A colleague said something this week - I still cannot shake

A colleague said something to me last week that stopped me...

He had known me for years, talked with me on HR related challenges, the usual and he had no idea I speak at events, run executive workshops, or lead retreats. “You need to tell us at least three other things you do,” he said, “apart from HR.”

He was right. I've spent most of my career behind the scenes. Building things quietly. Fixing what was broken before anyone noticed it was broken. That's the job, and for a long time, it was enough to just do the work and let it speak for itself.

For years, I was a Global CHRO inside massive growth-mode companies, setting up new entities, running cross-country M&As, living on planes, working around the clock across every time zone. If you've ever told yourself “I'll rest after this next deal, this next quarter, this next trip” you know how that sentence ends. Mine ended the day I landed from a trip to Asia and went straight from the airport to the emergency room with severe chest pains.

That day, lying there, I realized something: I'd spent years building growth for other companies at full speed, without anyone stepping in to protect us, including me. This was my chance to help more people and more businesses grow without paying the price I just had. So, I started my own advisory firm, built around the thing I wish someone had done for me: catching the risk to people before it becomes a crisis, on the P&L and in the ER.

That is the real story - so, since apparently, I need to say this out loud, here's what I actually do, beyond HR:

→ I take the stage. Keynotes on workforce risk, leadership, and AI's impact on your workforce — including my signature talk, Protect Your Profit Line, and Leading in the Age of AI.

→ I run workshops and executive retreats. Working sessions, not lectures, including The Five Behaviors® and executive retreats for strategic annual goal setting.

→ I am a board member and also advise boards and C-suites. As a Fractional CHRO and board advisor, I work with CEOs and CFOs to close the gaps, compliance, culture, workforce planning.

It is the first time I've put all of this in one place, including the fuller version of that story, on video, on the About page: “From the Frontline to the Boardroom.”

If you've only ever known me as “the HR person”, now you know the rest. And if you know a leadership team that needs a speaker, a facilitator, or a fractional CHRO in their corner, I would  love an introduction.

Helena