ALISON HODGSON

Alison is VP People | HR Director | High Performance Culture & Organisation Transformation | HR Strategy 

Alison has led a colorful and varied career to date with international and domestic experience in Public and Private sectors, as well as holding the Chairs of Professional membership organizations for a number of years. Well versed in public speaking and dealing with the media, she has experience of working with companies in boom, bust, and fraud; right-sizing and all-out national industrial action.

Having studied at The Queen’s University of Belfast where she achieved BA Hons Psychology and MSc Occupational Psychology, Alison then started her career at Marks and Spencer plc on their graduate management development program. She worked in Store HR Management at Marks &Spencer PLC for five years. During this time, she achieved her CIPD qualification, later her fellowship and in 2021 was awarded Chartered Companion status.

Alison then moved to SalamonSmithBarney as Vice President in Graduate and MBA Recruitment for Europe. After a year in the City, Alison was wooed into the world of telecoms and the dot.com boom. She became Head of International Graduate Program for WorldCom where her responsibilities covered the recruitment and development of Graduates for EMEA and Asia Pacific, and then progressed to a wider role as International Resourcing & Development Manager.

Alison then moved on to her next position at Sodexho as HR Resourcing & Projects Director where she stayed for three years, and then progressed onto Expedia.com for a short-term role.

In the September 2006 Alison joined the Royal Mail as Group Head of Resourcing, directing the organization’s recruitment and internal Resourcing strategies. In December 2007 Alison was appointed Interim Director Talent Management & Resourcing until 1st August 2008 when she was appointed HR Director – Central Functions in Royal Mail Group.

After nearly 2 decades in the London, Alison returned to Ireland in 2011 and took up the role of HR Director with McDonald’s Restaurants of Ireland, an exciting, innovative, best in class organization.

In 2018 Alison moved to Bank of America as Head of HR Ireland, where she led the HR Brexit work stream to relocate the European headquarters from London to Dublin (BAMLIDAC).

In 2019 she joined the Virgin family as VP People Virgin Media Ireland, where she led the HR organization to support the purpose of “Building connections that really matter.”

Currently, Alison is the Founder and lead consultant for High Performance HR, helping businesses and organizations get the best from their People.