An HR executive challenges the "extinction" narrative, arguing HR's crisis stems from inadequate tools, not strategy. Introducing CAPIT: Aligned Business & HR Intelligence—a platform transforming HR from lagging indicators to forward-looking business value.
Her Story
About Brenda
Brenda Murphy, MBA, HCS is a human capital and HR technology executive, founder, and CEO of Humarix Solutions, where she leads technology driven transformation of workforce strategy. Based in the Greater Chicago Area, she partners with organizations on aligning human capital strategy with business outcomes, with expertise spanning HR technology, workforce analytics, organizational design, and executive advisory services for CEOs and boards. Throughout her career, she has held senior global HR leadership roles across Fortune 50, private equity–backed, and high-growth organizations, supporting workforces of up to 18,000 employees across more than 60 countries. She has led enterprise HR strategy, M&A integration, and large-scale transformation initiatives across companies including Johnson & Johnson, and Ford Motor Company. Brenda’s professional approach blends deep HR expertise with financial acumen and technical capability in software development. She has taught herself programming to build HR-focused tools and platforms, including predictive analytics dashboards and human capital planning applications such as CAPIT. Her leadership philosophy centers on making HR a measurable driver of enterprise value through technology and strategic alignment. She is also deeply focused on advancing modern workforce practices in areas such as DEI, ESG, total rewards, and change management while advocating for more accessible, tech-enabled HR systems that empower organizations and the professionals within them.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Brenda
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my experience in the HR domain, my MBA in Finance and Human Resources, and my initiative in teaching myself how to code. This combination has enabled me to build product solutions that effectively bridge HR and business strategy.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Never underestimate yourself and what you bring to the table.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
If something seems wrong - don't be afraid to speak up.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge is demonstrating HR's value to an organization, and that's why I built this tool. Another major issue is the way technology is sold in the HR space. Most HR technology is built on antiquated infrastructure where you need 50 or 300 engineers and you're charged if you want to make a field change to your HR information system, or you need a special report, or you want enhanced security. My tools give you all features, unlimited users, and you're paying for consumption because it's built on new technology. I think this is going to be disruptive to the HR tech industry, and I'm okay with that because I personally used to get really tired of people charging me every time I wanted a code change or a new field or a report. They would show you this really cool feature and then you'd go, okay, I want that too, and they'd say it costs six figures. It was really frustrating. I also think tech is a male-dominated industry, and here I am, a woman in HR, a female-dominated industry, and what I've created is very disruptive to HR technology. HR technology isn't typically created by HR practitioners, it's created by engineers.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think it's really important for your brand, and it's important to support one another. Having that network of women supporting you so that you're not alone is really important to me. I believe in women helping women, especially in fields like HR where women make up about 90% of the workforce but are always getting shot down. That's why I'm so passionate about giving them the tools and ammunition they need to succeed. I also value grit and determination - I love when people prove that things aren't impossible.
Her Content Hub
Articles by Brenda
HR Isn’t Going Extinct. It’s Been Flying Blind for 50 Years.
Why HR's value crisis is a tooling problem, not a strategy problem.
June 27, 2026
Last week, the CEO of the largest HR association in the world stood on a keynote stage and told a room full of HR professionals that their function faces "extinction." He said HR had "lost the plot." His evidence? A 2025 meeting with 92 Fortune 500 CEOs, where roughly 30% said they saw little value in HR.
I've spent more than three decades in this profession. I have led HR for organizations ranging from Fortune 50 enterprises to private equity-backed companies.
Here's the part I'll say out loud: the diagnosis isn't wrong. The cause is.
HR didn't lose the plot. HR was handed a worse map than everyone else at the table.
A Tooling Problem
Finance got its tools in the 1970s. Operations got theirs in the 1990s. Sales got theirs in the early 2000s. And HR? We got HRIS platforms that told us headcount, turnover, and—eventually—engagement scores, packaged with templated "roadmaps" to fix whatever the survey flagged.
Every one of those is a lagging indicator.
A rearview mirror.
You cannot walk into a boardroom and be "business-first" when your tools only tell you what has already happened. You can't quantify the ROI of a people investment with a turnover percentage. You can't defend a budget with an engagement score. And then we act surprised when 30% of CEOs shrug.
The answer the industry keeps offering is: Work harder. Be more strategic. Learn the language of business.
As if strategic value were a personality trait you could will into existence.
It isn't.
It's a tooling problem.
Give HR the same caliber of forward-looking intelligence that Finance has had for 50 years, and the value conversation ends overnight.
Aligned Business & HR Intelligence
That's why I built CAPIT and created a new category: Aligned Business & HR Intelligence (A-BHRI).
This is not HR software, nor is it another reporting platform filled with metrics to interpret. It takes your business objectives and financial data and generates an aligned human capital strategy—what to do, exactly how to do it, the estimated cost, the HR-enabled value, and the projected net ROI. It's board-ready and presented in the financial language CFOs understand.
It never uses personally identifiable information (PII). Instead, it runs on proprietary technology rather than employee personal data. It never produces generic, off-the-shelf recommendations. Every output is built from your organization's own objectives and financial data through CAPIT's secure proprietary technology.
Built with enterprise-grade security, your data stays yours.
No integrations.
No consultants.
Most tools in this space provide generic advice or benchmark reports showing how your HR function compares with others. CAPIT does something fundamentally different. It doesn't evaluate your HR department—it evaluates your business.
Starting with a specific business objective, it generates what to do, what it will cost, and what it is expected to return, complete with shared accountability, resource and capacity plans, and a comprehensive implementation roadmap.
Every recommendation is built from your organization's own data—not from industry averages or benchmark comparisons.
It is designed for business leaders and HR professionals alike—not to grade a department, but to deliver measurable business outcomes.
HR isn't facing extinction.
It's been asked to prove its value with a broken calculator.
Hand it a real one, and watch what happens.
I'll be launching CAPIT later this summer. DM me if you'd like an early look.
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