Michelle Luna-Kepner

Michelle Luna-Kepner is currently the Director of HR at Southwest Human Development. Prior to this, they served as the Director of Human Resources for CMOC from October 2016 to December 2019. In this role, they played a leading role in building out the infrastructure, talent, and processes that enabled the company to meet a one-year deadline for the operational takeover of a $2.65 billion mine in Africa.

Luna-Kepner is credited with enabling the start-up office to be “running and building” at the same time by establishing a management center that tracked and guided ongoing operations and acquisitions, ensuring accountability and continuity during the rapid and massive expansion. Michelle also supported rapid company growth and individual initiative while maintaining high professional standards by creating a core set of values that empowered managers with the flexibility to make common-sense judgments on a case-by-case basis.

In order to achieve the goals set forth by the company, Luna-Kepner implemented classes on diverse social styles to help employees understand each other and build teamwork to accelerate performance for the start-up. Michelle also automated reporting and metrics, form completion and request processes, as well as vacancy and applicant tracking. This freed up time for HR staff to focus on strategic field work such as leadership and culture development.

Thanks to Luna-Kepner’s efforts, CMOC was able to meet very tight deadlines for domestic (4 months) and overseas (6 months) implementations of their SAP system. Michelle did this by executing a strategy that bifurcated the project into two systems (using SAP’s client capability) and then prioritized HR system functions into phases, ensuring payroll and other essentials were completed on time.

Michelle Luna-Kepner is a highly accomplished human resources professional with a proven track record of enabling companies to meet their goals through their innovative strategies and vision.

Michelle Luna-Kepner has a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from the University of Arizona - Eller College of Management. Michelle is certified by SHRM as a Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP).

Michelle Luna-Kepner reports to Ginger Ward, CEO. Some of their coworkers include Mindy Zapata - Director, Early Head Start & Head Start, Annette Findlay - CIO, and Jeanette Ramos - CFO.