Betty Larson has been a chief officer four times. She fell in love with HR before she had a career in it, in an industrial and organizational psychology class at the University of Illinois, and she has spent more than thirty years in healthcare ever since. She started at Baxter and stayed sixteen years. Then a mentor gave her name to the COO of C.R. Bard, and she moved her young family to New Jersey for her first CHRO seat. Two and a half years later Bard was acquired by Becton Dickinson, she was asked to lead HR for the combined company, and she stayed eight years. A call from a former Baxter colleague took her to GE HealthCare, where she was CHRO and built an HR function from scratch for a company being spun out of GE. Today she is Chief Human Resources Officer of Merck.

In this episode, Betty tells Tiffany Pham why she never set out with the chief officer seat as a destination, what actually changes when you stop working in a function and start leading one, why the first several weeks in any chief officer role are humbling no matter how many times you have done it, and the accomplishment she is proudest of: ten or eleven former direct reports who are now CHROs themselves, every one of whom she is still in contact with.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome
00:22 Four times a chief officer: where the journey started
01:12 Falling in love with HR at the University of Illinois
02:42 Sixteen years at Baxter
03:05 The call about a CHRO job at C.R. Bard
04:16 The mentor who put her name forward
05:20 Becton Dickinson acquires C.R. Bard, and she gets the combined seat
06:58 A call out of left field: standing up HR at GE HealthCare
08:11 Why she left GE HealthCare for Merck
09:44 The first people she called
11:38 "What's the market cap?"
13:04 AI, future capabilities, and culture change at Merck
15:08 Why the first several weeks are humbling
16:40 A day in the life, from R&D reviews to a feedlot in Amarillo
18:07 What she is proudest of: ten or eleven former reports, now CHROs
19:16 Advice for the next chief officer

Quotes:

"I'm not necessarily sure I ever set out with the chief officer role as a destination or an aspiration. I drove my career more around what are the bigger problems I can solve."

"I think the count is up to 10 or 11 at this point, former direct reports who are now CHROs themselves. And what I'm proudest about is that I'm in contact with all of them."

"If you're not failing, you're probably not ambitious enough in your goal."

"You do have to make a conscious change between being in the function to leading the function. It's not doing more of the same. You really have to change how you think and how you operate."

"Your relationship with a CEO is different than any other manager and subordinate relationship you've had."