Jamie Lapensee

“As President and CEO of Certica Solutions for 14 years prior to our acquisition by Instructure in Dec 2020, it was critical to me that we (i) always hired the highest caliber individuals that we could, (ii) had a professional, robust and mature human resources function, and (iii) paid attention to workplace flexibility, diversity, equity and inclusion. So as we grew the company and got to the size where we needed to hire our first full-time People/HR professional, I decided it was critical that we hired an individual that is highly talented and competent at executing all facets of the People/HR function in a hands-on manner, while also having management experience so that they could build the People/HR function for the company by hiring additional People/HR team members to report to them as we continued our growth. This is Jamie Lapensee! We were incredibly fortunate to have Jamie referred to us through a professional colleague of one of our executives, and we couldn't have been luckier or happier. Her breadth of abilities and experience span all the facets of the People/HR function - including policy, compliance, process, systems, recruiting and onboarding/offboarding, benefits (establishment, renewals and administration), payroll, DEI, performance management, manager coaching, etc - and she is equally able to either execute across these functional areas directly or manage other People/HR professionals who are individually responsible for some/all of these functions. Furthermore, Jamie understands what it takes and has direct experience with People/HR management in mergers/acquisitions. My experience is that many people do NOT understand what this takes and don't appreciate the anxiety and concern that a lot of employees being acquired have during the assimilation and integration process and timeframe. As a company that did 8 acquisitions and had close to 100% employee retention from those acquisition, I attribute much of Certica's success in this regard to Jamie's skill and care with all aspects of the employee transition process during these acquisitions. Anyone looking for a People/HR leader who is also adept at hands-on execution for their company shouldn't go past Jamie. I'm more than happy to field any inquiries relating to Jamie if you are considering her for your company - just message me.”

“As an executive at Certica Solutions, I was personally involved in recruiting and hiring Jamie to become our first head of Human Resources. During her more than 5 years with Certica, she took over full responsibility as a hands-on manager (and eventually VP) of all aspects of Certica's H/R function, as we grew from a national company with multiple offices and many remote employees, through an acquisition adding additional offices and increasing our total employee population by 50%, and then most recently as we were acquired by Instructure. Jamie has the extraordinary ability to lead the strategic aspects of the H/R function - compliance, equity, organizational management, resource planning, benefits, compensation, etc. - while working directly with teams and employees at all levels, with a rare combination of sensitivity and professionalism, to ensure that everyone in our company knew they could rely on Jamie to attend to their individual personnel concerns. She has boundless energy and a demonstrated ability to lead an H/R function at the highest levels.”