David Reed is the VP of global talent at Vail Resorts, the premier mountain resort company with a simple mission: “Experience of a Lifetime.” That provides a great platform for a premier employment brand — but that doesn’t make it easy! He has had an amazing career journey, including dashed Olympic dreams, a false start in accounting, then a serendipitous meeting leading to almost three decades with Accenture building and delivering world-class talent acquisition for both internal and external clients.
In our conversation, we dive deep into what it takes to fulfill the mission of a global organization like Vail Resorts, including his overall strategy, and his view on metrics, career movement, technology, and even gender bias. He’s one of the most thoughtful, efficient and disciplined people I’ve ever known. And if you’re patient enough to get to the very end of my conversation with him, (bonus!) he shares one of his secrets to personal productivity.
There are so many interesting nuggets of wisdom from David, all in the second episode of the “Big Fish in the Talent Pool” podcast, where I interview global heads of talent acquisition regarding the joys and challenges of leading TA.
The first one was with Tara Noonan Amaral, formerly of Fidelity Investments, and there are more on the way.
If you have a suggestion for someone you think I should interview, I’d love to hear that too (my contact info is below). In the meantime, enjoy David Reed of Vail Resorts and keep swimming!