Rachel Ernst

I accelerate women's careers through coaching and running leadership learning programs to create more equity at senior leader levels. www.accelherate.org I also use my in-depth HR experience as a fractional HR leader, consulting with organizations on fair and motivating performance management programs, building engaged and inclusive workforces, creating strong foundations on which to scale companies, and navigating complex people transformation initiatives.

Udemy is an American global AI-powered skills development platform. The platform provides individuals and organizations on-demand, multi-language content combined with real-time innovation, mostly connected to outcomes-centric technical, business and soft skills. The platform allows instructors to host online courses on their preferred topics. Instructors can upload videos and other educational material. As the VP of Employee Experience, I led performance management transformation, redefining goal-setting, feedback, and performance measurement to ultimately drive top performance in an equitable manner. The new program served as core foundation for a tailored total rewards strategy, succession and talent planning processes. I also led the people analytics strategy, redefining company metrics to measure engagement and employee success. To encourage accountability for employee engagement, I helped redefined leadership roles, enabling and ensuring 95% of Director+ designed and own team engagement plans. When Udemy decided to become a hybrid company, I Ied the return-to-office transition that increased employee satisfaction by 8% within 4 months

As the interim head of Total Rewards, I ran implementation of and education of redesigned compensation approach, and lead the compensation and promotion cycle end to end.

I led people strategy for a company acquisition, retaining all acquired employees and receiving top 2 box engagement scores for onboarding experience. I also designed and led program team for global employee safe return to the office during COVID, opening all offices within scheduled time and minimizing spread of COVID. I spearheaded the organization’s reduction in force effort in February 2023 with compassion, risk aversion and seamless execution, and also oversaw strategy and goal setting for HR leadership team, including a metrics-driven approach to measuring function success.

Reflektive is a performance management company built for top performers and growing businesses. With Reflektive, you can scale constructive, ongoing conversations that keep your people and your business continuously improving. More than 500 forward-thinking customers — including AAR, Allbirds, Dropbox, FabFitFun, PagerDuty, and Protective Life Insurance — trust Reflektive to modernize people and performance management. Reflektive is now part of Part of PeopleFluent and LTG. As the CHRO, I advised customers, including HR leaders and executives on evolving performance management trends and practices, increasing company’s client retention and product adoption. I partnered with CEO to shape the executive team, hiring 4 and onboarding key executives within 8 months and I the team through change management and scaling challenges, resulting in strong retention of top talent and a culture of accountability.

As VP, Employee Success, I implemented company-wide goal-setting framework, resulting in 100% employee goal adoption, weekly team alignment meetings, and real-time tracking via a company dashboard—driving measurable progress across all departments. I served as advisor to Product team to build innovative HR product offerings. Served as the company’s expert on performance management, including speaking at industry and Reflektive hosted conferences, writing articles for Forbes and appearing on the Jane King show at NASDAQ.

In my role as Director, Employee Success I implemented a strong HR foundation to support company scale plans including new a HRIS system, performance management program, management education, new benefits program and compensation bands. I also led a team of nine employees to grow the company from 65 to 220 employees within 18 months while fostering an inclusive, inspiring and high-performing culture.

Quantcast is an advertising technology company and the creator of an innovative intelligent audience platform that empowers brands, agencies and publishers to know and grow their audiences online. The Quantcast Platform, powered by Ara™, a patented AI and machine learning engine, delivers automated insights, marketing performance, and results at scale to drive business growth. Their solutions are leveling the playing field for our customers when it comes to effectively reaching audiences online and helping them power a thriving free and open internet for everyone. Headquartered in San Francisco, Quantcast has been serving customers around the world since 2006. As Head of People Partnerships and Operations, I spearheaded organizational redesign for a 300-person division, ensuring alignment with business strategy and developed company-wide and job specific competency frameworks as a foundation for performance, career progression, and leadership effectiveness. Within 5 months, I also hired, designed and led first team HR Business partners.

I redesigned performance management program with a multi layered approach focused on leadership development, ongoing feedback, employee growth, and trust building. I also launched and led global women’s affinity group (GRIT) across 4 office sites to expand diverse leadership pipelines. I am proud to have rolled out company’s first engagement strategy and survey, resulting in 15% increase in management capability scores. Lastly, I designed and led leadership development program including creation of leadership competencies, building a 360 assessment and leading in person management education, developing 50 leaders across the company.

Fidelity Investments provides financial services. Established in 1946, the company is one of the largest asset managers in the world, with $5.8 trillion in discretionary assets under management, and $15.1 trillion in assets under administration, as of December 2024. Fidelity operates a brokerage firm, manages mutual funds, provides fund distribution and investment advice, retirement services, index funds, wealth management, securities execution and clearance, asset custody, and life insurance. It offers brokerage clearing and back office support and software products for financial services firms. It also offers a donor-advised fund, Fidelity Charitable, for clients seeking to donate securities. It processes 3.5 million daily average trades. It is one of the largest providers of 401(k) plans and manages employee benefit programs for more than 28,800 businesses. As the Director of HR, I served as a trusted advisor to senior executives, leading workforce planning, performance management, and engagement strategies. I improved executive leadership effectiveness by 23% through targeted coaching and 360° feedback interpretation using Fidelity’s leadership assessment tools.

I was a member of performance management redesign team to create new design structure, educate population on new performance practices and drive new performance system adoption. I also led the organizational restructuring of three business units to enhance customer alignment, in close collaboration with business leadership. I developed and facilitated a firm-wide employee growth toolkit and workshop, equipping employees with prioritization and career development strategies that improved internal mobility.

I advised executive leaders on workforce architecture by developing skill-based career frameworks to strengthen retention and internal progression. I delivered competitive compensation analyses and realigned incentive structures for Institutional Sales, driving market competitiveness and strategic sales growth. I built enterprise-wide salary and bonus architecture by job family, improving compensation transparency and internal equity.

I built career skill frameworks for aligned clients to ensure employee retention, helping employees understand potential growth paths. I led redesign of levels and compensation structure of Benefits and Investment Consulting groups

Pearl Meyer is the leading advisor to boards and senior management helping organizations build, develop, and reward great leadership teams that drive long-term success. Their strategy-driven compensation and leadership consulting services act as powerful catalysts for value creation and competitive advantage by addressing the critical links between people and outcomes. Their clients stand at the forefront of their industries and range from emerging high-growth, not-for-profit, and private organizations to the Fortune 500.