Kelly Palmer

Honoured to join this advisory board to help guide HR.com’s primary research, with the goals of influencing the HR industry’s thought leadership and best practices, and of advancing the competencies and skills of HR professionals. @hrdotcom #hrresearchinstitute

Firework Ventures invests in early-stage human-centered future of work companies.

Learn In is the first upskilling-as-a-service platform helping companies solve for every barrier that stands between them and the future of work.

Upskilling the workforce is is the biggest challenge of our time with over one billion people needing new skills by 2030. Clearly one of the top priorities for CEOs, companies need people to keep their skills in sync with how fast business is changing and evolving. Never before has the workplace gone through such a large-scale transition with digitization, automation, and acceleration, and we need to fundamentally reimagine the workforce of the future. Critical skills and expertise are imperative for companies and their employees to succeed in the future, and the most forward-thinking companies are being proactive in adapting to the shift in the workforce. We discuss how the most successful companies are focusing on this challenge and setting themselves up for success. Available now: https://www.amazon.com/Expertise-Economy-smartest-companies-learning-ebook/dp/B078W5VTCN

The Consortium for Learning Innovation (CLI) is an invitation-only interdisciplinary network of leading thinkers and doers drawn together by the possibility of re-imagining how businesses and society approach adult learning and growth—from workplace training to workforce re-skilling, higher ed to ed tech. Its 30-plus participants include corporate and nonprofit leaders, academic researchers in the fields of psychology and neuroscience, technology innovators, and other experts, convened by McKinsey & Company.

As part of the executive team at Degreed, we are on a mission to help employees build the skills they need now and for the future. We also help employees match their skills to new opportunities internally so they can grow their careers. Now companies can upskill and reskill the workforce using data science to measure learning and skills in real-time and to dynamically connect employees with new opportunities based on their compete profile of skills. Degreed takes a user-centric approach to building skills, and unlike other talent technologies, we put the employee experience first. Degreed helps companies re-imagine their skill and talent strategies and helps individuals learn, build skills, and fuel their careers. I advise on our company and product strategy as we grow and expand both domestically and internationally. Externally, I lead and evangelize the adoption of new learning and work paradigms, speaking at conferences and companies around the world on the future of work and the future of learning and careers. I advise companies and business leaders on how they can upskill and reskill their workforce and help create strategies that leverage technology, use data and talent analytics, and drive a culture of continuous learning.

I was recruited to LinkedIn to start a learning/talent organization from the ground up. I created a vision and strategy and assembled one of the most innovative learning and talent teams in the industry. The goal was to realize a new vision for careers, learning, and performance. I was responsible for LinkedIn's overall company talent development/management vision and strategy. That included learning technology, career development, Inclusion and Diversity, employee engagement, executive coaching, leadership & management development, performance management, as well as onboarding. We created best-in-class talent strategies while cultivating the culture and values throughout LinkedIn, which was crucial to our business success. During my four years at LinkedIn, we grew from 2,000 employees to over 11,000. Our employee engagement scores were consistently in the 90th percentile, and our learning platform and programs consistently won industry awards. As part of the learning strategy, my team and I envisioned, designed, and developed LinkedIn's internal global learning platform, LearnIn. Our small team of designers and developers created this learning platform because none existed in the market that could really focus on personalized learning. LearnIn allowed employees to discover and curate both formal and informal learning (including videos, tutorials, digital books, tech talks, experiential classroom learning, virtual learning, and blended MOOCs and elearning). We focused on content curation (original and partner content), content personalization, and incorporating social features like internal learning influencers, learning recommendations, collaboration, and trending. We wanted LInkedIn employees to have a transformational experience, so we enabled that through guided skill and career assessments for determining what you want to do, where you want to go, and then we help with what you need to get there.

Member of the board for Taproot Foundation. Taproot's mission is to lead, mobilize, and engage professionals in pro bono service that drives social change.

Responsible for the learning vision and strategy at Yahoo! for approximately 10,000 Yahoo! employees globally. Started a learning function focused on innovative, future-focused skills academies, project-based engineering and product designer bootcamps, agile development transformation, innovation, and design thinking. Focused on a learning technology strategy and designed and developed an online, role-based global learning platform that incorporated content libraries, videos, collaboration, and curated content.

Responsible for a 150-person worldwide team that designed and developed learning products for customers, employees, partners, and communities. Responsible for revenue goals for a $300M customer training business as well as employee satisfaction metrics for leadership, sales, services, and professional development training for 45,000 employees. Developed innovative, technology-focused learning products that focused on professional development, leadership development, compliance, new employee onboarding, technical training, sales training, and services training. Won numerous industry awards for innovation in the learning field.