CHICAGO: Golin has hired Edelman SVP Carrie Galli to lead its global HR function.
In her newly created role as executive director of HR, Galli reports to Gary Rudnick, president of the Americas. She is based in Golin’s main headquarter office in Chicago.
At Golin, Galli leads global HR and oversees 15 staffers. She is tasked with generalist HR duties, recruiting, diversity and inclusion, and learning and development.
Additionally, Galli is helping to champion and refine Golin’s employee benefits program, Life Time, which launched earlier this year to offer policies for unlimited time off, enhanced family care, extended health and wellness, and work-from-anywhere flexibility.
"[Rudnick] is still the chief architect of Life Time, but under my leadership we are evaluating the progress of the program by looking at an analysis of what is working well and areas that may need more training or enhancements to existing policies," Galli said.
The last person to handle these duties was Pamela Culpepper, who joined Golin in June 2014 from PepsiCo, where she served as global diversity officer. Galli is not a direct replacement for Culpepper, who was chief people officer and left Golin in April. Before Galli was hired, Rudnick handled the responsibilities in the interim.
At the end of this year, Golin CEO Fred Cook will step down and be replaced by three senior executives in its "CEO+" model. Jon Hughes, Matt Neale, and Rudnick will share chief executive responsibilities, reporting to Cook and IPG CFO Frank Mergenthaler. Cook will become the agency’s chairman and spend more time on his role as director of the University of Southern California’s Center for Public Relations at the Annenberg School.
"The agency is in a different place, with a new leadership structure and new CEO+ model, so they shifted the role a little bit for me going forward," said Galli in explaining why the role was different from Culpepper’s. "We will have different people priorities going forward."
She added that Golin’s culture and emphasis on taking care of its staffers and clients was what attracted her to the position.
"Golin has a reputation for creating people programs in front of the rest of the industry," Galli said. "I would love to be able to cultivate those programs that put people first in our culture but allow our people to do great work for our clients."
At Edelman, Galli served as SVP of global learning and development from April 2015 until she left in October 2016 to join Golin. According to her LinkedIn profile, in that position she was tasked with delivering strategic programming to elevate staffers to new levels; addressing complex, ever-changing client demands; and providing growth opportunities to staffers in the firm’s 65 global offices.
Previously, Galli was chief HR officer for beauty product company Paris Presents. Prior to that, she spent a decade at ad agency Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB) in a variety of HR roles.
Golin’s holding company, Interpublic Group, said in October that its CMG division, which houses PR firms including Golin and Weber Shandwick, achieved 9.4% organic revenue growth in the third quarter, reaching $419 million.
