MEGA SESSION: Business Skills for the Business Partner
Do your eyes glaze over when looking at a financial spreadsheet? Do you have difficulty understanding your CEO’s vision during company meetings? Ever mix up your debits with your credits? This session will address the basic financial and business areas which you should have a working understanding of to take some of the fear out of the “business” aspects of being a business partner. The ability to understand and diagnose the competitive and strategic challenges of organizations will be a hallmark of quality HR. We will discuss common financial and P&L terminology as well as basic marketing principles that you should understand, and then apply these principles to best practice development of a comprehensive HR agenda.
Michael Walters
Michael Walters, Vice President of Human Resources, brings almost a decade of executive experience in human resources to Verathon’s Bothell-based corporate headquarters. His responsibilities include focusing on worldwide strategic HR issues as well as running the day-to-day HR department. Prior to joining Verathon, Mr. Walters held leadership roles at Microsoft, The Nielsen Company, and several other successful firms in the media and services industries. In addition, Mr. Walters’ academic work experience includes instructing at UCLA and University of Washington business school extension programs. He holds a Master of Business Administration from Loyola Marymount University and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from UCLA.