A dozen years ago, she crafted a state of the art Brand Marketing Program to build a leadership pipeline, recruiting top talent from MBA programs at Harvard, Notre Dame and Northwestern University to Whirlpool Corporation. At the time she was Director of HR for Whirlpool, a career track that has taken her to the top of Dupont, Wolverine World Wide and Meijer as well. Now, Cheryl Johnson is advancing her academic career with her upcoming role as Vice Chancellor for Human Resources at the University of Pittsburgh next month.
Johnson served as Director of Human Resources for Whirlpool Corporation in Benton Harbor for two years starting in September of 2004 before joining Wolverine World Wide for another two years and then a four year run with Meijer. Prior to coming to Whirlpool, she was with Dupont for 19 years.
She founded her own firm JVisions, Inc. in Kalamazoo four years ago before being recruited to Kansas State University as Vice President for Human Capital. Now, Pitt has lured her away and she takes on her new duties next month at the University. Chancellor Patrick Gallagher says she is "highly experienced and respected as a global human resources expert, and we are confident she will inspire the human resources staff and elevate the department to a best-in-class organization that will add strategic value to the entire institution."
Gallagher says that Johnson will play a key role in positioning human resources to support the University's new, five-year strategic plan.
For her part, Johnson says, "I'm excited to join one of the premier research universities in the nation. The University of Pittsburgh is a special community with an extraordinary history of building better lives." She adds, "I am honored and thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the professionals in human resources as we together serve faculty, staff, and students to realize the shared ambition of offering superior educational programs, advancing frontiers of knowledge and creative endeavor, and sharing expertise with private, community, and public partners."
The former Whirlpool exec will lead Pitt's human resources department and will be responsible for designing and administering employee benefits, compensation management, employee and labor relations, recruiting, talent acquisition, and organization development, as well as the University Child Development Center.
Cheryl is a certified human resource professional and certified conflict mediator. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology at Oakland University, a Master of Labor & Industrial Relations degree at Michigan State University, and attended the Executive Development Program at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
