Iteration is at the heart of the conversation with Dessalen Wood. She iterated on her career by discovering her passion and then writing her own job description to achieve what she wanted. In iteration two, she fired herself when she was no longer fulfilled in her role. As a front-line sales pro, she operated at the 5000 ft view. In iteration two, as an HR leader, she operated at the 50k ft view.

She shares with us her perspective from a career learning how to produce a product early, know it's a draft, and include the right people in making each attempt better. She shares her playbook on questioning and helps you understand how to know what you want by knowing what you don't.

Dessalen Wood, CHRP, is a seasoned HR executive, facilitator, and leadership coach
who has specialized in passionately leading People and Culture teams within blue-chip
Canadian and US organizations. Dessalen has over 25 years of experience in mid-size
and large size Canadian and US organizations, such as Reitman’s Canada, Hudson’s
Bay Company, The Children’s Place & The Disney Stores, in addition to leading the
global People function for Canadian-based tech companies. Prior to joining Syntax, Dessalen started her career in the field of recruitment and training.

She soon developed an interest in the entire employee life cycle and moved to HR
management roles at major Canadian and US-based retail chains. In 2019,
Dessalen made the move from the service industry to the tech industry, in the role of Chief People Officer at ThoughtExchange, a BC-based tech start-up that empowers leaders to bring people together and solve problems with their employees, community, and customers through crowdsourcing. In 2022 Dessalen joined Syntax, a leading managed cloud provider for mission-critical applications, as their Global Chief People officer, leading a team of HR professionals from around the globe.