Gabby Tharkur

I've been working in the people side of business for about 7 years now. My journey started in consulting, focused on change management for the federal government, where I worked with large federal agencies based in DC on numerous projects helping people move through transitions within their organizations. I then moved into the commercial consulting sector at a very small, female-led organization that did amazing work. It was inspiring to work there as we served Fortune 500 clients, higher ed institutions, and nonprofits. I really got to hone in on my skills for solving complex people problems within companies and driving the right solutions for them. I spent a lot of my time working in the culture space, focusing on how to improve the experience for employees from a culture perspective so they could enjoy going into work day in and day out. I also supported their leaders in creating that environment and really walking the talk - not only helping them define what they wanted that organization to feel like verbally, but also how to bring that to life through actions, behaviors, policy changes, and getting everyone on the same page in an aspiring way. Eventually, I got out of consulting because I wanted to not only bring solutions to a company but be able to stick around within that company and see it come to life, and see the ways that it needed to be iterated over time. That brought me in-house to HP, where I've been for about 3 years now as an Inclusion Strategist and Learning Lead. In my current role, I think about the entire employee population at all levels and how we continue to foster that inclusive environment that's been our foundation since HP was founded. I look at it through behaviors within the organization and programming, but also where we can create spaces for learning. My typical day-to-day really leverages that consulting background, just on the internal side. My role interacts with lots of different teams regularly, especially the talent and learning team and the performance team, working across teams in different parts of the world to make sure we have the global perspective. We don't just say we're an inclusive company - we really practice it in the most holistic sense, thinking about how everyone, no matter where you sit in the organization globally or geographically, experiences it in that way, no matter who you're interacting with.