Sylvia Kilpatrick
Vice President of Human Resources, SMX
In 2021, SMX acquired and integrated two new companies — Datastrong and C2S Consulting Group — to expand into new markets and capabilities and to acquire new clients. As part of this growth initiative, Sylvia Kilpatrick aligned the human resources teams to more effectively and efficiently support the business while increasing camaraderie and cultivating belonging across a very dispersed and remote team.
The restructuring of Kilpatrick’s division optimized how it operated and collaborated across SMX. Her team also harmonized benefit offerings, performance review processes and HR systems across four different platforms and numerous providers to offer a more cohesive and simplified employee experience.
“Sylvia’s engaging leadership was critical for the success of blending human resources teams across several legacy companies,” said Laurell Aiton, chief administrative officer at SMX. “Ensuring all our people were taken care of throughout the integration was of utmost importance to SMX. We invest in our employees to ensure they are equipped with everything they need to deliver meaningful results to our clients. Sylvia’s significant contributions were, and continue to be, highly impactful and central to that delivery.”
Why Watch
The talent market is highly competitive, and with so many employees working virtual, it’s critical to engage early and often. Kilpatrick and her team are launching a new hire engagement strategy to ensure the workforce feels connected.
They understand employees want flexibility, meaningful work and to have fun while doing it. So, Kilpatrick and her team are implementing a series of tools and automated processes to continually advance support. Through automation, they can better engage employees, maintain that connection and understand what is or isn’t working as well as what they value most.