HRPA Founder Jeff McGuiness Honored as National Academy of Human Resources Distinguished Fellow

HR Policy CEO Emeritus Joins Small Group of “Firsts Among Equals’” in Human Resource Profession

Arlington, VA – On November 7, HR Policy Association Founder and CEO Emeritus Jeffrey C. McGuiness was named a Distinguished Fellow by the National Academy of Human Resources (NAHR).  The Academy, founded in 1992, is the organization where individuals of distinction in human resources are recognized for exceptional professional achievement.

Since its founding, the NAHR has elected 172 individuals as Fellows of the National Academy, and, of these, only 15 individuals have been further honored as Distinguished Fellows.  With this recognition, McGuiness joins former HR Policy Association Chairs William Conaty, J. Randall MacDonald, and Mirian Graddick-Weir, as well as HR Policy Executive Vice President Charles G. Tharp.

During McGuiness’s long tenure of leading the organization, it went from a small organization focused primarily on labor and employment policy called the Labor Policy Association to what it is today, the premier organization of Chief Human Resource Officers. During his tenure, a number of affiliated organizations were created, some of which are leaders in their own right—the Center On Executive Compensation and the American Health Policy Institute, for example.  Since stepping down as CEO, McGuiness has continued to serve the Association membership as a Principal with the Health Care Policy Roundtable LLC, which provides health care offerings to large employers, including Retiree Health Access which covers over 40,000 lives.

“There is not enough space to catalogue the numerous contributions Jeff has made to the HR profession,” said McGuiness’s successor as Association CEO, Dan Yager, who has worked closely with him since 1988.  “Most importantly, he established a voice in Washington for senior HR policy leaders, while also marshaling their ability to make a difference through collaborative efforts.  He honed a unique brand of information-based lobbying that developed cogent, practice-based points of view on the key employment policy issues over a forty-year period.  In the meantime, the Association evolved into a closely-knit community of the chief human resource officers of over 390 large, primarily global, companies.”   

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HR Policy Association is the leading organization representing chief human resource officers of major employers.  The Association consists of over 390 of the largest corporations doing business in the United States and globally, and these employers are represented in the organization by their most senior human resource executive.   Collectively, their companies employ more than ten million employees in the United States, nearly nine percent of the private sector workforce, and 20 million employees worldwide.  They have a combined market capitalization of more than $7.5 trillion.  These senior corporate officers participate in the Association because of their commitment to improving the direction of human resource policy.  Their objective is to use the combined power of the membership to act as a positive influence to better public policy, the HR marketplace, and the human resource profession.