Susan Nolan Palmer

Susan Palmer is a Professor of the Practice in the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School and a Faculty Advisor in UNC Executive Development. Susan has designed custom executive programs for global organizations including Allergan, Caterpillar, Cisco, C.K. Birla Group, Duke Energy, Grant Thornton, John Deere, La-Z-Boy, Monsanto, Novartis, Owens Corning, SAS Institute, Siemens, Telkom SA and Xerox. She delivered the business school’s first executive programs in India, Mexico and South Africa. She also built and managed strategic partnerships with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) and Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Ciudad de México (ITESM). Susan teaches strategic human capital management and provides executive coaching in the business school’s Executive MBA programs.

Prior to joining UNC Kenan-Flagler, Susan was employed as a human resource executive with Wells Fargo in San Francisco and Prudential Financial in New York. Her company-wide management responsibilities included talent management, people analytics and executive coaching. She also created and managed an internal consulting function delivering consulting services on strategic business initiatives related to acquisitions, organizational restructuring, operational efficiency, service quality and new product development, including the first 24/7 customer service center in financial services.

Susan received a BA from Mary Baldwin where she spent her junior year at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and a PhD in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from North Carolina State University where she minored in business administration at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. She has held elected office in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and has served on the editorial board of Personnel Psychology.

Susan is a recipient of the business school’s Weatherspoon Award for Exceptional Performance. She currently serves on Mary Baldwin University’s Board of Trustees, the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Patient Research Advocacy Group, and the N.C. Cancer Hospital’s Patient and Family Advisory Council.