Alison Paris
Senior Vice President of Talent Acquisition & Workforce Planning, Peraton
Alison Paris’ team is responsible for attracting the best and brightest talent to support missions of consequence for critical government agencies. The team also focuses on retaining these employees through a strategy that includes engagement efforts, measurable benchmarks, stretch goals and tailored programs.
Paris’ most significant recent achievement involved expanding her team from 20 people responsible for 900 hires per year to 140 people tasked with hiring 5,000 annually to meet the company’s growing demands. Paris and her team accomplished this transformation in under a year.
Peraton Chief Human Resources Officer Rebecca McHale immediately recognized Paris as an exceptional leader with a fresh, open-minded approach to delivering outstanding HR and talent acquisition services. McHale praised Paris’ unmatched dedication to attracting and engaging top talent at a rapid pace to meet the ever-changing needs of the business.
“She is continuously identifying ways to leverage our technology, data and new organizational concepts to fundamentally shift how we operate, resulting in incredible measurable improvements over the last year in acquiring highest quality talent at increasing speed and exceeding our benchmarks to retain such talent through dedicated engagement efforts,” McHale said. “She will never stand for good enough and, with that at her foundation, she cultivates a team and programs that are nothing short of exceptional.”
Why Watch
In 2024, Paris’ team is heavily focused on attracting high quality talent to help Peraton support customer missions across the globe.
“This is not a quote I created, but one I go back to every day: ‘Handle Hard Better,'” Paris said. “The credit goes to Kara Lawson, the women’s basketball coach at Duke University, and her message to her team is spot on. You can’t wait for things to get easier – you must learn how to handle hard better.”
Fun fact: When Paris isn’t leading her team or exploring new ways to infuse technology into the business, she finds her sanity in music. “Unstoppable” by Sia is often played when she needs some extra motivation.