Cultivating Change Leaders, With Red Hat CPO Jennifer Dudeck

Change agility — the ability to effectively manage and adapt to
change — is a top leadership priority for organizations in 2025.
As disruption becomes the norm, leaders must adapt and equip
their teams to do the same. Red Hat CPO Jennifer Dudeck joins the
Talent Angle Podcast to share her insights on how to lead through
change and build a strong bench of future change-ready leaders.


Jennifer Dudeck is Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer
at Red Hat. In this role, she leads the team responsible for
managing global human resources, administering payroll, and
creating inspiring work environments supporting Red Hat’s
award-winning culture. She has more than 25 years of human
resources experience across all functions with a focus on helping
the teams she led maximize alignment with, and impact on, the
enterprise


Jennifer is passionate about improving the experience of being a
Red Hatter. Throughout her time at Red Hat, she has driven
increased focus on manager excellence, performance and
development, and career mobility. Jennifer is also a thought
leader on the opportunities and challenges created by the
convergence of AI and human resources.


Jennifer has been a change leader across the enterprise, playing
an active role in multiple major transformational initiatives in
previous roles. Before joining Red Hat, Jennifer worked with
Cisco Systems most recently as Vice President of the
Transformation Office focused on enabling ongoing employee
engagement, growth, and business impact. During her time with the
company, she also held various leadership roles across the human
resources function. Prior to that, Jennifer held several
business-aligned human resources roles at Honeywell Corp.’s
Aerospace and Performance Materials business units.


Peter Aykens is the chief of research for Gartner’s HR practice.
Aykens is responsible for building and leading research teams
within the practice to address clients’ key initiatives. Before
his current role, he spent over 25 years at Gartner leading
research teams focused on banking and financial services
strategy, producing numerous studies that addressed business
strategy, channels, marketing, customer experience and product
challenges. He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science
from St. Olaf College, a master’s degree in international
politics from Aberystwyth University (formerly known as the
University College of Wales, Aberystwyth), and a master’s degree
and a doctorate in political science from Brown University.