Solange Charas, PhD
Professor of Practice
Dr. Solange Charas is a senior-level human resources expert with 36+ years of experience as a consultant, practice leader, top corporate executive, and board director across all industry sectors. She was the chief human resources officer at Havas Worldwide, Benfield Group, and Praetorian Financial Services Group, and held senior-level positions at Ernst & Young, Arthur Andersen, and Towers Watson. She served on the boards of two public companies, chairing both the Audit and Remuneration Committees. Dr. Charas is a member of the Technical Committee of the International Standardization Organization (ISO) responsible for developing and managing global human capital standards. She is a Distinguished Principal Research Fellow with The Conference Board (TCB) and serves as an Advisory Board Member for TCB and EZRA Coaching.
Dr. Charas is the founder and CEO of two organizations: Charas Consulting (2000) and HCMoneyball (2018). An internationally recognized expert in human capital analytics, Dr. Charas developed proprietary approaches for quantify the return on investment of human capital (HCROI). Her academic research focuses on the relationship between human capital management and financial performance, with applications across industries, including healthcare.
She earned a PhD in Designing Sustainable Systems with a focus on corporate governance from Case Western Reserve University, an MBA in Accounting and Finance from Cornell University, and a BA in International Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Charas has authored or been cited in over 250 practitioner articles, including the widely recognized “Why Men Have More Help Getting to the C-Suite” in Harvard Business Review. Her research is cited in over 80 academic articles and she has contributed chapters to The Handbook of Board Governance (editions I, II, and III) by Richard LeBlanc and Coaching the Team at Work Case Book by David Clutterbuck, among other books. She is the co-author of Humanizing Human Capital: Invest in Your People for Optimal Business Returns, and is currently co-authoring a book on managing human capital in professional services firms. She is a contributor to Forbes Magazine. Her pro bono consulting work is focused on gender advocacy working with PowHer New York, Invest Ahead, and Lift Our Voices. She has extensive international experience and competency in five languages.
Education
- PhD, Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management
- MBA, Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management
- BA, University of California, Berkley
