In this next installment in our Leadership Perspectives video series, Heidrick & Struggles’ Tom Moran speaks to Rachael Sklamberg, the executive vice president and chief human resources officer of COUNTRY Financial. Sklamberg has held her role since June 2019, and oversees corporate communications, flight operations, property/administrative services, and human resources programs and policies for COUNTRY Financial and the Illinois Farm Bureau. In this interview, Sklamberg talks about culture-shaping—how the company blends its family-oriented culture with one of a strong performance orientation, and how that helped them weather the COVID-19 pandemic. She also shares the most relevant decisions she had to make to manage the pandemic, which aspects of her leadership style were most helpful at the time, and what adjustments or changes she made in order to develop as a leader. Finally, she shares why she believes COUNTRY Financial is more resilient now than before the pandemic.

About the interviewer

Tom Moran (tmoran@heidrick.com) is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ Chicago office and a member of Heidrick Consulting.