VP HR Leslie McInstosh, Making Your Career Fit You

Leslie has worked in financial services, engineering, Energy, ski industry, health care, and technology and today she joins the show to talk about starting a new role on the eve of a national lockdown and crisis, how she leverages her experience in different sectors and the impact of authenticity on executive culture.

 

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Leslie McIntosh is the Vice-President Head of Human Resources. Previously she held the role of Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer of BioScrip. She was also Vice President, Human Resources at DigitalGlobe, a business unit of Maxar Technologies. Prior to that, she was HR Director at Vail Resorts and held senior HR roles at MWH (now part of Stantec), Janus Henderson Investors, and American Century Investments, with ten years at public companies.

 

GET IN TOUCH WITH LESLIE ON LINKEDIN

 

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS

Podfly Productions: Podfly.net

Veterans of Foreign Wars: VFWpost1.org

OC Executive Search: OCExecutiveSearch.com

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

[1:52] Michael introduces Leslie and asks her to share an interesting tidbit about herself as well as what CoreSite is and what they do.

 

NATIONAL LOCKDOWN [3:52] Leslie talks about getting on a plane to her new job at CoreSite on the eve of the National lockdown at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the experiences she drew from to manage that rocky transition.

 

CRITICAL MOMENTS [8:00] In her very first professional-level role, Leslie learned important lessons about how to take feedback and how to become more aware of the impact of her action on others. She shares a second pivotal career moment.

 

CANDIDATE SELECTION [9:27] Passionate, smart, talented, and humble are just some of the key characteristics Leslie looks for in her candidates.

 

ACROSS SECTORS [10:20] Leslie touches on what the advantages are of having touched and worked in so many different sectors. She also touches on the surprises she had at her different roles.

 

WHY THE C? [12:53] Leslie shares what personal discoveries she made on her way to figuring out if the C-suite was for her. She also talks about the rewards and challenges of roles at that level as well as some of the overlooked aspects.

 

PREPARING [16:40] Preparing for a board interview for Leslie is an organized process, she walks us through it and shares her tips for being prepared.

 

INTERVIEW ADVICE [19:27] Leslie shares her advice for people who may be looking at high-rank interviews in the future.

 

CULTURE [20:50] Culture is super important; Leslie shares her own experiences with various places she’s worked in; she also touches on how she identifies good cultures. She also talks about how to change or manage culture.

 

MENTORSHIP [24:15] Leslie speaks to her own experiences as a mentor and a mentee.

 

PASSING YOUR TURN [27:57] Leslie was always very certain that she wanted a company that was the right fit for her and she has passed up opportunities that would have been great for her career, but not such a great fit.

 

EMERGING LEADER ADVICE [29:00] Why do you want the role, and what important thing do you have to give are two things Leslie advises you should think on. She also expands on servant leadership.

 

BEST WORST JOB LESLIE EVER HAD [31:08] Working for a family catering company, Leslie shares what she learned from that experience.

 

[34:44] Michael thanks Leslie for coming on the podcast to share his insight and closes out the podcast with his favorite takeaways.

 

We hope you learned something today and enjoyed the conversation. Please give us 5 stars on iTunes and share your comments so we can improve and ask the questions you want to hear.

 

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

CoreSite

 

SPECIAL THANKS TO

Jalan Crossland for the music

Angela Johnson at OC Executive Search

Joseph Batty at Podfly

Corey Coates at Podfly