CWT, the business-to-business-for-employees (B2B4E) travel-management platform, has announced the appointment of Laura Watterson as executive VP, chief human resources officer, starting 5 July, 2022. She takes over from Catherine Maguire-Vielle, who is moving on from the Company to pursue new professional opportunities.
An alumna of Cornell University, from where she did her master’s in industrial and labour relations, the longest stint of her career was with General Mills, where she started off as an HR intern in 2000. Within a year, she was elevated to the role of assistant human resource manager, based out of Iowa City. Another year later, she was posted as HR manager, at Methuen, Massachusetts. Two years into this role, she led the site HR for three manufacturing facilities, based out of Lodi, California. By 2010, she was senior HR manager- US retail operations and international division.
After a successful decade-long tenure with General Mills, Watterson joined Philips Lighting as director – HR business partner, based out of Dallas, Texas in 2010.
The year 2012 saw her moving to Aimia Inc. as VP-talent & culture for the US region. When she left Aimia after six years, she was VP- talent & culture – global coalitions.
Her next stop was Johnson Brothers Liquor C. as CHRO. A one-year stint later, she moved to CWT as senior VP – global talent & rewards, acting CHRO, at Greater Minneapolis for a year. Then, she joined Cambria as executive vice president, chief human resources & risk officer in Minnesota.
Now, she is back again with CWT, where she will report to Patrick Andersen, president & chief executive officer, CWT and also be a member of the Company’s executive leadership team.
Though sorry to have to bid farewell to Maguire-Vielle, Andersen is happy to welcome back Watterson, and is confident that her “skills, flair, and talents will be a core ingredient of our success as we enter the next phase of our company’s growth story”.
Watterson — who also holds a bachelor’s degree in French from Washington and Lee University — is known for delivering positive impact in multiple industries and Fortune 500 companies. Given her superior human resource management skills, and ability to implement innovative talent movement processes to improve depth and deployment, and creating sustainable people infrastructure, she will be an asset to CWT.
