Gavin Pommernelle, MBA

HR Practice Leader

Gavin Pommernelle has over 20 years of global leadership and human resources experience across profit and non-profit organizations in healthcare, consumer goods, medical technology, marketing and professional services, and technology. Since 2012, Gavin has consulted with domestic and international clients including among many, Seattle Children’s Hospital, WebMD, Remedy Partners, Safeguard Scientifics, Narcolepsy Network, Syapse, and Vision Critical. He brings a unique, culturally-informed perspective to his HR solutions, talent assessment, and executive coaching and has developed talent solutions in over 60 markets having been based in New York, London, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, and South Africa.

Prior to consulting, Gavin served as Chief HR Officer within organizations facing needs for rapid growth within fast-change business environments. At Harte Hanks (an international marketing business based in Texas), he led a cultural re-alignment needed to achieve business strategy through the introduction of a performance-based culture, through leadership coaching and talent strategies increased employee engagement scores by more than 15 index points, reduced employee churn by 30% within a 12-month period, and improved satisfaction scores for in-house HR partnership and services by 80%. At Synovate (a global market research business based in London), he built the leadership team’s capability which added 70% value to the business in 2 years through coaching, focus, personal performance and team dynamics. At Pentland Group (London-based owner of clothing and footwear brands including Speedo and Ellesse), he implemented a group-wide high potential talent identification methodology, was Change Leader for a worldwide ERP system implementation and created of a Global Reward and Benefits structure. Earlier roles in Southern Africa include the Project Lead for ISO9000 implementation in Sandoz and Sales Manager at Shoprite. His combination of HR function and line management roles has been invaluable to the perspectives and solutions Gavin brings to clients.

Enhancing his Bachelor’s degree in Organizational Psychology and Economics from the University of Natal, South Africa, Gavin earned his MBA from Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. Additionally, to have a greater and enduring impact on teams and organizations with which he works, he completed in-depth programs on Leading Strategy & Change (Ashridge University, UK) and Project Management (Cranfield University, UK). He is a member of the International Coach Federation and is accredited by the British Psychological Society with extensive experience using assessment tools in coaching, leadership development, team development and talent management. He is certified to utilize tools including Hogan, 16PF, OPQ, PXT Select, CPI, DISC and MBTI and to deliver Five Behaviors of a Cohesive Team programs.

Gavin is committed to volunteer leadership and currently is a board member of VolunteerSquare (a non-profit bringing volunteers and agencies together) and the Association for Talent Development (ATD) Southern Connecticut as well as Chief HR Officer Educational Track Co-Leader for the 2018 TriState SHRM Conference.