Julia Wagner

Regional Vice President, HR Strategy and Business Transformation, Strategic
SAPSuccessFactors

Julia Wagner brings 25 years of experience in Business, HR and Consulting leadership roles. She is currently North American Regional Vice President of the HR Strategy and Business Transformation team, for Strategic Industries. Julia’s team advises customers as they define HR strategies to transform their businesses through data and technology. Julia brings deep industry experience, HR domain expertise, HR value and consulting expertise to advise customers in Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, Higher Education, Aerospace, Defense Industries, and Public Sector (Federal, State and Local) in the areas of HR Strategy, Business Transformation and Measurable HR Impact and Value. Julia’s prior role was as President/CEO of Catalyst Consulting, a company she founded and grew over 10 years into an affiliated partner of Korn Ferry International. Julia led this boutique consulting firm advising Fortune 500 C-suite customers in HR strategy to drive business transformation, providing strategy, leadership identification and development, succession, assessment, executive coaching and HR Transformation services. As data, intelligence and technology became more critical to HR transformation, Julia began to partner with SuccessFactors to integrate these critical change levers. Julia’s career started in business, as a trained economist, and licensed stock-broker with Smith Barney, but serendipitously shifted toward Organizational Innovation and Transformation when she began working in Mergers & Acquisitions. These early business roles in sales, sales management, operations, strategy, and product management at Smith Barney, served her well as an HR leader, bringing a strong focus to the strategic and business value of HR. After Smith Barney, Julia held multiple HR Executive roles at PNC Financial Services, ending her career there as top successor to the CHRO, reporting to the CEO. Her roles were transformation and start-up focused, including VP-Executive Development and Strategic Transformation, VP- Market HR Leader, VP- Learning/OD and Business Consulting, and strategic technology initiatives. She has long partnered with thought leaders - John Kotter (Harvard, Leading Change), Noel Tichy (University of Michigan, Leadership Development through Action Learning), Jim Robinson (Performance Consulting), Mark Huselid (Rutgers University – Measuring HR Impact) and David Cooperrider (Case Western University, Appreciative Inquiry for Transformative Change) – to drive business and HR innovation and transformation.

Day 2

Friday, February 5th, 2016

09:40 The Emergence of More “Human” Organizations

Is your head spinning? More forces - all at once - are impacting organizations today than in any time in recent memory. Just as the industrial revolution did a century and a half ago, the digital revolution is reshaping the way we live our lives and the way we work. There is no greater headache that CEOs have then ensuring their organizations have the talent they need to survive, let alone thrive, in this dynamic environment. In fact 73% of CEOs say the skills shortage is a crisis-level priority for them. And 81% are looking for a much broader range of skills and agility, when hiring than they did in the past. What will it take in today’s digital era, with more than 5 generations of talent in our workforce, to attract and retain this critical, in-demand talent? It’s no longer just the Millennials – who will soon be 75% of the workforce – it’s the “digital natives” – our kids, our kids’ kids, our neighbor’s kids - who have never known life without an internet, and without instant access to knowledge and the world.

Yes, we’ve been focused on employee engagement for a while – and for good reason – it is vital – not just for the sake of a warm, fuzzy feeling, but because study after study shows how engaged people drive extraordinary results and stay with their companies. But the anty is up – how will you continue to drive engagement in this new era?

Tomorrow’s talent is looking for a more “human” work culture – where life goals can be pursued, and where joy in their work is not only possible, but expected. How do “old-world” organization models mesh with these expectations? How will we change our workplaces, our ways of leading, our ways of working, our rewards and incentives, our career development, to humanize our cultures, tapping the best of technology to integrate the best of our “humanity” into our workplaces?

Organizations that create cultures defined by meaningful work, deep engagement and relationships, aligned personal and work goals, job and organizational fit, and inspiring and collaborative leadership are outperforming their peers today, and are likely to continue to win in the “new” Talent Wars.

Frankly, it is looking more and more like the magnet cultures of the future will be driving success that is “simply human”.