25 Influential Chief People Officers in New York

Last updated: July 2026

The influential Chief People Officers in New York featured here are senior executives shaping talent, culture and organisational change across finance, technology, healthcare, retail, media and purpose-led organisations. Their work shows how varied the people leadership agenda has become in one of the world's most demanding business centres.

As of July 2026, this directory focuses on executives leading the people function at organisations headquartered in New York City or with a clearly documented New York base. It uses Chief People Officer as a practical umbrella for equivalent enterprise roles such as Chief Human Resources Officer, Global Head of Human Resources and Chief Colleague Experience Officer. It does not claim that every person lives in New York.

The names are presented alphabetically by first name for easy navigation. Each profile gives you the leader's current role, the New York connection and one part of the work that is especially useful to notice. The aim is not to suggest that one model fits every organisation. It is to give people leaders, chief executives and boards a concise way to see how peers are approaching scale, learning, employee experience, culture, wellbeing and business transformation.

You can use the list as a map. Start with the sector closest to yours, then look across the other entries for patterns that might challenge your assumptions. A bank, a health technology company, a fashion group and a nonprofit face different pressures, but their strongest people leaders often return to the same question: how can the organisation make its strategy real through the way people are led, developed and supported?

Why Chief People Officers in New York Matter

Chief People Officers matter because the hardest organisational choices now sit across strategy, technology, capability and trust. A change in business direction can quickly become a question about roles, leadership behaviour, skills, rewards, communication and culture. The people executive helps those moving parts become one coherent plan.

New York makes that work especially visible. The city brings together global financial institutions, media groups, consumer brands, technology companies, healthcare organisations, investment firms and nonprofits. People leaders working in this environment need to balance enterprise scale with local realities, long-established institutions with fast growth, and global consistency with the needs of very different teams.

The role is also moving closer to the core operating agenda. Several executives in this directory hold remits that combine people strategy with corporate affairs, culture, inclusion, corporate responsibility or direct business support. Others are helping their organisations respond to artificial intelligence, mental health needs, rapid workforce growth or complex portfolio structures.

For a chief executive or board, the practical value is clear. A strong people leader does more than run human resources services. The role creates the conditions for the organisation to learn, make decisions, build leaders and keep promises to employees. For an HR professional, these examples also show the range of career paths and capabilities that can lead to enterprise influence.

1. Amba Subrahmanyam

Chief People Officer, PVH Corp.

At New York headquartered PVH Corp., the fashion group behind Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, Amba Subrahmanyam leads the global People function. She stepped into the role in February 2024 after joining the company in 2022.

Her remit covers talent management and development, rewards, HR systems, inclusion and diversity, executive development and The PVH Foundation. That breadth is useful for leaders who want to see how one people function can connect capability, culture and social impact without treating them as separate work. It is a broad executive lens on the whole organisation.

2. Candice Chafey

Chief People Officer, Zeta Global

Candice Chafey became the first Chief People Officer at Zeta Global, the marketing technology company headquartered on Park Avenue in New York. Her arrival marked the point at which the business chose to put an enterprise people voice on its leadership team.

She is responsible for aligning talent with business objectives while shaping the One Zeta culture and an employee-first environment. That combination offers a practical example of culture work being tied to commercial direction, rather than sitting beside it as a separate programme. It gives culture a clear job in how the company grows.

3. Caroline Heller

Global Head of Human Resources, BlackRock

Few people functions operate at the scale of BlackRock, and Caroline Heller runs it from the firm's New York headquarters at 50 Hudson Yards. She also sits on the Global Executive Committee, which puts the people agenda in the room where the firm's biggest decisions are made.

Before taking the global role she was Head of Talent and Business Partners, a single remit joining specialist talent depth with direct business partnership. That path is worth noticing because it shows how business fluency becomes the credential that carries a people leader into the room where enterprise decisions are made. Talent expertise alone rarely does it.

4. Cassandra Pratt

Chief Human Resources Officer, Progyny

Cassandra Pratt joined New York based Progyny in 2016 as a human resources director. Ten years later she is Chief Human Resources Officer of a fertility and family benefits company employing more than 800 people and serving over 600 clients.

Writing in March 2026, she reflected on what it has meant to grow alongside the organisation and to watch benefits coverage widen across the decade. The useful lesson is continuity: a people leader can grow with a company and keep employee experience connected to the mission through several stages of scale. Long tenure becomes an asset when it keeps producing fresh learning.

5. Chastity Davis-Garcia

Chief People Officer, Sesame Workshop

Sesame Workshop appointed Chastity Davis-Garcia as Chief People Officer in February 2026, bringing her into the New York nonprofit behind one of the most recognisable children's media brands in the world. She arrived from the education technology sector, where she helped a global organisation grow from roughly 350 to more than 4,000 employees.

Her brief is to partner with senior leaders to strengthen leadership capability, build scalable people systems and support a culture where mission, performance and care for people reinforce one another. That is a valuable model for purpose-led organisations where growth only works when the internal culture stays aligned with the public mission. The internal system and the external purpose need to tell the same story.

6. Danielle Kirgan

Chief Human Resources and Corporate Affairs Officer, Macy's, Inc.

Working from the retailer's Herald Square headquarters in New York, Danielle Kirgan holds one of the broader combined remits on this list. She has led human resources at Macy's since 2017 and picked up corporate affairs in 2024.

Her responsibilities span human resources, corporate communications, government relations, labour relations, corporate giving and community engagement. That joined remit shows how employee trust, public reputation and organisational change often need one coherent executive view rather than several disconnected plans. For complex organisations, that coherence can reduce noise during difficult change.

7. David Galloreese

Chief People Officer, Datadog

David Galloreese arrived at Datadog in 2024 to lead the people function at the cloud monitoring company, headquartered in the New York Times Building on Eighth Avenue. His route there is unusually varied.

He was previously Chief HR Officer at Figma, Wells Fargo and Sam's Club, and Head of Human Resources at Medallia, spanning technology, financial services and retail. That cross-sector range is useful because it shows how core people practices can travel while still being adapted to very different operating models. Readers can compare what remains constant and what must be redesigned.

8. Denise Kulikowsky

Chief People Officer, Tapestry

Denise Kulikowsky leads the people function globally at Tapestry, the New York headquartered house of brands that now unites Coach and Kate Spade New York following the divestiture of Stuart Weitzman in 2025. A portfolio that changes shape puts unusual demands on a people function.

Her mandate is to set talent and organisation strategy to enable the business. The phrasing matters: it places organisation design beside talent, helping leaders see that structure, capability and performance need to be shaped together. That integrated view can prevent strong initiatives from competing for attention and ownership.

9. Girish Ganesan

Chief People Officer, S&P Global

Girish Ganesan leads the global people and corporate responsibility function at S&P Global, the information services company headquartered at 55 Water Street in New York, supporting a workforce spread across more than 40 countries.

Before taking the role he served as Enterprise Workforce Lead on S&P Global's AI Council, guiding the intersection of human capital and emerging technology. That experience is relevant for any people executive working through AI adoption, because workforce choices are strongest when they are present in the technology conversation from the beginning. It moves workforce readiness from reaction into the design of change.

10. Hamutal Oren-Fox

Chief People Officer, Snappy

The employee recognition company Snappy runs its business from Irving Place in New York, and Hamutal Oren-Fox leads its People and Culture function. There is a neat symmetry in a recognition business taking its own employee experience seriously.

Her brief focuses on creating an environment where employees feel valued, engaged and empowered. That focus is a useful reminder that recognition works best as part of the operating culture, not as a collection of occasional rewards. The everyday employee experience is where a stated value becomes believable and useful.

11. Harsha Jalihal

Chief People Officer, MongoDB

Harsha Jalihal has led the people function at MongoDB since 2020, working from the database company's headquarters at 1633 Broadway in New York. She has been one of the steadier presences on a leadership team that has otherwise turned over substantially.

Under her leadership, MongoDB has more than doubled its workforce across dozens of countries. The scale is useful to study because rapid growth demands more than hiring: it requires operating rhythms, leadership capability and a culture that can travel across locations. The same question applies to every organisation growing faster than its habits.

12. Jacqueline Arthur

Global Head of Human Capital Management and Corporate and Workplace Solutions, Goldman Sachs

Jacqueline Arthur runs both Human Capital Management and Corporate and Workplace Solutions at Goldman Sachs, and sits on the firm's Management Committee. Her remit therefore covers the people agenda and the physical and operational environment people work in, from the firm's headquarters at 200 West Street in New York.

Writing in May 2025, she noted that Goldman Sachs had trained more than 1,400 Mental Health First Aiders globally as of April 2025, having passed an earlier firm-wide target of 1,000. The initiative is useful because it turns wellbeing from a message into distributed capability, giving colleagues a practical way to notice concerns and guide people towards support. It is a concrete example of support becoming a shared organisational skill.

13. Karishma Patel Buford

Chief People Officer, Spring Health

Karishma Patel Buford has been Chief People Officer at Spring Health since 2022. The mental healthcare company is headquartered on Madison Avenue in New York, so her remit sits at the intersection of the city's health, technology and people sectors.

She holds a Doctor of Psychology in clinical psychology alongside more than fifteen years in talent leadership, and she brings both to public conversations about workplace mental health. That mix is useful because it adds behavioural depth to operational people choices, especially when employers need support that colleagues will actually understand and use. That matters when a benefit must work in ordinary moments, not only crises.

14. Keili Glynn

Chief People Officer, Authentic Brands Group

Keili Glynn is Chief People Officer at Authentic, the brand platform headquartered at 1411 Broadway in New York. The scale of what the people function supports is the striking part of this role.

Authentic's platform spans more than 50 brands across sports, media, entertainment and lifestyle, working with over 1,700 licensing partners in more than 150 countries. A people function supporting that structure has to hold shared standards across unusually varied contexts, which makes her remit useful for anyone leading people work in a portfolio business. The goal is alignment without flattening the differences that create value.

15. Kevin Lord

Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Fox Corporation

Kevin Lord has led human resources through the creation of Fox Corporation itself, joining FOX News in 2016 and moving to the corporate role at the 2019 spin-off. He works from 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York.

His remit covers talent acquisition, colleague development, culture and belonging, compensation and benefits and employee volunteering, and he also leads all aspects of the human resources function for FOX News. That breadth shows how a group-level people leader can combine shared strategy with focused business responsibility. It balances enterprise consistency with the needs of a distinct operating business.

16. Kit Krugman

Chief People Officer, Altana

Altana appointed Kit Krugman as Chief People Officer in June 2026. The New York supply chain technology company brought her in to build the structures, systems and teams needed for its next stage of growth.

As SVP of People and Culture at Foursquare she built a strategic people function focused on accelerating organisational transformation, increasing product velocity and driving business outcomes. That is a useful frame for scaling companies: people systems create the most value when they improve how the core work moves. The people agenda becomes a lever for execution, not a parallel workstream.

17. Melanie Naranjo

Chief People Officer, Ethena

Melanie Naranjo is Chief People Officer at Ethena, the compliance training company registered in Brooklyn, New York and operating as a fully distributed team. That model is itself instructive for people leaders weighing how location and culture interact.

In February 2026 she ran a public session for HR professionals on the quiet mistakes that stall promotion cycles, the skills that drive most of a practitioner's impact and visibility, and how to ask for more trust, pay and responsibility. That public teaching matters because it turns executive experience into steps that earlier career people leaders can use. It also makes the pathway into senior people leadership more visible and easier to navigate.

18. Monique R. Herena

Chief Colleague Experience Officer, American Express

The job title itself is the argument. Monique R. Herena has been Chief Colleague Experience Officer at American Express since 2019, working from the company's headquarters at 200 Vesey Street in New York.

She is responsible for all aspects of the colleague experience globally, including talent management, talent acquisition, leadership development, colleague servicing, compensation and total well-being. That framing is useful because it encourages leaders to judge separate people systems by the combined experience they create for an employee. The combined result matters more than whether each individual programme looks strong when viewed alone.

19. Paige Ross

Global Head of Human Resources, Blackstone

Paige Ross joined Blackstone in 2016 and now leads human resources and the Strategic Incentives Group as a Senior Managing Director, based in the firm's New York office. In October 2025 Boston University's Human Resources Policy Institute named her an HR Leader of Distinction.

She drives the firm's talent strategy, leading its efforts to attract, develop, assess and reward talent in support of its business objectives. That end-to-end view is useful for executives who want hiring, development, performance and rewards to reinforce the same priorities instead of pulling in different directions. Coherence across those systems makes expectations easier for leaders to understand.

20. Patsy Doerr

Chief People and Culture Officer, LRN

LRN named Patsy Doerr as its first Chief People and Culture Officer, effective February 2026. The ethics and compliance company is headquartered in New York, and the decision to create the role says something about where it believes culture work belongs.

Her brief links global people strategy with the company's perspective on ethical culture, principled leadership and sustainable performance. That connection is useful because it treats values as operating choices that shape behaviour and results, not as language reserved for a code of conduct. The culture promise is then tested in ordinary decisions, not annual campaigns.

21. Rebecca Krouse

Chief People Officer, Oscar Health

Rebecca Krouse has spent roughly eight years building the People function at Oscar, the health insurer headquartered on Varick Street in New York. That kind of tenure inside a fast-changing health technology business is rare.

She oversees talent acquisition, people strategy, learning and development, culture and engagement, total rewards, HR systems and operations, and diversity, inclusion and belonging. That joined remit is useful for leaders seeking one employee experience across the full journey rather than a set of disconnected HR services. That perspective helps teams remove friction between specialist parts of the function.

22. Robin Leopold

Executive Vice President and Head of Human Resources, JPMorganChase

Robin Leopold has been Head of Human Resources at JPMorganChase since 2018 and sits on the firm's Operating Committee. She works from 270 Park Avenue and lives in New York City.

Her official profile describes her as a passionate advocate for continuous learning and growth, and notes that she has guided organisations through periods of significant change including the pace of innovation and AI adoption. That emphasis is useful because a workforce strategy for new technology cannot stop at tools or roles; it needs repeatable ways for people to keep building capability. Learning becomes part of implementation rather than a response after disruption.

23. Shurawl Sibblies

Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, MetLife

Shurawl Sibblies joined MetLife as Chief Human Resources Officer in August 2024, working from the insurer's headquarters at 200 Park Avenue in New York. She now owns a global manager development programme built around leading in the age of artificial intelligence, which she took to MetLife's Korean business in July 2026.

She leads human resources with responsibility for fostering a purpose-driven, inclusive culture that energises employees, empowers them to excel and enables MetLife to deliver on its strategy. That alignment is worth studying because it makes people choices part of how the organisation executes, rather than a support plan written after strategy is set. That is where the people function earns real influence with the enterprise.

24. Tammy Sala

Chief Human Resources Officer, Presidio

Presidio announced Tammy Sala as Chief Human Resources Officer in February 2026. The technology services company lists its corporate headquarters at PENN 1, 1 Pennsylvania Plaza in New York.

She leads the company's people strategy with a focus on talent strategy, leadership development, strengthening culture and advancing Presidio as a career destination of choice. That combination is useful because an employer reputation becomes credible when it is built from leadership and employee experience, not only recruitment messaging. The employee reality must support the promise made to prospective talent.

25. Teresa Czubak

Chief People Officer, Clarion Capital Partners

Clarion Capital Partners appointed Teresa Czubak to the newly created position of Chief People Officer in January 2026. Clarion is a New York based investment manager operating from Madison Avenue.

She serves in a dual capacity, leading Clarion's people strategy and talent development while partnering with leadership across the firm's portfolio companies to strengthen human capital capabilities and support long-term value creation. That dual view is useful because it connects the investor's own culture with the practical people capabilities that support value creation across different businesses. It gives the people agenda a direct line to operating improvement.

What These Leaders Show Us About People Strategy

Across these profiles, the strongest pattern is integration. The people leaders are not treating talent acquisition, development, rewards, wellbeing, culture and organisation design as isolated programmes. They are connecting them around the outcomes the organisation needs and the experience employees have while producing those outcomes.

A second pattern is that scale changes the job. Some leaders are supporting established global institutions, while others are building systems for a newer company entering its next stage. In both cases, the work is less about adding process and more about deciding which practices must be shared, which can remain local and how leaders will make consistent choices when pressure rises.

Learning also appears as a strategic capability. The examples point to executive development, continuous learning, career growth and workforce readiness for artificial intelligence. This is not simply a training agenda. It is a way to help the organisation adapt before skill gaps become performance gaps.

There is also a more joined-up view of trust. Mental health, ethical culture, employee recognition, inclusion and corporate affairs appear in different roles, yet all concern whether employees believe the organisation's words and actions match. Trust grows when support is practical, leadership behaviour is clear and systems reinforce the same expectations.

Finally, several remits cross traditional boundaries. Some connect people work with corporate responsibility, communications, portfolio company value creation or direct responsibility for a business unit. The message for leadership teams is simple: when people choices shape strategy execution, the people executive needs to be present while the choices are being made.

How to Use This List

Start with one live organisational challenge rather than trying to absorb every profile. If your issue is rapid growth, notice the leaders building scalable systems and leadership capability. If the challenge is trust, look for examples that connect culture, wellbeing, recognition or ethics with daily operating choices. If artificial intelligence is changing work, focus on how learning and workforce planning enter the technology conversation.

Next, compare two organisations that look different from yours. A useful idea often becomes visible when it travels across sectors. You may find that a portfolio company approach clarifies how to support business units, or that a nonprofit's link between mission and people strategy sharpens how you describe culture in a commercial organisation.

Use the profiles as starting points for public learning. Visit the linked leadership pages, follow the people whose work is relevant to your current question and note the language they use to connect people and business outcomes. Avoid copying programmes without context. Instead, identify the principle underneath the example and test how it would need to change in your organisation.

Then turn one insight into a small written experiment. State the problem, the behaviour or system you want to change, who owns it and what you expect to see within 30 days. That keeps this directory from becoming passive reading and gives your leadership team a practical way to learn from the people behind the roles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a Chief People Officer do?

A Chief People Officer leads the organisation's people strategy. The remit often includes talent, leadership development, culture, organisation design, rewards, employee experience and workforce planning. The exact mix depends on the business, but the role connects people choices with the organisation's direction and performance.

Is a Chief People Officer the same as a CHRO?

Often, yes. Chief People Officer and Chief Human Resources Officer can describe equivalent enterprise roles, although organisations choose different language and scope. Some use a title such as Global Head of Human Resources or Chief Colleague Experience Officer while assigning comparable executive responsibility.

Why are so many people leaders based in New York?

New York is home to major organisations across finance, media, technology, retail, healthcare, professional services and the nonprofit sector. That concentration creates a large and varied executive people community working on global scale, fast growth, complex regulation and changing employee expectations.

What can an HR leader learn from these executives?

An HR leader can study how these executives connect people work to business outcomes. Look for patterns in organisation design, leadership capability, learning, culture and employee experience. The most useful move is to choose one relevant principle and test it against a current organisational challenge.

How should I connect with a Chief People Officer on LinkedIn?

Connect with a clear reason and a small request. Refer to a public article, role or idea that genuinely relates to your work, then ask one thoughtful question. Avoid a generic sales pitch. A concise message that respects the person's time is more useful than a long introduction.

Conclusion

New York's people leadership community shows how broad the Chief People Officer role has become. The executives in this directory work across global institutions, growing technology companies, consumer brands, healthcare businesses, media organisations, investment firms and nonprofits. Their titles differ, but the central responsibility is consistent: turn organisational direction into a workplace where people can contribute, learn and perform.

The most practical lesson is not to copy a programme. It is to notice how the work is framed. The strongest examples connect talent with strategy, culture with operating choices, learning with adaptation and employee experience with trust. They also recognise that people systems only matter when leaders use them consistently.

If you lead an organisation or an HR function, choose one profile that matches your immediate challenge and one from a very different sector. Read the linked material, write down the principle that stands out and name one small change your team could test this month. That is enough to turn a directory into useful action.

The people agenda will keep changing as technology, expectations and business models evolve. A clear way forward is to keep learning from current operators, then translate the insight carefully into your own context. Start with one challenge, one principle and one written next move.

Related Reading

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Bring These Ideas Into Your Leadership Team

If your leadership team needs a practical session on team effectiveness, culture or Working Genius, Jonno White can deliver a keynote, workshop or facilitated leadership session. For a written proposal, 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.