Continuing Growth, Beekeeper Promotes VP Louise Willoughby to Chief People Officer

By Business Wire On Jul 23, 2024

Willoughby previously served as Beekeeper’s VP of People and brings decades of HR experience in the technology and hospitality sectors.

Beekeeper, the leading app for frontline teams, announced the appointment of Louise Willoughby to Chief People Officer. Willoughby, who previously served as Beekeeper’s VP of People, will lead the company’s global HR strategy, working to elevate and expand a workplace wholly dedicated to the challenges facing frontline workers today.

“Louise is an ambitious and original thinker who has brought the full force of her intelligence to bear on the many challenges facing HR departments today”

“People-centric HR is baked into Beekeeper’s DNA, which makes taking on this role feel all the more significant,” said Willoughby. “As Beekeeper’s VP of People for the last four years, I’ve seen firsthand the tremendous growth that follows from listening to employees—ensuring that their opinions, feedback, wellbeing and career development are prioritized in every business decision. I’m thrilled to be continuing that work in this new role.”

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As Chief People Officer, Willoughby will continue to help nurture the kind of dynamic and inclusive workplace that will allow employees—and the company as a whole—to thrive. Taking a holistic, people-centric approach, she will work to optimize every aspect of the employee experience, from recruitment and seamless onboarding to continuous feedback, personal growth, and balancing work and personal life. She will also continue to help strengthen dialogue within and between teams—a key necessity as Beekeeper continues to scale.

“Louise is an ambitious and original thinker who has brought the full force of her intelligence to bear on the many challenges facing HR departments today,” said Beekeeper CEO and co-founder Cris Grossmann. “She has played an indispensable part in our company’s rapid expansion, and when it came time to fill this role, her appointment was a no-brainer. So many of our key stakeholders are HR professionals at our client organizations; Louise will be crucial in representing their voice and needs as our product evolves.”

Willoughby brings over 25 years of experience driving people-centric strategies in technology and hospitality. In her most recent role as VP of People at Beekeeper, she implemented a comprehensive HR strategy that reduced attrition by 50% in two years. Prior to joining Beekeeper, she played an integral role in launching Pivotal Software, a company spun off from EMC Corporation and VMware, which went public in 2018. As Senior HR Director at Pivotal Software, she successfully scaled the EMEA employee base from 180 to 500 while maintaining high candidate experience and fostering a unique company culture built on intensive collaboration, empathy, and innovation. Before her tenure at Pivotal, she served as the EMEA people leader for Greenplum and Iomega International at EMC Corporation. Prior to her time at EMC, she led a team of HR advisors at CERN.

As Beekeeper’s recent 2024 Frontline Workforce Pulse Report makes clear, many of the problems facing frontline industries today can be traced to the Frontline Disconnect, with employers, managers, and frontline workers struggling to adequately communicate and get the job done. As an HR professional, Willoughby understands these challenges inside and out. With her help, Beekeeper will continue to scale and maintain a workplace relentlessly attuned to the problems facing frontline workers today and streamlining the day-to-day of their HR teams.

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