After years of working in finance and even serving as the comptroller for a staffing agency, Deborah Yount felt it was time for a career change.

That would prove daunting in a time before individual development programs were even “a thing,” in her words. But Yount took a novel approach by directly asking the company’s CEO what she could do to provide value to the firm in a different capacity. The response: Formalize the company’s HR and learning and development function.

“To be honest, I didn’t know what that meant,” Yount said. “But I was up to the challenge.”

She began that shift by going back to school to earn a master’s degree in human resources and organizational development. That helped build Yount’s path to her first CHRO role and, ultimately, her current role as senior vice pres

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