Kathleen Raftery joins LACE Partners as HR Transformation practice lead

HR consulting firm LACE Partners has hired Kathleen Raftery from Big Four firm Deloitte, appointing her as HR Transformation practice lead.

Raftery spent the past seven years in the Human Capital Advisory practice of Deloitte Consulting. During that time she gained extensive experience with human capital and human resources transitions, with a focus on HR transformation programmes. “Her extensive consulting experience and passion for HR will be key to shaping our HR Transformation practice,” said Cathy Acratopulo, co-founder of LACE Partners.

Among the projects Raftery contributed to include a Workday Implementation at a bank, where she led an End-to-End Process Design team, and the design and implementation of a HR transformation programme for a large global electronics company. At American food & beverage multinational Mondelez International she co-led the redesign of the company’s global HR processes as part of a Workday implementation programme spanning over 80 countries.

Dave Nelson, who worked with Raftery at Mondelēz International as the company’s Global HR Technology Lead, said about the successful engagement: “Kathleen impressed the project leadership with her practical wisdom, passion and commitment to ‘make it happen’ – as well as the way she managed the team of Deloitte consultants who worked for her.”

Having led and managed project teams of up to 40 across multiple continents, including off-shore resources, Raftery has now taken on a lead role at LACE Partners, a boutique consultancy dedicated to HR Transformation and HR Technology. HR Transformation Director Emma Leonis, who previously also served Big Four professional services giant Deloitte, said, “Kathleen has already made a great impact as a member of our leadership team and I can’t wait to see how she helps us to build the business further and deliver fantastic solutions for our clients.”

Commenting on her move to the specialist firm, Raftery stated, “The strapline of being ‘fundamentally different’ is what drew me to LACE, both personally and professionally. To me, being fundamentally different means always challenging ourselves to be and do more… to never rest on the success of the last thing you did (be that project, job or qualification) but to reflect, continuously learn and innovate. LACE creates an environment for our people to live these values and for our clients to utilise them to shape their HR future – it is a pleasure to be part of LACE and I look forward to the adventure ahead!”

Earlier this year, LACE Partners released an in-depth report on trends in the HR function and what HR leaders can do to navigate these developments.