Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Scaling a business is hard enough. Scaling it without losing your people or your culture? Even harder. I help founders, executives, and remote teams tackle the messy middle of growth – aligning strategy with culture, embedding Diversity, Equity & Belonging (DEB), and designing people systems that actually work in real life. With 15+ years leading People & Culture across startups, healthcare, oil & gas, and enterprises of 2,200+ employees, I bring both the big-picture strategy and the operational rigor it takes to scale sustainably. My approach is strategic and pragmatic; I connect people data with business outcomes, elevate leadership capabilities, and build infrastructure that keeps teams thriving even through change. Most recently, as VP of Talent & Culture at Virtual Gurus, I helped scale a distributed workforce across North America, leading the talent operations, engagement, and inclusion strategies that reduced turnover below 2% and positioned the company as an employer of choice. Whether I’m guiding a growing organization through transformation or building scalable systems for an established enterprise, my focus stays the same: create people-first organizations that perform, belong, and last. Areas of expertise: • Talent Operations & Workforce Scaling • Culture Transformation & DEB Strategy • Leadership Development & Organizational Design • Remote & Distributed Team Enablement • Change Management & Executive Coaching Read more about me and how I can support your business: https://marcilewis-racette.com.
I led Talent & Culture through a period of rapid scaling – expanding a distributed workforce across North America while strengthening engagement, leadership, and belonging. At Virtual Gurus, I helped transform Talent & Culture into a true business driver. I designed scalable systems for hiring, onboarding, and retention, and introduced analytics that made talent operations measurable, predictable, and aligned with growth. Impact & Initiatives: - Scaled internal team from 20 to 50+ while reducing turnover to under 2%. - Maintained a high-performing marketplace of 500+ contractors while implementing scalable systems that elevated talent quality – achieving average scores above 80% across disciplines and regions. - Partnered with product leaders across the company to align workforce planning with client demand and marketplace capacity. - Partnered with revenue operations to leverage organizational analytics for workforce planning, onboarding effectiveness, and churn mitigation KPIs. - Embedded diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging principles into every stage of the employee lifecycle – from recruitment to leadership development. - Elevated employer brand and EVP, positioning VG as an employer of choice for remote professionals. My approach: Blending systems thinking with empathy. Every process I built was designed to scale sustainably and preserve the culture that made growth possible.
During an exceptionally challenging period for the healthcare sector (COVID-19 era), I guided People & Culture strategy, operations, and workforce resilience for a 300-person residential care organization – balancing compliance, staffing stability, and human-centered leadership under pressure. Impact & Initiatives: - Strengthened retention and engagement through targeted well-being initiatives, recognition programs, and flexible scheduling. - Ensured compliance with evolving public health and employment standards through rigorous HR processes and proactive communication. - Delivered three-times-weekly internal communications to keep internal stakeholders informed, supported, and aligned on safety protocols and organizational updates. - Provided data-driven insights to the executive team to inform workforce planning, cross-training, and redeployment during operational surges. Process and approach: I began with a rapid audit of core people operations (hiring, turnover, leave, scheduling) to identify risk zones. I then introduced a prioritization framework (health & safety, staffing stability, morale) and deployed quick-win pilots (micro-feedback loops, wellness check-ins). Real-time dashboards allowed senior leaders to see staffing stress indicators early and intervene proactively.
Over a 12+ year journey, I led HR strategy and operations across 2,200 employees and 30+ remote worksites, during periods of scaling, restructuring, and mergers – acting as a strategic partner to executive teams and the operations arm. Impact & Initiatives: - Drove standardization across six business units by unifying HR systems, policies, and performance frameworks, which increased operational efficiency by ~20%. - Introduced payroll automation and streamlined HRIS solutions that reduced administrative overhead and error rates. - Designed and implemented compensation models and incentive plans tied to business metrics, improving retention in key technical roles by over 10%. - Led cultural integration and change programs during mergers and reorganizations, maintaining employee engagement and minimizing disruption. - Served on Executive Committee, providing strategic HR counsel on talent planning, leadership succession, and organizational design during periods of growth and contraction. Process and approach: I partnered closely with business leaders to understand operational constraints and talent demand. I built cross-functional working groups to define unified processes and systems, executed phased deployment of HRIS/payroll tools, and maintained ongoing feedback loops with site leaders. I also anchored all initiatives in change management principles (communication, stakeholder alignment, training) to minimize resistance and maximize adoption.