About Me
William “Will” Kuchta, Ed.D.
Professor of the Practice: STAR Program
Kenan-Flagler School of Business: University of North Carolina
Will has more than 40 years experience as a leader in the corporate world, working with diverse organizations, from Fortune 25 companies to start-up operations, mergers and other rapid-change situations, combined with graduate education in the fields of Human Resources and Education Management.
Before re-establishing the consulting firm, Organizational Change & Development in January 2012 (originally founded in 1993), Dr. Kuchta served as Vice President, Organizational Development for Paychex, Inc from 1995 through 2011, reporting to the CEO. In his HR/OD role he managed the human resources and training departments, as well as the security and safety functions that served the company’s 13,000+ employees in over 100 locations across the U.S., and Germany. He created the Employer of Choice process, achieving recognition on FORTUNEmagazine’s “Best Companies to Work For” list for seven years. He oversaw creation of the University of Paychex, transforming the training function into a world-class leader, included on Training magazine’s “Top 125 Training Centers”, 2002-2011 (#26 in 2011). Will also designed Paychex’ leading edge Wellness programs recognized by the National Business Group on Health, and Wellness Council of America. Subsequently, he worked with the Senate Finance Committee on sections of the Healthcare Reform Act. Additionally, he founded the Paychex Legal department, overseeing it for seven years; and similarly founded the Government Affairs function in 2009, also serving as VP, Government Affairs 2009 – 2011.
A corporate officer since 1996, Will was a member of a five person senior leadership team that led Paychex from being a $250 million, 3000 employee company to a $ 2 Billion, 13,000 employee, 560,000 client leader in the Small Business sector. Paychex is a leading provider of payroll, human resource, and benefits solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses which has received recognition including Fortune’s “Most Admired Companies” list, Forbes magazine’s “Most Trustworthy Companies” and Ethisphere magazines “Most Ethical Companies”.
Prior to joining Paychex, Dr. Kuchta founded and was Managing Principal of Organizational Change & Development (OC&D), a consulting firm dedicated to management change, both organizational and individual. At OC&D he assisted companies from small to large size plan and implement major organizational change. Those changes included mergers, downsizings, leadership change and major operational improvement campaigns.
His earlier professional positions included serving as CHRO for Fisons U.S, first as an integration leader in the merger of Fisons and Pennwalt Pharmaceuticals. Those efforts and process improvement projects led by Dr. Kuchta were a significant part of the company’s tripling in revenue in three years. Prior to that Will served for ten years in various human resources responsibilities for Boehringer Ingelheim ($13 billion, privately held German pharmaceutical company), first as the sole Human Resources Manager for the start-up of U.S. R&D and Manufacturing and culminating as Director, Personnel and OD for U.S. Pharmaceuticals. It was here that Will’s efforts in building an integrated employee benefits plan featuring leading edge Wellness programs was first recognized.
His earlier work was at United Technologies, Sikorsky Division, first as part of the HR team which managed the one year growth from 6000 to 12,000 employees following the winning of the Blackhawk helicopter contract, and later as leader of graduate engineering recruiting. During his career he has been responsible for hiring more than 30,000 people. Prior to college he worked in manufacturing as a machinist and assembly-line worker, and served in the U.S. Army, including a tour in Vietnam.
Will’s educational background includes a Doctor of Education (University of Bridgeport, CT); Masters of Human Resources and Labor and Industrial Relations (Michigan State University); M.S., Administration (SUNY Albany); and a B.A., Economics and History, (Union College, NY). He is also a graduate of the Leadership School of the National Academy of Human Resources, and in 2006 was elected to Human Resource Executive’s lifetime Honor Role.
Will has served in adjunct faculty and administrative roles at Cornell University, New School for Social Research, University of New Haven (CT), Western Connecticut State University, and Union College (Schenectady, NY). He is also a founding Advisory Board member of the Masters of Human Resources program at Nazareth College, a founding Advisory Board member for the MSHRD program at St. John Fisher College, Advisory Board member for the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations at Michigan State University, and was the first non-academic member of the Connecticut Board of Higher Education Commission on Accreditation.
He has served on national committees of The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Human Resources Policy Association (HRPA) and has spoken at conferences of the American Management Association, National Business Group on Health (NBGH), SHRM and others, and is a co-founder of the Organizational Design Forum. Dr. Kuchta currently serves as Professor of the Practice in the STAR Program at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business.
Will Kuchta
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