Dr. Karie Willyerd

Willyerd
Chief Customer Strategy Officer, GP Strategies
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Bio

Karie is the head of customer strategy for GP Strategies, the largest learning and talent transformation company in the world. Formerly she was the SVP and Chief Learning Officer for Visa globally, the head of SAP’s Global Education business unit and the Workplace Futurist at SuccessFactors, an SAP human capital software company.  Prior to that she was the cofounder and CEO of Jambok, the industry’s first video-based informal social learning software platform, which was acquired by SuccessFactors in 2011. Karie served as the Chief Learning Officer for Sun Microsystems, and in that role she was responsible for employee, customer, partner, and Sun community learning.  She is the only CLO to have taken two companies to number one in the world as recognized by ATD – Sun in 2014 and Visa in 2022. 

Karie is the coauthor of the award-winning bestseller, The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop & Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today. She is a regular blogger for Harvard Business, coauthored a feature article on Mentoring Millennials in Harvard Business Review and has authored dozens of other articles or publications. 

In prior roles, she was a Chief Talent Officer for Solectron (now Flextronics), led the people development function at Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems and ran executive development at H.J. Heinz.  Karie holds a bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University, a master’s degree in Instructional and Performance Technology from Boise State University and a doctorate in management from Case Western Reserve University.  She serves on the global leadership council for the business school at Colorado State University. She is on the board of an emerging stealth ed-tech start-up based in San Francisco. Karie’s newest book is Stretch: How to Future Proof Yourself for Tomorrow’s Workplace, which was selected as an Amazon Editor’s Pick in Business and Leadership. ATD honored Karie with the Distinguished Contribution to Talent Development Award in 2017, an award given to only one talent development professional per year.