Courtni Hughes-Bochenek

I can give you a what, and I can give you a who.

For the what: it's a willingness to build things from zero, and the stubbornness to see them all the way through. Most of what I'm really proud of started without a roadmap — a function, a program, a system that didn't exist before I built it, or something I came into that just needed modernization. That work taught me that you don't always need permission, and you definitely don't need a perfect plan, to make something real.

For the who: it's people. I've had really great mentors who told me the truth and trusted me to lead them. My husband and my kids keep me grounded in what matters. I'm not self-made — I'm well supported, and I try to pay it forward every chance I get.

But it all originally stemmed from my parents. They were incredibly hardworking and scrappy — the kind of people who rolled their sleeves up and did what needed to be done. They took the road less traveled, and they absolutely shaped the kind of professional I am today.

Earlier in my career, somebody told me not to wait to be picked. Raise your hand for the work nobody else wants to do, learn it in public, and trust that your resume will build itself.

I've only been at two firms in my professional career, but the scope of work I've been privileged enough to touch has been wide-ranging — because of that willingness to get in there, do what hadn't been done, and change what had been done. It reframed how I thought about opportunity.

The roles that have shaped me the most weren't the ones I was ready for on paper, whether by experience or years in the industry. They were the ones where I said yes to the ambiguity and figured it out as I went. Every meaningful step in my career has come from that posture.

If I were coming in now, I'd say: get comfortable taking up space, and stop apologizing for what you don't know yet. Nobody knows everything, and the people pretending they do are usually the ones with the most to learn. So ask the questions. Push back when something doesn't sit right. We're seen as the rule-holders in HR, but make sure the rule still tests right with your gut.

Build relationships generously, because HR is a small industry, and the people around you matter. The people you meet early on become your peers, your hiring managers, and your champions as you continue to grow.

And the biggest thing: find your people. The ones who hold you to the truth, root for you out loud, and sponsor you when it matters. Your network, ultimately, will matter more than any single role.

AI is the obvious one — it's reshaping how we hire, how we develop people, how we think about the function itself — and the People leaders who lean in and learn the tools are going to define what the next decade of HR looks like. The challenge is that a lot of organizations are still treating People as a cost center instead of a strategic function, and that gap between what the work could be and how it's resourced is where a lot of great talent is getting burned out. The opportunity is for People leaders to step into the executive conversation — to be Board ready and CFO credible, to speak the language of the business, and to finally claim the seat the function has earned.

In HR, we deal with a lot of sensitive and tricky things. So honesty — even and especially when it's uncomfortable — is extremely important to me. Doing what you said you would do. Treating people like full humans, not just employees or job titles or numbers in a spreadsheet.

I try to lead the way I parent, and parent the way I lead — clear expectations, real warmth, and a belief that people will rise to what you genuinely expect of them.

The other thing that matters in this space, and probably in any professional space, is curiosity. Always being willing to learn and stay a little uncomfortable, rather than coasting on what you already know.