Peel retiring as V.P. for HR and administration; Lindner named successor

Michael Peel, vice president for human resources and administration, will retire on July 1 after eight years of service at Yale, President Peter Salovey announced.

Janet Lindner, deputy vice president for human resources and administration, has been promoted to vice president and will assume Peel’s current responsibilities. She will report directly to Senior Vice President for Operations Jack Callahan.

 “Yale has achieved important progress in organizational excellence since Mike joined the university,” said Salovey in a message to the campus community. “Under his leadership, Yale’s relationships with its unions have been transformed, with the last three labor contracts (2010, 2013, and 2017) successfully renegotiated without the disruptive and destructive conflicts the university has experienced in the past. The diversity of our managers and professionals has been dramatically improved, with the percentage of leaders from historically underrepresented minority groups in our top jobs having nearly doubled in the past eight years.”

During Peel’s tenure, Yale established eight Affinity Networks to expand the inclusiveness of Yale’s workplace culture; instituted performance management processes for managers and other professionals, as well as for clerical and technical employees; and introduced a talent planning process. As a result of the latter initiative, Yale is now filling 65% of its staff positions above entry level from within, versus less than 25% previously. Nearly all university leaders with supervisory responsibilities have participated in some way with the “Managing at Yale” curriculum. Under Peel’s leadership, the human resources generalist positions were established and the Employee Service Center was created to increase responsiveness to department and staff member needs.

“These and other changes have produced record high workplace survey scores and increasing external recognition, such as Yale’s repeated selection to the prestigious ‘Working Mother 100 Best Companies’ list by Working Mother magazine,” said Salovey.

Prior to joining the university, Peel was executive vice president for human resources and global business services for General Mills. In addition to broader responsibilities, he served as chief human resources officer for General Mills for more than 17 years, during which General Mills was consistently on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list among many other national and international workplace honors. Prior to General Mills, Peel spent 15 years at PepsiCo, including serving in the role of chief human resources officer for two of their largest and most important businesses. In addition to his work at Yale, General Mills, and PepsiCo, Peel has been active on a broad range of public company and not-for-profit boards of directors. His career contributions have been widely recognized, including his election by his peers as a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources, the highest honor in the human resources profession.

Janet Linder

“We are fortunate to have a very talented and fully prepared successor to Mike,” said Salovey. “Janet is well known and well respected throughout the university, and we all are looking forward to working closely with her in her new role.”

For the past eight years, Lindner has worked closely with Peel as deputy vice president of human resources and administration, and has been responsible for a broad portfolio of departments within human resources and administration. Currently, her responsibilities include staffing, public safety, graduate housing, Yale Printing & Publishing Services, travel, parking, transportation, and fleet management.

Lindner joined Yale in 1998 as director of major projects, the largest of which was running Yale’s Tercentennial. Prior to Yale, she spent 10 years in city government, first in major leadership roles, including labor relations, for the City of New York and subsequently as chief administrative officer for the City of New Haven. She holds a B.S. from Cornell University, M.B.A. from City University of New York, and Ed.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Peel, Lindner, and Callahan will begin an orderly transition of responsibilities, a process which will be fully complete by the end of June.

“Please join me in thanking Mike Peel for his extremely skillful work in helping us to improve the university, and in congratulating Janet Lindner on her well-deserved promotion to vice president,” Salovey concluded.