This Big Fish Swims Fast to Bring “Experience of a Lifetime” to Vail Resorts

David Reed is the VP of Global Talent at Vail Resorts, the premier mountain resort company with a simple mission: “Experience of a Lifetime”.  Think that provides a great platform for a premier employment brand as well?  You’re right – but that doesn’t make it easy!  David has a big job at Vail and has had an amazing career journey, including dashed Olympic dreams, a false start in accounting, then a serendipitous meeting leading to almost 3 decades with Accenture building and delivering world-class Talent Acquisition for both internal and external clients.

Through the magic of podcast technology, I captured my conversation with David for the  “Big Fish in the Talent Pool” podcast, where I interview Global Heads of TA about the joys and challenges of TA Leadership. I’ve been there, so there’s nothing I’m afraid to ask.  And the insights these leaders share are often surprising and fun.

In this interview, we dove deep into what it takes to fulfill the mission of a global organization like Vail Resorts, including David’s overall strategy, and his view on metrics, career movement, technology and even gender bias.  David is one of the most thoughtful, efficient and disciplined people I’ve ever known.   And if you’re patient enough to get to the very end of my conversation with him, (bonus!) he shares one of his secrets to personal productivity.  There are so many interesting nuggets of wisdom from David, all available right here.

This is the second episode of the “Big Fish in the Talent Pool” podcast.  The first one was with Tara Noonan Amaral, formerly of Fidelity Investments, and there are more on the way.  If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave feedback – I’m all ears!  And if you have a suggestion for someone you think I should interview, I’d love to hear that too (my contact info is below).  In the meantime, enjoy David Reed of Vail Resorts and as as always, “just keep swimming…”

Big Fish in the Talent Pool: Episode 2, Part 1 with David Reed

Big Fish in the Talent Pool: Episode 2, Part 2 with David Reed

Erin McDermott Peterson is a Partner with PeopleResults. Follow her on Twitter @ErinMcPeterson or connect via email at epeterson@people-results.com