17 People and Culture Leaders in Atlanta to Know

Jonno White
Aug 5
13 min read

Last updated: August 2026

Atlanta's people and culture leaders are the senior executives who decide how the city's largest employers hire, develop, pay and keep their staff. This list introduces seventeen of them, working across logistics, energy, healthcare, higher education, school systems, technology and the nonprofit sector, with the organisation each one leads people work for.

As of August 2026, the people function in Atlanta looks very different depending on where you stand. At a global logistics company it is a question of scale, safety and service. At a public hospital system it is a question of staffing pressure that never really lets up. In a school district it is a race against the calendar. In a nonprofit it is the difference between staff who can keep going and staff who quietly burn out.

That variety is the reason this list is worth your time. Reading across seventeen leaders in one city gives you something a single profile cannot: a sense of the different shapes the same job can take, and the different pressures that shape it. The names are presented alphabetically by surname for easy navigation.

I have spent years working with leadership teams on the parts of this work that do not fit neatly into a policy document, so I follow people leaders closely. The people below are worth knowing whether you are building a people function, moving into one, or simply trying to understand who is shaping the employee experience at the organisations around you in Atlanta.

Each entry gives you the current role, the organisation, and one thing about that person worth knowing. Where a title differs from what you might expect, it is because the organisation itself uses that title.

Why people and culture leadership matters in Atlanta

People and culture leadership matters in Atlanta because so many of the major employers in the region are headquartered here rather than run from somewhere else. Decisions about how hundreds of thousands of people are hired, developed and treated are made in this city, and then applied well beyond it.

Atlanta carries an unusual concentration of head offices for its size. Logistics, energy, retail, data, beverages and packaging all have significant leadership presence here, and they sit alongside large public institutions: a major research university, the state university system office, several of the biggest school districts in Georgia, and hospital systems that carry a heavy share of care across the region.

That mix produces something useful. A people leader in Atlanta is rarely operating in a single sector bubble. The person running talent for a school district and the person running talent for a logistics company are recruiting from overlapping pools, competing on similar terms, and facing the same questions about pay, flexibility and progression. When those leaders talk to each other, the practice in the city tends to move faster than it would in a more separated market.

It also means the work is visible. In a city where the largest employers are also community institutions, how an organisation treats its people becomes part of its public identity rather than an internal matter.

1. Lilicia Bailey

Chief Human Resources Officer, Emory Healthcare

Lilicia Bailey is chief human resources officer at Emory Healthcare, the clinical arm of Emory University and one of the largest employers in metro Atlanta. She has held the role since 2020, with responsibility for all aspects of human resources across the system.

Before joining Emory Healthcare she was system senior vice president and chief people officer at Wake Forest Baptist Health, and she began her career in human resources at Home Depot. The mix is useful for readers, because it shows how practices learned in large retail can transfer into a complex health system.

2. Karen Bennett

Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, Cox Enterprises

Karen Bennett is executive vice president and chief people officer at Cox Enterprises, the family owned Atlanta business behind Cox Communications and Cox Automotive. Her remit is unusually wide. It covers people solutions, corporate affairs, inclusion, human resources technology services, total rewards and talent acquisition.

She brings more than thirty years of experience leading teams focused on talent potential and the total employee experience. Anyone building a people function will find the breadth instructive, because it shows what changes when communications, technology and rewards sit beside traditional human resources rather than apart from it.

3. Keeli Bowen

Chief Human Resources Officer, Cobb County School District

Keeli Bowen is chief human resources officer at the Cobb County School District, one of the largest public school systems in Georgia and a major employer in the Atlanta metropolitan area. District people work carries a particular pressure, because recruitment, certification and retention all have to hold together before a single school year begins.

Her division has been recognised by the Georgia Association of School Personnel Administrators, and she called it an honour to lead a team she described as dedicated and driven. The example is useful for anyone running a large service workforce, where candidate experience is often the first thing applicants notice.

4. Sabrina Broadnax

Chief People Officer, Grady Health System

Sabrina Broadnax is chief people officer at Grady Health System, the public safety net system at the centre of healthcare in Atlanta. Grady's workforce spans clinical, operational and community roles, so people strategy there has to serve very different kinds of work at the same time.

Before joining Grady in 2016 she was a divisional leader at Walmart, responsible for talent development projects and programmes supporting more than 650 stores and 200,000 associates. That background is worth noting, because it shows how large scale talent development experience can be applied where staffing pressure is constant.

5. Carla Chaney

Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Equifax

Carla Chaney is executive vice president and chief human resources officer at Equifax, the Atlanta headquartered data and analytics company. She holds global accountability for the human resources function, focused on attracting, retaining and developing people and on supporting a culture where talent can do well.

Before Equifax she was executive vice president of human resources and communications at Graphic Packaging International, and she earned her degree from Cornell University in industrial and labor relations. That combination is a useful reminder that people work rewards technical depth as much as instinct.

6. Julie Clement

Chief People and Culture Officer, Atlanta Mission

Julie Clement is chief people and culture officer at Atlanta Mission, the nonprofit working with people experiencing homelessness across the city. People and culture work in a frontline service organisation carries particular weight, because the wellbeing of staff shapes the quality of care that vulnerable people actually receive.

Her background includes senior human resources leadership at Novelis, the Atlanta headquartered aluminium business. The move from a global manufacturer into a mission led nonprofit is instructive, because it shows that the discipline of people systems travels well even when budget, pace and purpose change completely.

7. Sara Cohen

Chief People Officer, Salesloft

Sara Cohen is chief people officer at Salesloft, the Atlanta software company behind a widely used revenue workflow platform. She is responsible for human resources and talent functions across global teams, which makes Atlanta the base for a people function reaching well beyond Georgia.

She joined Salesloft in May 2024, continuing the company focus on a culture it describes as award winning. That focus is the useful part for readers, because culture claims are easy to make and much harder to hold steady while the work itself is being reshaped by new technology.

8. Sloane Drake

Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Southern Company

Sloane Drake is executive vice president and chief human resources officer at Southern Company, the Atlanta based energy business serving millions of customers across the Southeast. She stepped into the chief role in 2023 after leading human resources for Southern Company and Georgia Power.

She joined Southern Company in 2001 as a participant in Georgia Power's Professional Development Program and has held several positions in the human resources organisation since. Her path is worth noting, because it is a clear example of an internal pipeline producing its own senior people leader, which many organisations describe and fewer can demonstrate.

9. Skye Duckett

Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Georgia Institute of Technology

Skye Duckett is vice president and chief human resources officer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where the people function supports academic, research and professional staff across a large Atlanta campus. University people work has to serve very different employment models at once, from faculty appointments through to operational teams.

Duckett was named to the Atlanta Business Chronicle 2022 class of 40 Under 40, which recognises emerging business leaders from metro Atlanta. The recognition is a useful marker for readers who want to see how the people profession is regarded across the wider Atlanta business community, not only within human resources circles.

10. Darrell Ford

Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, UPS

Darrell Ford is executive vice president and chief human resources officer at UPS, the Atlanta headquartered logistics company and one of the most recognisable employers in the city. The scale of the workforce means people decisions there are felt across operations, safety and service at the same time.

He also serves as chairman of The UPS Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the company. That pairing is the interesting part, because it places community investment and people leadership with the same executive, which is one practical way an organisation connects what it says about its values with where it puts resources.

11. Sheri Foster

Vice President of Human Resources, Atlanta Community Food Bank

Sheri Foster is vice president of human resources at the Atlanta Community Food Bank, a nonprofit coordinating food access across metro Atlanta and north Georgia through a large partner network. People leadership in that setting has to support paid staff, seasonal demand and a heavy volunteer contribution together.

Foster previously served as director of enterprise human resources services within the Human Resources Administration at the Georgia Department of Administrative Services, supporting executive branch state employers across Georgia. That public sector grounding matters, because designing people services for many different employers is good preparation for a broad partner ecosystem.

12. Cathy Hardin

Chief Human Resources Officer, Gwinnett County Public Schools

Cathy Hardin is chief human resources officer at Gwinnett County Public Schools, the largest school system in Georgia and a significant employer in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The scale alone makes recruitment, onboarding and retention a continuous operational task rather than a seasonal project.

Her human resources team has been recognised by the Georgia Association of School Personnel Administrators, and she connected that recognition to the team's work on technology innovation and advancement. That link is useful, because it shows a people function treating its own systems as part of the service it provides rather than as background administration.

13. Melissa Heggie

Chief People Officer, CARE

Melissa Heggie is chief people officer at CARE, the global humanitarian organisation whose United States headquarters sits in Atlanta. The role connects an Atlanta base to a people function that has to work across very different operating contexts and country programmes.

She has more than twenty years of experience as a human resources executive, most recently with The Coca-Cola Company, and she is a certified executive coach. The coaching credential is the detail worth noting, because it points to a people leader whose method is built around helping leaders think, not only around designing policy.

14. Felecia Lester

Chief Human Resources Officer, Atlanta Public Schools

Felecia Lester is chief human resources officer at Atlanta Public Schools, the district serving the City of Atlanta. The human resources organisation she leads sits at the centre of how the district finds, supports and keeps the adults who work with its students every day.

That organisation defines its mission as equipping and empowering leaders and staff with the tools to attract, recruit, develop and retain the best talent, so that students are served at the highest level. The framing is useful in any sector, because it defines a people function by the result the organisation exists to produce.

15. Kevin Moody

Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Emory University

Kevin Moody is senior vice president and chief human resources officer at Emory University, a major Atlanta employer alongside its research and teaching work. He oversees talent acquisition and development, employee relations, policy and compensation across the university.

Moody is an Emory alumnus who holds two degrees from the university and worked there for more than fourteen years, including as senior director of administration, before returning to the chief role. The return is worth noting, because deep institutional knowledge is often the difference between a people strategy that reads well and one that moves.

16. Le Joyce Naylor

Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer, Wellstar Health System

Le Joyce Naylor is senior vice president and chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer at Wellstar Health System, one of the largest health systems serving metro Atlanta and north Georgia. Her work sits on the people and culture side of a very large clinical workforce.

She leads systemwide thought leadership, strategic planning and implementation in her field, and brings fifteen years of experience in healthcare. The systemwide framing is the useful detail, because it describes work planned and implemented across a whole organisation rather than delivered as separate local initiatives.

17. Stephanie Smith

Executive Vice President of Human Resources, The Home Depot

Stephanie Smith is executive vice president of human resources at The Home Depot, the Atlanta headquartered retailer and one of the largest private employers in the region. She and her leadership team work on the environment experienced by a very large associate workforce.

Smith joined the company in 2003 in store operations and held roles across merchandising operations and supply chain, including senior vice president of supply chain, before moving into the top human resources role in 2025. That operational route is worth noting, because credibility with frontline teams is usually built long before the human resources title arrives.

What these leaders show us about people and culture work

Read across all seventeen and a pattern appears that has nothing to do with job titles. The strongest people leaders in this group are not the ones with the most impressive remit. They are the ones whose work is clearly attached to something the organisation actually needs to produce.

You can see it in how these roles are described. A school district defines its people function by whether students are served well. A hospital system defines it by the experience of the teams doing the care. A logistics company puts community investment and people leadership with the same executive. In each case the people work is pointed at a result, not at itself.

The second pattern is route. A striking number of these leaders did not arrive from outside the sector with a people playbook under one arm. They came up through store operations, through supply chain, through a graduate development programme, through fourteen years inside the same university. That matters more than it sounds. When I work with leadership teams, I start by making hidden tension discussable, and the leaders who can do that are almost always the ones who understand the work well enough to name what is really going on in it.

The third pattern is breadth. Several of these remits now include technology, communications, rewards and inclusion alongside traditional human resources. That is a meaningful shift. It suggests organisations are starting to treat the employee experience as a single designed thing rather than a set of separate departments that occasionally coordinate.

If there is one thing to take from the group as a whole, it is this: a value becomes real when it changes a decision, a meeting, a hire, a priority or a hard conversation. The people on this list hold jobs where that test is applied to them constantly.

How to use this list

Start by finding the two or three people whose context most resembles yours. A people leader in a 200 person nonprofit will learn more from another nonprofit leader than from the chief human resources officer of a global logistics business, even though the second one has the bigger title. Context beats scale when you are looking for something you can actually apply.

Then look at how the roles themselves are constructed. Notice which organisations have put inclusion, technology or communications inside the people remit, and which have kept them separate. If you are designing or redesigning a people function, that is a live question, and this list gives you seventeen real answers to it rather than a theoretical model.

Use the organisational pages linked in each entry rather than relying on summaries. Leadership pages are updated when roles change, so they are the most reliable way to see who currently holds a role before you reach out to anyone.

If you want to make contact, be specific and be useful. A message that names the exact thing you want to learn, and offers something in return, will always do better than a generic request for a conversation. People in these roles receive a great many of the second kind.

Finally, treat this as a starting point rather than a complete picture of the city. Atlanta has many more people leaders doing serious work than any one article can hold.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a people and culture leader actually do?

A people and culture leader sets how an organisation hires, develops, pays, supports and keeps its staff. In practice the role covers talent acquisition, learning, compensation and benefits, employee relations and culture. At senior level it also means advising the executive team on the people consequences of business decisions.

Is people and culture the same as human resources?

Largely yes, though the title signals emphasis. People and culture is often used where an organisation wants the role to cover employee experience and culture explicitly, not only policy and compliance. Both titles appear on this list, and the underlying accountability for the workforce is much the same.

Which sectors do the leaders on this list work in?

The seventeen leaders here work across logistics, energy, retail, data and analytics, software, healthcare, higher education, public school systems and the nonprofit sector. That spread is deliberate, because it shows how differently the same senior people role operates depending on what the organisation exists to do.

How is people and culture work different in a school district?

School districts run to a fixed calendar, so recruitment, certification and placement have to be complete before term begins. The workforce is also large, geographically spread and highly regulated. Several district leaders on this list therefore treat their own systems and candidate experience as part of the service they provide.

How can I learn from the people on this list?

Read the organisational pages linked beside each name to see how the role is actually scoped. Compare two or three organisations of a similar size to yours. If you approach someone directly, be specific about what you want to learn, and keep the request small enough that a busy person can say yes.

Conclusion

Atlanta has a deep bench of people and culture leadership, and it is spread much wider than the corporate head offices the city is known for. The seventeen leaders here work in hospitals, schools, universities, food banks, shelters and software companies as well as in logistics, energy and retail, and each of them is responsible for the working experience of a large number of people.

What makes the group interesting is not seniority. It is how consistently the strongest people work is tied to something the organisation actually has to deliver, and how often these leaders came up through the operational side of the business rather than around it.

If you take one action from this article, make it a small and specific one. Choose the two leaders whose context is closest to yours, open the organisational pages linked beside their names, and look closely at how their remit is put together compared with your own. Then name the one part of your people function that is not yet pointed at a result the organisation needs. That is usually the most useful place to start.

Work with Jonno

If you are building a leadership team where people and culture work has to land in real conversations rather than in a policy document, that is the work I do. I run keynotes, workshops and facilitated leadership sessions for schools, corporates and nonprofits, and I am available for organisations in Atlanta and further afield. To talk about a session for your team, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

About the Author

Jonno White is a Brisbane-based leadership consultant, keynote speaker and Certified Working Genius Facilitator, and the author of Step Up or Step Out. He works with schools, corporates and nonprofits around the world. To enquire about a keynote, workshop or facilitated leadership session, email jonno@consultclarity.org.

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