Nancy Kirby is an accomplished business and human capital leader with more than 27 years of professional experience spanning leadership development, workforce strategy, organizational effectiveness, client engagement, business development, training, and operational leadership. Throughout her career, she has built a reputation for listening carefully, understanding complex business needs, and translating those needs into practical strategies that create measurable value. Her professional journey has taken her from hands-on human resources responsibilities to senior client-facing and solution-design leadership, giving her a broad perspective on how people, strategy, operations, and commercial priorities intersect. Today, as she enters a new chapter in her career, Nancy is bringing that experience to board and advisory service, where she can help organizations navigate growth, transformation, talent challenges, and strategic decision-making.
Nancy began her career in human resources with RMH Teleservices, supporting recruitment, onboarding, compliance, benefits, and other core HR functions. Those early responsibilities established a strong foundation in the employee experience and gave her firsthand insight into the operational realities behind effective people practices. She later joined Hay Group, where her responsibilities expanded substantially over a series of progressively more strategic roles. Beginning in information services client management and moving through project management, sector leadership, channel management, and key account leadership, Nancy developed a distinctive combination of human capital expertise and commercial acumen.
Her years with Hay Group were particularly formative in establishing her record as a growth-oriented leader. As a Sector Leader focused on healthcare, Nancy helped grow sector revenue from approximately $300,000 to more than $1 million. In a later U.S. Sector Leader role encompassing retail, healthcare, and life sciences, she contributed to revenue growth of 35 percent across those sectors. She subsequently managed a team of U.S. Sector Leaders responsible for a $22 million business portfolio that achieved 12 percent year-over-year growth. These experiences strengthened her ability to identify opportunities, align teams around market priorities, work effectively across complex organizational structures, and connect client needs with solutions capable of producing sustainable business results.
Nancy also deepened her leadership development and workforce training expertise as Assistant Vice President of Training and Development with Berkadia Commercial Mortgage. In that position, she was responsible for developing and implementing programs designed to advance the professional and personal growth of servicing employees. She delivered learning through in-person, online, virtual, and video-based formats, demonstrating an early ability to adapt workforce development strategies to different audiences and environments. Her experience at Berkadia complemented her broader commercial background by reinforcing the importance of talent development, employee engagement, and organizational capability as essential components of business performance.
As her career progressed, Nancy increasingly worked with senior executives and complex enterprise clients. At CEB, now Gartner, she served as Account Director for HR Integrated Solutions, managing more than $1 million in contract value across a portfolio of large enterprise accounts. She partnered with C-suite executives on enterprise-wide strategies while maintaining responsibility for account planning, forecasting, client satisfaction, retention, and growth. She subsequently joined SHL as a Strategic Account Manager, where she developed relationships with senior HR and business leaders, created client-focused solutions spanning the employee lifecycle, led RFP responses and bid teams, and coordinated consulting and functional resources to deliver high-quality proposals and implementation plans.
Nancy returned to Gartner as an HR Practice Client Director, further strengthening her experience as a trusted advisor to executive clients. Her work centered on building enduring relationships, improving customer satisfaction, supporting retention and account growth, maintaining forecast discipline, and helping clients address evolving human capital priorities. Across these roles, Nancy became particularly skilled at operating at the intersection of advisory services, human resources, sales, account management, and organizational strategy. Her effectiveness comes not simply from presenting ideas, but from understanding what stakeholders are trying to accomplish and creating alignment around a practical path forward.
Most recently, Nancy served as Director of Solution Design with Heidrick & Struggles, where she managed the solution-design process and worked closely with sales teams to address the complex needs of clients and prospects. As a subject-matter resource across integrated offerings, she helped connect client challenges with solutions designed to provide meaningful value. The position drew upon the full breadth of her career: human capital expertise, go-to-market thinking, executive relationship management, consulting, solution development, and cross-functional collaboration. Her leadership approach emphasized accountability, curiosity, teamwork, and a willingness to ask the questions necessary to understand both immediate challenges and broader organizational objectives.
Nancy’s expertise encompasses human resources, leadership development, workforce strategy, organizational development, employee engagement, talent management, performance management, training, HR transformation, account management, consulting, stakeholder engagement, and go-to-market strategy. She is also experienced in project management, proposal development, evaluation and continuous improvement, workforce analytics, and executive-level presentations. Her Saville Assessment Ability and Wave certification further complements her background in psychological assessment and assessment feedback. Collectively, these capabilities enable Nancy to examine organizational challenges through multiple lenses, considering people and culture alongside customer needs, operational execution, revenue objectives, and long-term strategy.
Her perspective is also informed by significant international business exposure, including work involving Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. Working across markets and with diverse stakeholders has reinforced the importance of adaptability, active listening, cultural awareness, and clear communication. Nancy is comfortable engaging with executives, clients, colleagues, community leaders, and board members, and she approaches those relationships with the belief that effective leadership begins with understanding. While she has not historically pursued formal public-speaking engagements, she is open to expanding her presence in that area and sharing the lessons developed over nearly three decades of leadership and client-facing experience.
Board service represents a natural extension of Nancy’s professional and personal commitment to creating meaningful impact. Since 2021, she has served as Co-Founder and Vice President on the Board of Directors of Miracle Field of Horsham, Pennsylvania, an organization dedicated to expanding inclusive recreational opportunities for individuals of all abilities and their families. Her involvement includes governance, community partnerships, fundraising, stakeholder engagement, and long-term planning. Earlier in her career, Nancy served for more than six years on the board of Special Equestrians, where she participated in governance and helped guide the organization through a significant transformation involving changes in leadership and organizational structure. These experiences have given her practical exposure to the responsibilities, relationships, and judgment required in a board environment.
Nancy holds a Master of Business Administration in Business Administration and Management from La Salle University and a Bachelor of Arts in Human Resources from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. Her academic foundation, combined with decades of progressive leadership experience, allows her to bridge the disciplines of people strategy and business performance. She understands organizations from the employee level through the executive and board level, and she brings a career-long appreciation for the role that thoughtful leadership, strong relationships, and disciplined execution play in sustainable success.
Now in a career transition, Nancy sees board and advisory work as an opportunity to take her governance experience to a new level while contributing the perspective she has developed across human resources, consulting, talent, client services, and commercial leadership. She is open to opportunities across a broad range of industries, and has no preference regarding company size or revenue profile. Rather than defining the right opportunity narrowly, she is interested in organizations where her experience, judgment, and listening skills can contribute to important conversations and where she can help leadership teams evaluate opportunities, strengthen organizational capabilities, and pursue sustainable growth.
Outside of her professional responsibilities, Nancy enjoys dancing, fitness, art, and drawing—interests that reflect both her energy and her creative side. Her community involvement and longstanding commitment to organizations serving individuals of varying abilities also speak to the importance she places on inclusion, contribution, and meaningful relationships. Whether working with an executive client, developing a business strategy, guiding a team, or participating in board governance, Nancy brings curiosity and attentiveness to the conversation. She believes that leadership is strengthened by listening first, asking thoughtful questions, and remaining focused on the people and outcomes behind every decision.
Nancy’s career ultimately reflects a progression from human resources practitioner to business leader, strategic advisor, and experienced board contributor. She offers organizations an uncommon combination of human capital knowledge, commercial experience, executive relationship skills, operational understanding, and governance exposure. As she pursues additional board opportunities, she is motivated by the chance to apply those capabilities in a setting where thoughtful questions and diverse perspectives can shape consequential decisions. Her goal is not simply to occupy a board seat, but to contribute as an engaged, prepared, and collaborative director who helps organizations connect people, strategy, and execution to create enduring value.
Character:
Nancy leads with integrity, curiosity, accountability, and a genuine respect for the perspectives of others, qualities reinforced by her commitment to community and inclusive organizations. Her thoughtful listening style and willingness to understand an issue before acting allow her to build trust while remaining focused on meaningful outcomes.
Knowledge:
With more than 27 years of experience, Nancy brings substantial knowledge across human resources, leadership development, workforce strategy, organizational effectiveness, consulting, client management, business development, and operations. Her experience working from frontline HR through senior solution-design and executive advisory roles gives her a multidimensional understanding of how talent and business strategy influence organizational performance.
Strategic:
Nancy has repeatedly translated complex organizational and client priorities into actionable strategies, whether developing enterprise solutions, growing significant business portfolios, guiding workforce initiatives, or supporting nonprofit governance. She combines a growth mindset with practical execution, enabling her to evaluate opportunities through commercial, operational, organizational, and human-capital perspectives.
Communication:
An experienced relationship builder who has worked with C-suite executives, board members, clients, cross-functional teams, and community stakeholders throughout her career. She communicates by listening first, clarifying priorities, and translating complex information into focused conversations that help stakeholders align around decisions and next steps.
