Richard M. Vosburgh, Ph.D.

Richard Vosburgh is an Affiliate Expert of Bates Group, working out of Sebring, FL.  Richard has 35 years of post-Ph.D. experience in many highly respected organizations.  He is a seasoned global HR executive in organizations where HR excellence directly impacts customer satisfaction and bottom line results. His broad, diverse experience includes: Specialist in organization effectiveness & Generalist HR for business groups; field & headquarters; domestic & international (Europe & Asia); fix-it, turnaround, high growth, start-up, spin-off & merger experience. Dr. Vosburgh is a high-energy, results-oriented, hands-on strategic leader & business partner.

Richard founded RMV Solutions LLC in 2009 to provide organizational effectiveness consulting services with a mission to help individuals and organizations maximize the impact of their talent. After moving to an organizational role in 2011 to serve as Chief HR Officer, in 2014 Richard returned to consulting and formed Alliance partnerships with Checkster, Viridis Learning, TalentKeepers and The Best Practice Institute.

Richard retired from KEMET Electronics Corporation June 2014 as SVP-HR and Chief HR Officer after three years in Fort Lauderdale with the company. KEMET is a global capacitor organization with close to $1B in sales and 10,000 employees; with a mission to help make the world a better, safer, more connected place to live. Previously Richard was SVP-HR for Mirage Resorts within MGM MIRAGE (2006-2008) in Las Vegas, covering nine resort casinos and 37,000 employees. He had HR responsibility for the strategies, systems and processes to open CityCenter--the largest privately funded development in the US, adding over 12,000 jobs.

For the previous 6+ years, Richard was with Compaq and HP--the last two years as VP-HR, Asia Pacific in Singapore, with responsibility for the 14 Country HR managers and shared services HR support for the region. His team of 180 supported 34,000 employees across the four HP Business Groups. He chaired the Region HR Council and sat on the Asia Pacific Leadership Team. During the merger he was VP-HR for the Americas enterprise group; and before that, VP-HR for Compaq North America ($15B revenue & 15,000 employees).

Previous to HP, he was VP-HR for a division of Campbell Soup Company and Chief HR Officer for its spin-off, Vlasic Foods International. Before that he was VP-HR for Hyatt Hotels and Resorts and VP-HR for Mervyn’s department stores. Richard spent ten years with PepsiCo in the two fastest growing divisions: Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. He has also worked outside of HR: In sales and marketing while in Germany with Volkswagen as the executive leading Customer Satisfaction for the worldwide dealership network; and then reporting to the President of The Gallup Organization, selling and servicing large global accounts for customer satisfaction measurement, talent assessment and employee satisfaction measurement, doing much of that work in Europe.

Richard has lived just about everywhere, but his roots are in Florida and Maine.  His Industrial/Organizational Psychology Ph.D. is from the University of South Florida (1979).  He enjoys travel, boating, fishing and professional writing.  He has authored numerous journal articles (including the 2007 award winning article on The Evolution of HR); one book published by Van Nostrand Reinhold (1987) entitled Career Development for Engineers and Scientists; and co-edited the book Point Counterpoint: New Perspectives on People and Strategy (2012), published by SHRM.  After serving four years on the Board of Directors of the non-profit HR People & Strategy (HRPS), and five years (2003-2007) as the volunteer Executive Editor for the quarterly HR People & Strategy journal; he now serves as Chairman of the Board for HRPS.  Richard was previously on the Board of Directors of HP’s Federal LLC (chairing the HR/Compensation Committee); and on the Advisory Board for the University of Southern California’s Center for Effective Organizations.   Currently on the SHRM Certification Commission providing governance for the new HR professional certification process.  Since January 2015 have published the column Practitioner Ponderings in SIOP’s TIP publication.