The Expanding Role of the CPO & CHRO with Nakesha Lopez

CHROPartners

The Expanding Role of the CPO & CHRO with Nakesha Lopez

26:59

 

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If you missed the live session, the replay is a must-watch! In this engaging conversation, Cindy Lu sits down with Nakesha Lopez, Chief People and Culture Officer at Advocate Health, to discuss the evolving role of HR leaders in driving strategic business outcomes. Nakesha shares her unique perspective on redefining the CHRO role beyond traditional boundaries, emphasizing the importance of partnering closely with CEOs, breaking down organizational silos, and leading major transformation initiatives like new vision and values creation and enterprise operating model design.

She also dives into how HR can adopt a consumer-driven approach to improve employee experiences, similar to companies like Amazon. Plus, Nakesha reveals her approach to building a strong HR team that goes beyond traditional roles, focusing on skills that drive future business success and positioning HR as a key player in strategic decision-making. Whether you're looking for inspiration on becoming a strategic advisor, practical tips on influencing change, or insights into building a high-performing HR team, this conversation is packed with actionable insights and forward-thinking strategies you won’t want to miss!

**P.S.** Watch to the end for great advice for CEOs on how to better leverage their Chief People Officer and drive organizational success!

Transcript generated with the help of AI.

**Cindy Lu**: Everyone, this is Cindy Lu with CHRO Partners, founder of CHRO Mastermind Groups, and I'm joined here today with Nikisha Lopez. For those of you who know Isha maybe from her Texas days, feel free to drop a hello in the chat for us. We can only see you if you say hello. Feel free to interact on chat. We’d love to hear from you.

Alright, today we're going to be talking about the expanding role of the CPO and CHRO. It’s a really interesting topic because I feel like the role has been expanding for years, but I think today's topic will really shed some light on what it can look like. Nikisha, I’d love for you to introduce yourself as well as tell us a little bit about Advocate.

**Nikisha Lopez**: Well, Cindy, thank you for having me. Again, I’m Nikisha Lopez and I’m the Chief People and Culture Officer at Advocate Health. Advocate Health, if I can tell you a little bit about our health system, is about $30 billion in revenue, 155,000 teammates, and we’re the third-largest not-for-profit healthcare system in the country. We’re multi-state, so we’re in Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois, Alabama, and Wisconsin.

**Cindy Lu**: Awesome. Awesome. Hey guys in the audience, where are you from? Just type in the chat. So, Susan, welcome from Fort Worth, Texas. Good to see Kelsey, Es Javier, thanks for joining, guys. So, I hear there’s just a little bit of stuff going on at Advocate these days. Give us a little bit of context before we jump into this topic of the expanding role of the CHRO. Love to hear what’s going on at Advocate and then we can dive into this expanding role.

**Nikisha Lopez**: Thank you. So, I’ve been at the organization now, I think it’s about five months. And yeah, there’s certainly a lot going on. Advocate Health is born out of the combination of Advocate Aurora, which is primarily in the Midwest—Illinois, etc.—as well as Atrium Health. And so, the combined entities, that merger happened close to, I would say, 18 months ago. And the organization is going through a lot of transformation. There’s a lot of work focused on furthering the integration following the combination of the two legacy health systems. A lot of innovation. We are in the middle of, from an HR perspective, in fact, as an overall ERP perspective, we’re in the middle of a Workday implementation, leading some work around a new operating model for our enterprise as well, following the combination of the two organizations. And we’re absolutely looking at new vision and values for the combined organization as well, as we have a new strategy. So certainly a lot going on, but it’s a lot of exciting times as well.

**Cindy Lu**: Yeah. When we spoke last, it seemed like your role is different to me than a lot of CHRO and CPO roles. First of all, you’ve got a different title. It’s Chief People and Culture Officer, right? But tell me how that looks different. It just strikes me that it’s a much broader scope, so I’d love to hear about that.

**Nikisha Lopez**: Yeah, thank you for that question. And I think it is right. I think every leader in this organization, every teammate, has a role to play within culture, so I want to start by saying that. But in this role, really, the focus is on driving and activating our teammates and our leaders around a common vision and common goals. And when I think about that, I think about our shared vision and purpose, the strategy the organization is looking to achieve, our combined values and commitments, and even our operational performance as a health system. So, in my role, that actually typically takes me a little bit out of the box in terms of traditional responsibilities. And I love that. And I think, and I love that for the organization because we can bring, as Chief People and Culture Officer, or CHROs or CPOs—whatever your title is—you can bring a lens to our ability to accelerate and meet our business outcomes that sometimes can be undervalued.

**Cindy Lu**: Yeah, it’s so interesting to me when I hear about CPOs and CHROs talk, there’s still a lot of work to be done as far as educating the senior teams, right? And it’s not their fault, right? Maybe they came from an environment where HR was not put in that strategic seat. And so, what are some of the things that you’re involved in that maybe look different than in the past?

**Nikisha Lopez**: Oh yeah. So, I would start with, in my role, I would say that number one, it starts with the CEO and the partnership between the CEO and the Chief People Officer role. That strategic partnership is key. That’s number one. I think that’s really important to the success of our roles. And we’ve talked—you talk about this in a lot of forums—but that to me is the key differentiator and is very important. And secondly, when you talk about even educating your executive peers, as an example, around what this role means, I think that there’s a lot of intentionality that needs to be placed on that. I think oftentimes, especially years ago, HR was felt—it was viewed very traditionally, but it’s our job to show what different looks like and what good looks like and that we are strategic partners in helping us accelerate the organization, accelerate their organizational strategy. It does require, I think, a different mindset from not just the Chief People Officer but also their team, to think beyond the traditional boxes that we’re often placed in relative to HR and to make sure we have the skill sets on our team that’s different, right? Not just “I’m a really good total rewards leader” or “I’m a really good business partner,” but what are the key skill sets that are important to be able to drive for the future and where the organization is going. So, I think that’s very important. So, it takes a lot of time for me and my team to really meet with executive leaders across the organization and really describe the from and to. I would say that’s something really important for you to do. And again, sometimes, leaders, they don’t know what great looks like. They may know what good looks like, but they don’t know what great looks like, and we can help shape that.

**Cindy Lu**: Yeah, you are speaking my language, like hallelujah is all I can say. It’s such an important topic. I think going from that great service provider or order-taker type of mindset to, “I’m a consultative advisor. I’m a specialist. This is my area of expertise.” And I think being able to bring that to the senior executives and help them understand what they’re missing... I think about it like if you’ve never had chocolate, you don’t know how good it is, right? So, having that opportunity to share the sweetness is such an important part of the role. And those marketing skills are critical.

**Nikisha Lopez**: No, go ahead.

**Cindy Lu**: No, I was going to say...

**Nikisha Lopez**: I would, I agree with you. I wanted to circle back, Cindy, also on one thing. And one of the questions that you asked in terms of what are some of the things that I’m working on that feel different, right? And so some of those things include, we’re creating new vision and values for the organization. We’ll call it something different. I don’t want to preview that here yet, but the collaboration that my role had with our Chief Strategy Officer and our Chief Marketing and Consumer Experience Officer, I think, was so critical in the success of that. And seeing those three roles come together to drive the connection and the new vision and values and that connection to our new strategy, I think was a differentiator. And another thing in my role, I’m the executive sponsor for our new enterprise operating model. So, I’m leading, and partnering with my peers, to design what that future looks like for us. And sometimes you don’t see that—the Chief People and Culture Officer leading that type of work. So that’s been, I think, exciting, a great challenge, but I think it’s really pivotal in the role.

**Cindy Lu**: Yeah, no, that’s amazing. I think often the CHRO sometimes has to ask to even be part of that discussion. Other times it’s like you’ve got a seat at the table, but you’re not necessarily leading it. So, that’s super exciting. I think we’re going to have to do a follow-up session just to do a deep dive on that whole process. But I also love what you said about getting the Chief—what did you call the role? Chief Customer Experience?

**Nikisha Lopez**: Yes.

**Cindy Lu**: That is a hat that I definitely think CHROs need to think about, right? Our employees now are trained by Amazon, like the frictionless environment to buy something. It’s so easy to click. It’s so easy to return. Like that whole experience has changed how we think as consumers and definitely affects how we feel as employees. So, if you’re going to make me sign into... I’m like, I quit!

**Nikisha Lopez**: And we’re in the business of removing obstacles for our teammates and leaders so that they can—from a healthcare perspective—they have their focus right on what we need them to be focused on, which is our patients

and our customers. Our consumers, patients, are that for us. And so, I think really thinking about experience is pivotal in the process. And when you think about organizations like Amazon and the like, they’re thinking about their customer or their consumer journey end-to-end. And we need to do the exact same thing when we think about our teammate and leader experiences. What are their journeys end-to-end? And how do we solve for those pain points across that journey versus let’s just solve for position management, let’s just solve for performance management? No, what are the moments that matter for your teammates and leaders? What are their personas? And again, what are the journeys and what’s the insights that they’re telling us really matters? And so, that’s a journey that we will be on here as well. Now that I’m five months in and digging in, that’s it. So, I’d love to circle back once we learn more and we can share more about our experiences along that line as well.

**Cindy Lu**: Yeah, no, I love it. Having moved into a new home and buying new furniture... The times I’ve been on with customer service reps and I’m like, “Okay, I know it’s not your fault,” but it’s definitely, think about... I think good leaders think about how to blame the systems and not the people. So, what about you personally, Nikisha? What have you done personally to adjust to this expanded scope? I imagine there are moments when it can be a little scary, right? Because being accountable to business results is—that’s scary. And then, “Hey, I just need to do my back-office corporate job.” What have you done personally to adjust? I know there’s a number of things that you talked about.

**Nikisha Lopez**: Yeah, I think part of that is really an honest reflection and assessment of where you think you are. But I think if you think about it, I came from an organization, an exceptional organization, smaller in terms of scale compared to this current organization. So, I had to reflect on where—what were the opportunities for me, and what were the challenges that I believe I will encounter in this new role? Part of that was really understanding from peers and people who have known me for some time around where they saw my opportunity areas, so I can invest and prepare for this role. I’ve leaned on other peers, quite frankly, who have spent significant time, whether in global industries or larger industries, and I’ve asked them and talked to them about what was that stretch like for them, coming from a smaller scale to a larger scale. That was really intentional work on my part. And I think the other piece is learning along the way. I think the biggest learning you’ll do is by making mistakes along the way, and coming in with, I think, humility—spending time listening, understanding what the pain points are, and just plugging along. So, I think having some aspect of humility and recognizing that you are stretching yourself, and I am stretching myself in this new role, has been important. But people will give you grace if you can do that, and if you can express that. So, that’s been, I think, really encouraging for me personally as I’ve stepped into this role. And then also recognizing I’m a mom, I’m a wife, and I had to transition my family. So, just finding the right balance of grace for myself through that has been important.

**Cindy Lu**: Yeah, I love the humility piece. I think today’s leaders, everyone needs to keep that in mind because you just can’t possibly know everything. So, having the humility... But I also love how intentional you are about seeking out peers and saying, “What did that stretch look like for you?” I feel like that could be a whole other hour conversation—lessons learned there. But good for you for being intentional, because so often the CHRO or CPO, you guys are like the barber’s child, like, “I have to get the haircut, right?” You’re always focused on other people. “How can I get a coach for the CFO? How can I get a coach for the CEO?” But when it comes to yourselves, sometimes you’re a little bit too selfless. So, good for you for doing that. I want to say hi to some folks who joined us here. Hey, Eric Mraz from Dallas. And Marsha Elliott, Mark Bingham, hello from Dallas as well. Looks like we’ve got Blacksburg, Virginia. Javier’s from North Carolina. I’m not going to attempt the last name from Connecticut. And Todd Grumple from Dallas. Hey, thanks guys for joining us. Hey, put in the chat if you think humility is a key leadership trait in today’s world.

**Nikisha Lopez**: So, what have you done then personally to adjust to these things? I know you talked about being the right team together, right? Doing your own outreach and peer-type coaching. What other things have been really effective for you?

**Nikisha Lopez**: Yeah, really good question. So yes, definitely leaning on peers both within my industry and outside of my industry. My peers have been, I would say, so supportive and I’ve been able to learn from them even prior to taking on this role. So, that’s been really important. Second, I would say is making sure I have the right team under me, Chief. No matter how much we think in our roles everything stops and starts with us. But part of that is having a strong team to really drive and accelerate your strategy, the work. And so, I’ve spent this last couple of months really listening to the feedback of not just the operators across the system but my HR team around where they saw opportunities. We held listening sessions, we did surveys, I did coffee and chats to get to understand, and I could see the themes. And so, we’ve been driving towards those themes in terms of opportunities for improvement, places we can accelerate, and that’s where I can play a more strategic role to address some of the opportunities we were seeing as well. So, I think that was really important in taking the time to do that early on. And I would call it my assessment phase in my first 90 days—was critical. I would also say that my job wasn’t to come in and just make change. My job was to come in and really educate and understand and learn the organization, understand where we’re going, and then how do we make sure we have the best team and the best plans to drive towards the end goal, right? And so, that’s a big priority and a big focus for me with my leadership team as well. So, really shout-out to the Advocate Health HR team. They’ve been doing a great job and their expertise in helping me learn the organization has been critical.

**Cindy Lu**: Yeah. Nikisha, not just in your role, but all C-suite executives have so much coming at them. There’s so much data, projects, priorities, internal, external. And part of the job of the C-suite is to connect the dots, right? Like in filtering out what we shouldn’t be focusing on. How have you been able to do that in the chaos that we all live in?

**Nikisha Lopez**: No, it’s intentional. It has to be intentional. And so, the work that I’ve been leading with my team is around carving out about 20 to 30 percent of our time to really reflect and think. Saying it is easy, doing it is very difficult, but we really have to prioritize the work that the HR function is leading. Now we’re doing things that are even outside of the typical HR box. Love that. Love that. But we’ve got to make sure that the work we’re doing is meeting the need, but it’s also really attached to our ability to execute in our strategy. And if it doesn’t, then we shouldn’t be doing the work. So, we’re going through an intentional exercise of evaluating all of the—I’m going to call them “lack of priorities” within HR to really get to the few because doing less is more, right? That’s what’s going to really make a difference. And it also allows us, by having the capacity to take a step back, look at best practices. What are we seeing on the horizon, both within our industry and outside of our industry, listening to our insights both internally and externally? Really protecting time as an HR leadership team to do that is important. I would say, second, which I think is also very critical, is aligning that to the road map and the journey we’re on, right? We’re setting a destination and what’s that road map to get there? And taking the time, again, to connect these dots. That’s the third thing. You mentioned those words—connecting those dots—is important because when you’re constantly in this firefight and this reactive mode, you don’t have time to step back and really look at the big picture. Look at the dots that are being connected across these multiple problems that you’re seeing or use cases you’re going after. And so, that becomes, I think, very critical. And lastly, it’s softer, but I think really important. When you’re working at the pace that we have to—and I would say Chief People Officer roles, the HR teams have been asked to do much more, especially coming out of COVID and beyond—taking the time to celebrate some wins is so important. Sometimes we’ve got to fill up our cup. We’re often filling up everyone else’s cups around us, right? And just doing that a little bit for our teams around all of the work that they’re doing and leading is important. You’re not going to do that if you’re just chasing fires, running fast, and not taking the time to

celebrate where you’ve been, what you’ve accomplished along the way. So, I think that’s such an important point that sometimes we forget—not because it’s not important, but because, again, we’re off to the next problem to solve. But that intentionality is key, and it’s something that we’re really trying to build into the DNA of our function.

**Cindy Lu**: Yeah, I think it sounds like a luxury, right? To have thinking time and reflection time. But we’ve talked about this—you sometimes have to slow down to speed up. You have to. Otherwise, you just keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And I’ve actually taken that really seriously. So, on my calendar, I have “Reflect”—I don’t call it reflection time, I call it “Tiger Time.” It’s like my protected time in the mornings, and I’m like, “No one typically gets to touch that time,” because if you don’t, it’s just like a marathon runner, right? So, Eric, I know you’re training for one. But you don’t really get to make it through the race if you don’t have some rest time.

**Nikisha Lopez**: Definitely put that, those are important tactics. Putting the time on the calendar and not just for you in the Chief People Officer role, but for your leadership team, right? Time that they can do that individually, but also collectively as a leadership team. So, we carve out time every week to get together, to really strategize. And it’s from two lenses. Again, we’re taking time to think about the future and where we’re going, but also time to think about where we are today. What’s right in front of us that we need to accomplish? And brainstorming and designing and strategizing together.

**Cindy Lu**: Yeah, no, that’s amazing. I love it. All right, so last question—it’s a two-part question. What’s some parting advice that you might give to other CHROs and CPOs? And then part two of that question is what advice you might give to CEOs?

**Nikisha Lopez**: All right. For CPOs, CHROs, I would say, number one, really spend time educating your executive peers, your CEOs, on what better looks like. They often don’t know, it’s your job to do that. It’s your team’s job to do that. And for them to see, again, what great looks like. And then it’s a journey to get there. I would say the other piece is embrace the full impact of your role and not the role or the box that you feel like you were placed in. Really think about your ability to help the organization meet and exceed and accelerate their strategy. And really think out of the box. Challenge the boxes that you’ve been placed in. And I hope my team continues to do that, and that’s how I like to lead as well. For the CEO, I think there are a couple of pieces of advice I would say. Number one, invite your people partner to the table really early. Sometimes that Chief People Officer role, they’re coming in later—they’re an afterthought. But really bring them in, there’s so much value in the lens and the skills that the Chief People Officer has and your HR professionals have. So, bring them in sooner. They’re going to shape something, and they’re going to add to that overall design thinking of where you’re trying to go. And that role, that Chief People Officer role, should be a trusted partner to the CEO and as critical as the CFO as well. So, I think about the two roles that are just my peers—might not, all roles are important—but two really critical roles for that CEO are the CFO and the Chief People Officer. I would say the other thing is when you’re thinking about the talent in that role, you’ve got to think about the skills for that role. It’s not just the traditional HR experiences, but are they an advisor? Are they a critical thinker? How do they think about transformation? And are they thinking about experiences of your teammates and the journey around that? Do they have an agile mindset? So, these are some of the—not just the strategic components—but are they thinking about setting, how did they set their team up for operational execution and success? So, I think really making sure those skill sets are taken into consideration as you’re looking at talent in those roles is important. And then last, I think there’s an opportunity for you, if you don’t know what great looks like, to add a Chief People Officer to your board. And you’re seeing a huge trajectory of Chief People Officers and CHROs joining boards. And there’s a reason for that. There’s a value that’s being brought, and that’s maybe the first place to start and see what you learn from it. So, I’ll pause there, Cindy.

**Cindy Lu**: Yeah, no, that’s great advice. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I think unfortunately for a lot of CEOs, they might not have come from an organization where there’s HR, maybe they weren’t given a seat at the table. So, their context is one of HR does payroll, we are—they’re focused on keeping the company from getting sued or party planning. And so, they’ve never experienced it, but I’ll tell you that once they do—and I was one of these CEOs, like when I lived in Milwaukee and ran a company—I’m like, I totally didn’t get it. But luckily for me, I had a couple of multi-billion-dollar company CHROs on my advisory board—not my governance board, but my advisory board. And I cannot tell you that it was simple advice, like, “Oh, your people need career pathing.” I’m like, “Oh really? Why would we need that?” So, I was definitely that person, and they showed me the data. And they were like, “Look, let us work with your team on getting that set up.” And Eric Morales is here with us, but he was part of that journey. And literally, we took our turnover from 50 percent plus to 10 percent in nine months, right? Gross margins skyrocketed. It was amazing.

**Nikisha Lopez**: And some of that is having the talent to be able to show you what different looks like. And even for me in my Chief People Officer role, I want to have the best talent on my team. I want people smarter than me, brighter than me, that they’re educating me along the way, right? We’re all learning. So, I think that’s probably another great tip to take away for our Chief People Officers—hire people better than you.

**Cindy Lu**: Life is so much better when you hire people better than you, right? Or different, right? But it’s your job to protect their time. Hey guys, thank you. If you appreciated Nikki’s time today, feel free to drop an appreciation note in the chat for us here. Nikki, best wishes to you and your team. I’m so excited to hear about the journey that you guys are on. I think having this partnership with your CEO is critical in that, and I’d love to check back with you in the future just to see how this transformation is going. But thank you so much for sharing and being vulnerable out here in the live world.

**Nikisha Lopez**: Thank you so much. Enjoyed the opportunity.

**Cindy Lu**: Great to see you.