Michelle P. Bennett

Michelle Bennett is the senior vice president of talent and learning for Hearst, one of the nation’s largest diversified media, information and services companies with more than 360 businesses. She also is the HR lead for the Hearst Health and Transportation divisions.

Bennett joined the company in 2017 to lead the HR function for Hearst Business Media. Most recently, she transitioned into an executive leadership role at Hearst as part of the human capital management team. Previously, Bennett served as chief human resource officer at STV, Inc. and led the human resource function for the Americas at GHD.

Bennett’s career in human resources spans more than 25 years. Throughout this time, she has been dedicated to growing businesses, building teams and creating learning programs that impact employee engagement.

Before joining Hearst, she provided leadership in executing HR strategy at engineering and information technology companies in areas that included company culture, employee training and development, total rewards, change management and organizational and performance management, along with supporting company growth through mergers and acquisitions.

During her tenure at GHD, she played a key role in growing the Americas offices from 300 employees to over 4,000 employees in a five-year period. At STV, she implemented several programs that directly impacted employee engagement and retention.

Bennett is a member of the New York City Junior League and Advancing Women Executives (AWE), a national leadership program for senior executives with a mission to accelerate the careers of women in business. Bennett was selected as one of New York Business Journal’s 2018 Women of Influence for the Greater New York metropolitan area. She also serves as a scout for HearstLab, which nurtures and invests in early-stage, women-led startups that innovate across media, business information and technology disciplines.

She is a graduate of Northeastern University with a bachelor’s degree in organizational and interpersonal communication and holds an M.B.A. from Syracuse University in human resource management.