Ilana Meskin’s passion for leadership and organization development comes from an impressive corporate track record of over 25 years of professional Human Resources experience at 2 major companies, Amgen and ARCO, with significant accomplishments across both line HR and corporate functions.   In her 16 year tenure at Amgen, she held key roles of increasing scope as her own career tracked the company’s hyper growth period, pioneering in HR while the company grew from a workforce of  2000 to 20000, and from $1B to $15B.   Her practice areas include executive coaching, talent management processes, and change management.

As the former Executive Director of Leadership and Organization Development at Amgen, Ilana owned talent review processes such as succession planning for the top 100 leaders, executive assessments, and drove a focus on career management at all levels.   Earlier in the company’s history, Ilana led Amgen’s entry into executive development, worked directly with the CEO on the first definition of leadership expectations, and initiated a values based 360 instrument and coaching for the top 300 leaders.  During this period, Amgen became a case study in the groundbreaking McKinsey research, described in The War for Talent, and Ilana’s reputation for giving straight, constructive feedback to senior executives is profiled in the book.

Additionally, her work with the management team in articulating a talent philosophy with clear career paths, ultimately achieving a significant increase in mobility over a 2 year period, yielded a deeper bench ready to take on future leadership roles.

Ilana’s background also includes facilitating large scale change, workforce engagement, and shaping organizational culture and values; she is experienced in design and interpretation of focus group or climate survey data to inform and drive recommended action. 

Prior to Amgen, Ilana’s career included 11 years with a subsidiary of ARCO, and she subsequently held HR roles of increasing responsibility including Director of HR until the acquisition of ARCO Solar by Siemens.

She holds a BA in Linguistics from York University in Canada, and is fluent in French.   She has attended several executive development programs, including the University of Michigan HR Executive Program.  Ilana serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Camp Ramah in California, and is a graduate of the Wexner Heritage Foundation program in communal leadership.