruitment solutions for multiple clients simultaneously, working with the team to deliver the highest quality service and results to clients. I led team of 12 Client Service Directors and recruiters to ensure successful engagements. In this role, I drove the business forward with operational excellence through process improvements in human resources and directed and led teams to orchestrate multiple complex client engagements, fostering team engagement to define and deliver successful client engagement strategies.

Vice President Human Resources

2006 - 2017

Emmi Solutions recruited me to bring a business focus to human resources and to create policies and processes to ensure employees are invested in the bottom line. Oversaw everything that affected HR from compensation and payroll to culture, employee development, coaching and counseling. In this role, I transformed the human resources function to provide strategic direction for employee acquisition, retention in this early stage organization, developing a recruiting program to increase employee base from 25 to 175 employees. I implemented programs to focus on employee development, and developed, implemented and delivered training programs for managers and senior leaders. I proactively managed employee and leadership issues, providing coaching and counseling to senior level leadership and managers on human resources and performance management issues, and navigated the organization through the transition of 4 CEO changes in 6 years. I contributed to ongoing cultural and business turnaround strategies which resulted in acquisition by Wolters Kluwer for $170M in 2016.

Associate Director Human Resources

1991 - 2006

Kraft promoted me to develop and implement organizational excellence strategies for diversity inclusion and retention teams, and university relations recruiting teams for the Finance Organization. I provided human resources strategy support to senior leadership in the Finance International Commercial Division. My expanded strategies included recruitment, hiring and strategic deployment of internal talent across the organization, and I delivered Train-the-Trainer activity to 150+ key middle managers focused on leadership development to aid in succession planning strategies.

Associate Director North America Diversity and Work Life

2004 - 2005

I was advanced to identify and implement corporate-wide work-life programs and policies, to provide 40,000 exempt employees the opportunity for flexible work-life arrangements and greater opportunity for career satisfaction. I insured the hiring and retention of top diverse talent in North America by identifying gaps in diversity and work life for each of five BU’s and implementing strategies to close the gaps, resulting in substantial employee retention improvements.

Sr. HR Manager, Global Technology and Quality

2001 - 2004