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Leaders to Watch: The People & Culture Power List (2026)

Counsel Collective  ·  Leaders to Watch

The People & Culture
Power List

2026

The CHROs, Chief People Officers and Total Rewards leaders who decide how organizations attract, reward and keep their people — recognized for shaping the work, and the conversation about it.

Published · The 2026 Edition · The living series →
The 2026 Edition

People leadership shapes everything employees feel about work — long before and long after the offer letter. These fourteen leaders decide how organizations attract, develop, reward and retain their people, building culture and the modern talent ecosystem in an AI-driven economy.

How honorees are chosen

What earns a place

I

Strategic people leadership

People leadership beyond HR operations — shaping talent strategy, culture, total rewards, and how the workforce is designed to win.

II

A public voice

Leaders who show up to share the craft of the role — building the function, designing rewards, and where people strategy is heading next.

III

Modernizing the function

Operators rethinking how People runs in an AI-driven economy — talent, total rewards, org design — while keeping the organization human.

The Class of 2026

Hover or tap any leader to flip their card and read the citation. This roll call grows through the year as the class takes shape.

01Donna Morris
Donna Morris
Walmart
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Donna Morris
EVP & Chief People Officer
As chief people officer of the world’s largest private employer, Donna Morris shapes the working lives of more than two million people — translating immense scale into human-centered, frontline-first leadership.
02Melanie Naranjo
Melanie Naranjo
Ethena
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Melanie Naranjo
Chief People Officer
Ethena’s Melanie Naranjo is one of the most trusted voices for business-forward people leaders, turning HR principle into practical action with candor and operating rigor.
03Hebba Youssef
Hebba Youssef
Workweek
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Hebba Youssef
Chief People Officer
Hebba Youssef runs people at Workweek and writes ’I Hate it Here,’ one of HR’s most-read voices — an honest, devoted-community take on what actually builds workplace culture.
04Pat Wadors
Pat Wadors
Intuitive
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Pat Wadors
Chief Human Resources Officer
Pat Wadors has led people at LinkedIn, ServiceNow, Procore and now Intuitive — a longtime champion of belonging and dyslexic thinking who builds teams through hypergrowth with real warmth.
05Christy Pambianchi
Christy Pambianchi
Caterpillar
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Christy Pambianchi
Chief Human Resources Officer
Christy Pambianchi has shaped talent strategy at Corning, Verizon, Intel and now Caterpillar, connecting workforce strategy directly to business transformation at true Fortune-100 scale.
06Q Hamirani
Q Hamirani
HighLevel
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Q Hamirani
Chief People Officer
Q Hamirani helped Airbnb reimagine work and now leads people at HighLevel, bringing a builder’s instinct to talent and one of the more original lenses on humanizing AI at work.
07Alim A. Dhanji
Alim A. Dhanji
TD SYNNEX
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Alim A. Dhanji
Chief HR Officer
Alim Dhanji brings a board-level, business-first view to people leadership at TD SYNNEX, framing talent strategy as a direct driver of enterprise growth.
08Brandon Sammut
Brandon Sammut
Zapier
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Brandon Sammut
Chief People & AI Transformation Officer
As Zapier’s chief people and AI transformation officer, Brandon Sammut sits at the exact intersection reshaping work — one of the clearest thinkers on what AI means for how teams are built and led.
09David Hanrahan
David Hanrahan
SolarWinds
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David Hanrahan
Chief People Officer
SolarWinds CPO David Hanrahan thinks out loud, unpacking the hard, current questions of HR — AI, high-performing teams and unlocking human potential — for a large practitioner following.
10Yolanda Seals-Coffield
Yolanda Seals-Coffield
PwC US
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Yolanda Seals-Coffield
Chief People & Inclusion Officer
Yolanda Seals-Coffield leads people and inclusion for one of the country’s largest professional-services workforces, building trust at scale where talent is the product.
11Issa Eid
Issa Eid
Nokia
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Issa Eid
Global People Head, Cloud & Network Services
Issa Eid leads people for Nokia’s Cloud and Network Services with a storytelling-first, deeply human approach to building strong teams across cultures and geographies.
12Stephen Childs
Stephen Childs
Panasonic Automotive
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Stephen Childs
Chief Human Resources Officer
Three-time HR Executive of the Year, Stephen Childs leads people at Panasonic Automotive with a values-and-results philosophy and a generous habit of sharing what he’s learned.
13L. David Kingsley
L. David Kingsley
Illumio
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L. David Kingsley
Chief People Officer
Honed across Salesforce, MuleSoft and now Illumio, L. David Kingsley frames people strategy in the language of the business — talent as a driver of company performance.
14Kaleen Love, PhD
Kaleen Love, PhD
Philip Morris International
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Kaleen Love, PhD
Chief People & Culture Officer, US
With a McKinsey and Capital One background and an Oxford PhD, Kaleen Love leads people and culture for PMI’s US business through major transformation with analytical, perspective-led clarity.

Know a people leader who belongs here?

The People & Culture Power List is a living series, reviewed on a rolling basis — it takes two minutes, and recognition often turns on someone deciding to put a name forward.

Explore the living series →

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