Best Practice Institute honors MasterCard talent chief at upcoming global talent summit

NEW YORK CITY -- BlackRock - June 9, 2014 -- Best Practice Institute will honor David Deacon, MasterCard’s chief talent officer, at a three-day meeting on Global Talent Transformation starting Tuesday in New York City.
BPI’s 2014 Best Organization Practitioner Award will be presented to Deacon by Louis Carter, founder and CEO of Best Practice Institute. BPI is a leadership development organization serving many of the world’s top corporations, including a majority of the Fortune 500. 
BPI’s Senior Executive Board is an ultra-exclusive network of talent executives of some of the world’s largest companies. The BPI SEB meets twice yearly for three-day summits on leadership and talent management issues. The upcoming meeting will be hosted at the headquarters of BlackRock, Inc.
 
“David’s work with ‘talent shepherding’ is extraordinary,” Carter said. “A huge transformation has been taking place at MasterCard ever since its IPO in 2006. David was exactly the change agent MasterCard needed to keep the transformation moving forward. He is a true thought leader in the field of talent management.”
 
The New MasterCard
 
MasterCard has more than 8,000 employees in more than 100 countries. Deacon joined MasterCard in March 2012. He said radical changes at the company are necessary to keep up with the digital and mobile revolutions: “a shift from plastic to digital, from fixed to mobile, and from actual to virtual.”
 
“Our goal is to be the leader in the brave new world of digital ubiquity, be the provider of electronic payments in all emerging markets and win the ‘war on cash,’” Deacon said.
 
The change effort at MasterCard is being accomplished by developing three groups of leaders: senior executives, high potentials and mid-level managers.
 
Executive Leadership Program
 
Chief Human Resources Officer Ronald Garrow created the Executive Leadership Program in 2010. It was a four-day event of assessment, coaching, teaching and dialogue. Deacon took over the ELP in 2012 and has developed a two-day version that 200 leaders are working through in 2014.
 
Jeff Wilson, group executive president of the company’s Geo Central Division, described the ELP as “nothing short of life-changing.” Wilson has been at MasterCard 19 years and had fallen into what he called “a corporate rut.” The ELP he attended in 2012 offered “everything I personally needed to take my career to the next level,” Wilson said.
 
Managing Region Counsel Malvina C. Longoria gave an enthusiastic report about her 2013 ELP experience. As a result of the training, “I’ve concluded that I am all in at MasterCard,” Longoria said. “And I am expecting everyone on my team to be all in, to bring their hearts and minds to work.”
 
Accelerated Development Program
 
In late 2013, Deacon launched the Accelerated Development Program for high-potential leaders. About 150 emerging leaders from around the world are working through the pilot program this year and next.
 
Deacon did not want MasterCard’s high-potential training to rely on classroom instruction and group exercises, which he refers to as the “sheep dip approach,” referring to the process ranchers use to immerse sheep in insecticides and fungicides by herding them through a narrow trough. Deacon wanted a custom-tailored approach to leadership development.
 
At the heart of the ADP are “talent shepherds,” senior- and mid-level talent executives who are assigned one-on-one to high-potential leaders.
 
SmartMoves and SmartSteps
 
Deacon realized that more than 1,000 mid-level managers with direct reports were not being reached by the ELP or ADP. However, Deacon wants to also leverage those “people managers.”
 
He has developed SmartMoves and SmartSteps, two programs designed to add to a manager’s “portfolio of experiences.” SmartMoves promotes lateral moves as a strategic way to advance one’s career. The soon-to-be-launched SmartSteps is an online marketplace for “one-day experiences,” which managers post and employees apply for.
 
The BPI Awards
 
BPI’s annual awards honor executives, practitioners and innovators who have made a significant contribution to leadership and management. Nominations are accepted from BPI’s 42,000 subscribers. Final nominees are selected by the Senior Executive Board and the winners chosen by Carter.
 
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Louis Carter, founder and CEO of Best Practice Institute, has led BPI to become one of the world’s top associations for leadership and human resource development, with more than 42,000 subscribers. Carter is creator of Skillrater.com, the cloud-based anytime feedback tool on a social collaboration platform, and the BPI Online Learning Portal at www.bestpracticeinstitute.org. Carter has written eleven books on best practices and organizational leadership, including the Best Practice series and the Change Champion’s Field Guide.
 

Best Practice Institute is a leadership and management association focusing on best and innovative business practices. BPI has more than 42,000 subscribers, from managers to senior and C-level executives. It has corporate and individual members in about two dozen countries on five continents, including executives and employees of more than half of the Fortune 500.