I’ve had the pleasure of working with Stacey both as my colleague and my direct report at XPO, which was a $17 billion enterprise at the start of 2020 with over 110,000 employees and tens of thousands of seasonal workers throughout the year.
“One of Stacey’s many standout strengths is her keen ability to deliver flawlessly and within expected timelines across a broad, global scope, even under pressure-cooker situations. At the beginning of our journey at XPO, we were charged with integrating HR systems, processes, and policies across an amalgamation of 17 acquisitions spanning 35 countries. By August 2021, we pivoted to a new strategy, executing the first of two back-to-back spinoffs of public companies (at $7Bn and $4.5Bn of revenues, respectively), with the second one completed in November 2022. In between these transactions, we also orchestrated the sale of our $1Bn intermodal and drayage business within a matter of 12 weeks (in March 2022). Throughout all of this fast-paced transformation, Stacey and her team hit every single required milestone in replicating human capital data, cloning system architecture, standing up new HRIS and payroll vendor contracts and platforms, migrating business intelligence reporting databases, and mapping out protocols and audit controls to be followed throughout these divestiture processes (and beyond, for the new standalone companies). She also hired new leaders and developed new teams for each of the two spinoff entities, while leading the entire project management strategy to ensure we stayed on course. It’s not common to execute a spinoff within seven-to-eight months, as we did at XPO. Without Stacey’s magnificent team, her leadership prowess, and her extensive expertise in build-ups and divestitures, we would not have been able to “make the impossible possible” in almost no time.
“Stacey is reliable, pragmatic, confident, realistic in defining timing expectations, and provides multi-dimensional views of challenges ahead of us and how to appropriately problem-solve. Her previous experience in consulting served us so well at XPO and Stacey and her team became the real backbone of the HR function – whether it be for day-to-day HR “maintenance” initiatives (e.g., implementing a new I-9 process), or transformative efforts like M&A (e.g., conducting both integrations and divestitures). From project management to understanding system architecture, to managing vendor relationships, to building reporting structures, to linking our HRIS to hundreds or even thousands of downstream systems – Stacey can diagnose and find any opportunities that should be followed for continuous improvement. Anything I left in Stacey’s hands was managed diligently and with great care and attention to detail.
“Stacey’s advice and guidance will be a great asset to any organization – large or small, public or private, national or multi-national. There’s simply nothing she can’t handle; I’ve seen her do it all with tremendous grace and poise!”
