HR Leaders in Focus Series: A Conversation with Colette Gardner, EVP, People & Culture at Movement Strategy
👉Spotlighting HR executives who are shaping the future of work, part of CFW Careers’ commitment to excellence in retained executive search, global executive search, and professional coaching.
Welcome to our HR Leaders in Focus blog series, where we feature conversations with HR executives shaping the future of work. These leaders share strategies, lessons learned, and insights on the evolving role HR plays in driving organizational success across industries.
At CFW Careers, we bring together the expertise of global executive search and the personalized guidance of professional coaching. Our dual practice allows us to support organizations in building strong leadership teams while helping individual leaders navigate transitions and accelerate their growth.
Colette Gardner
EVP of People and Culture at Movement Strategy
We’re now talking with Colette Gardner, a former opera singer turned People leader who is now part of Movement Strategy's executive team, where she embeds the People perspective at the heart of the agency’s overall strategy.
Colette, can you start by introducing yourself and describing your role at Movement Strategy? What drew you to People and Culture leadership?
I’m Colette Gardner, EVP of People and Culture at Movement Strategy. I work closely with our executive leadership team to drive the agency’s overall strategy, while ensuring the People voice is always part of the conversation. I also lead the People and Culture team, and even though I am part of the executive team, I stay very hands-on with both my team and the agency.
My path to People & Culture leadership is far from traditional. I was an opera singer in a previous life, and when it came time to transition into a new career, I was inspired by the positive HR leadership I’d experienced during my time in school and in early roles that supported my performing career. That inspired me to go back to school at UCLA for HR, and it evolved from there. I still can’t believe how I got here!
At my core, I’m a people person who is adaptable to different personalities, grounded in empathy, and able to stay calm and thoughtful under pressure. That combination of emotional intelligence, strategy, and connection is what drew me to this work and continues to drive me today.
You’ve spoken about helping first-time leaders shift from “expert” to “enabler.” What are some of the most effective ways you’ve coached leaders through that transition?
Many HR leaders, myself included, spend a lot of time helping first-time managers navigate this shift. It’s one of the hardest transitions to make because being a great individual contributor doesn’t automatically translate to being a great leader.
For new managers, the instinct is often to stay in the weeds and keep doing what they know. But leadership is about zooming out, seeing the full picture, orchestrating the doers, and guiding the team through change, conflict, deliverables, and process improvement. The soft skills like communication, empathy, coaching, and trust-building become your most powerful tools.
I often coach leaders to reframe their definition of success. Your impact is no longer measured by your personal output but by how you empower others to deliver theirs. When you start leading with clarity and purpose, helping people see where they fit, what they own, and how their work connects to the bigger picture, that’s when teams really thrive.
In a remote-first culture, what intentional touch points have you found most effective in creating clarity and belonging while avoiding fatigue?
This is one of the trickier areas to get right, and we’re all still trying to figure it out since 2020. In a remote-first culture, you lose a lot of the natural human connection that comes from being in the same space, like the casual conversations, body language, and spontaneous moments that help build trust and relationships. Because employees aren’t seeing what everyone is doing anymore, they need even more communication touch points. It’s something that’s consistently called out in our employee engagement survey - employees want more communication, not less.
At Movement Strategy, we’ve found that creating clarity starts with consistency, and there’s still plenty of room for us to keep growing in that area. Leaders need to be intentional about how and when they communicate, from structured all-agency touch points that reinforce priorities, to smaller, recurring team check-ins where people can ask questions, share updates, and feel seen. Clarity doesn’t come from more meetings; it comes from the right meetings with a clear purpose and outcome.
Belonging is built through intentional connection. At Movement, we create opportunities for people to engage beyond the day-to-day work, from ERG events and quarterly all-agency virtual gatherings to in-person city meetups and Slack moments like our Friday water cooler chats. These moments remind people that they are part of something larger, a culture that values connection, recognition, and shared experience, even from behind a screen.
Ultimately, reducing fatigue in a remote-first world is about being intentional with time and energy. Every touchpoint should either bring clarity, foster connection, or create momentum. If it doesn’t, it’s probably noise.
From your perspective, what leadership qualities tend to go unseen or undervalued, and what advice do you find yourself giving most often to emerging leaders?
One of the most undervalued leadership qualities is humility. The best leaders know they don’t have all the answers and that humility also means you are not the expert but you learn from everyone around you. Listening deeply, asking thoughtful questions, and creating space for others to contribute are often overlooked but incredibly powerful. Empathy and emotional intelligence also go unseen at times, even though they are what build trust, connection, and loyalty, which are the foundation of any strong team.
The advice I give emerging leaders most often is to slow down and be intentional. Leadership is not about doing more; it is about helping others do their best work. Clarity, consistency, and compassion go a long way. People will always remember how you made them feel, especially in moments of pressure or change. If you lead with self-awareness and a genuine desire to see others succeed, you will earn influence that no title alone can give you.
What strategies or initiatives have you found most impactful in driving leadership development?
Coaching has been one of the most impactful strategies for developing leaders. We’ve seen real growth when leaders have space to reflect, ask questions, and work through challenges in real time. That includes both internal coaching conversations and external coaching partnerships, which provide an objective perspective and help leaders strengthen their self-awareness and decision-making skills.
We’re also introducing DiSC assessments so everyone has a shared language to use when collaborating with peers. It helps teams better understand communication styles, adapt to different personalities, and build empathy across functions. The more leaders can understand themselves and others, the better they become at leading with clarity, connection, and trust.
Looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges shaping the future of HR?
It is impossible to talk about the future of HR without mentioning AI. Everyone is thinking about it. It is both an incredible opportunity and a real challenge for People professionals. On one hand, AI can streamline operations, improve efficiency, and give us more time to focus on meaningful, human-centered work. On the other, it raises important questions around ethics, equity, and how we maintain the human connection at the heart of everything we do.
I see the biggest opportunity in using AI to enhance, not replace, the human experience at work. As people leaders, we have a responsibility to guide our organizations through this evolution thoughtfully, ensuring we use technology in ways that build trust, support learning, and empower employees rather than create distance. Balancing innovation with empathy will be what defines the next era of People and Culture leadership.
How can people connect with you and learn more about your work?
colette.gardner@movementstrategy.com | Movement Strategy | LinkedIn
At CFW Careers, as a firm specializing in retained executive search, we know that placing the right leaders in the right roles creates impact that lasts well beyond the hire. This series reflects our commitment to spotlighting the voices of HR leaders who are advancing the profession and shaping workplaces of the future.