HR People Moves: Summer 2020

Carla Dawson 

Equity derivatives clearing organization OCC named Carla Dawson as senior vice president and chief human resources officer. She reports to CEO John Davidson. Dawson previously was first vice president, talent management, and was responsible for partnering with leaders across OCC to develop and implement comprehensive talent management and development strategies to support OCC’s business strategy. This included performance management, employee engagement, training and organization development, and change management. Before joining OCC in 2017, Dawson served for nearly 20 years in a series of roles at Driehaus Capital Management LLC, including as managing director, human resources, where she was responsible for developing and executing a human resources strategy in support of the firm’s overall business plan and strategic direction. Her efforts were focused in the areas of talent management, employee relations, communications, organizational development, compensation and benefits, recruitment and regulatory compliance. Previously, Dawson worked for two executive search firms — Heidrick & Struggles and Korn Ferry — as well as the financial services firm of Abaco De Bolsa. Dawson received a bachelor’s degree in industrial relations from Universidad Anahuac in Mexico, and a master’s degree in organizational development from the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University in Chicago. 

Caroline Stockdale

U.S.-headquartered First Solar Inc. named Caroline Stockdale to lead human resources and communications, overseeing a global workforce of 6,500 employees. She replaces Chris Bueter, who is retiring. Stockdale has more than 20 years of operating experience in finance, human resources, business leadership and process excellence, ranging from large global companies to entrepreneurial startups. She most recently served as the CEO for First Perform, a provider of human resources services for a wide variety of customers from the Fortune 100 to cyber startups. She served as chief human resources officer for Medtronic and Warner Music Group among others, and as the senior human resources leader in global divisions of American Express and General Electric. She is also a member of several advisory groups including the Forbes Human Resources Council.

Carla Yudhishthu

HR risk-management company ThinkHR and Mammoth named Carla Yudhishthu as vice president of people operations. Yudhishthu brings more than 20 years of experience in human resources and talent acquisition to the role, where she will drive organizational and leadership development around the companies’ people strategy. Yudhishthu previously was head of people and talent for BCG Platinion. She has also held leadership positions at Mars, W.L. Gore and Associates, Guidant Corp., and Arthur Andersen. 

Traunza Adams

Health care technology company OODA Health named Traunza Adams as vice president of people. Adams previously served as chief people officer for Ginger, a provider of on-demand behavioral health coaching, therapy and psychiatry. Prior to Ginger, Adams led people operations at AppDynamics, an application performance management company. She has also held key human resources roles at UniversityNow, Salesforce.com, IBM and other companies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in French and sociology from Stanford University.

Ken Stelzer

Mobile commerce optimization platform Button named Ken Stelzer as chief financial officer. Stelzer will build a strategic finance function at Button to accelerate revenue and profit growth. He brings nearly 20 years of experience in finance and operations at both public and private companies. Most recently, he was the chief financial officer of Zocdoc. Before that he served as CFO of Bankrate and Integreon. He has significant expertise in corporate finance, executing growth initiatives and implementing operational efficiencies to drive profitability. He’s also overseen M&A transactions valued at more than $6 billion and helped raise more than $4 billion in capital through debt and equity offerings.

Stephanie Mardell 

Button also named Stephanie Mardell as chief people officer. Mardell will continue evolving Button into a place of admirable talent. She was previously vice president of people at Button. As the company’s 14th employee, she built its people team from scratch through her meticulous, data-driven approach to people operations, garnering Button recognition as one of the best places to work year over year by Fortune, Entrepreneur and Crain’s. Before joining Button, Mardell spent more than a decade scaling teams during periods of significant growth while establishing operational best practices such as compensation and recognition programs, management training and development, and diversity and inclusion initiatives at Square, Airtime and Isaacson Miller.

Tracy Flynn 

HR technology company Eightfold.ai named Tracy Flynn as head of human resources. Flynn joins Eightfold.ai as an experienced global human resources veteran, having spent nine years at Visa as a member of the HR leadership team in roles including global head of talent acquisition, vice president of diversity recruiting, and vice president of executive recruiting. Flynn will now oversee all aspects of global people operations at Eightfold.ai. Flynn is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.

Celia Poon 

Eightfold.ai also named Celia Poon as chief financial officer. A seasoned finance executive with experience in both public and private fast-growing companies in Silicon Valley, Poon joins Eightfold.ai following a year in which the company opened two new international offices and reached over $55 million in total funding. Poon will lead all financial operations with a focus on building out financial functions. Poon brings broad finance leadership experience to Eightfold.ai, having served as chief financial officer at both Wag Labs Inc. and Highfive. Prior to her roles as CFO, Poon served as VP of finance at Twitter for four years as well as VP of corporate finance at Zynga, and VP of corporate finance and treasury at Yahoo. Poon graduated with an economics degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and holds MBA degree from the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Gunnar Kiene 

Recruitment marketing company Symphony Talent named Gunnar Kiene as chief creative officer for its U.S. operations. Kiene will be responsible for helping to set the creative vision for the organization and will oversee innovation, engagement and the creative direction for its clients. He will also lead Symphony Talent’s overall product experience. Kiene joins Symphony Talent with more than 20 years of experience in design and advertising. Kiene was executive creative director at Havas where he reinforced design thinking while leading a multidisciplinary team across design, UX and copy. Kiene also led the New York creative department at SapientRazorfish where he worked on accounts such as MasterCard, Lufthansa, Target and Verizon. Kiene began his career with agencies R/GA and AtmosphereBBDO.

Also Read: Symphony Talent Debuts New Composition With Acquisition of SmashFly