Joseph Ilarraza

Psychology First, HR Second

The starting point was undergraduate study in psychology and psychiatry, with no settled view on which of the two would win. What settled it was a preference for the talking cure over the medication route. Even then the field was enormous. Clinical, social, and everything in between.

One course changed the trajectory. Industrial-organizational psychology, taught by a professor who made the discipline feel like a place to build a career, pointed Joseph toward a master's in the same field. The degree was earned at night, in classes running from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, on top of a 9:00 to 5:00 job during the day. That daytime job delivered the first real exposure to HR, a function Joseph had heard of and genuinely did not understand. "Didn't know what HR was," Joseph recalls of that moment. An internship covering all aspects of HR followed, and the pull toward training and learning and development became obvious. Contract roles while still in graduate school filled in the rest, and the career that followed has stayed within the IO, learning and talent management space ever since.

Managers Without Ego

Ask Joseph about influence and the answer lands on a specific type of leader: the ones with no ego in the work. The test is simple. Say out loud that you want the job they have in a few years, ask to take a project off their plate, ask to shadow a conversation, and see what happens. The best ones say yes without flinching, review the output, and send it where it needs to go.

Those managers challenged, pushed, and opened doors, exposing Joseph to areas that would not have appeared on any development plan. They also gave what Joseph calls guided feedback, the kind that responds to "here's what I'm thinking" with direction rather than a verdict. The current manager at Reckitt earns the same description for a different reason: autonomy. The what and the when are agreed. The how belongs to Joseph, along with the freedom to build connections across the business and to watch a skilled operator work.

Beyond the reporting line, Joseph points to Rachel Wallins, Founder of Accelerate Talent Management, as a mentor, and did so unprompted when asked who else in the field deserves recognition.

A Practitioner's Case for AI

Joseph spent last year dedicated full-time to a personally owned LLC, working across a range of clients, and that vantage point produced an unusually wide sample of how companies are handling AI. On one end sat the CEO with the ultimatum. On the other sat companies telling employees something more durable: you still need to do the thinking, and AI is the assistant that polishes a line or produces a first draft.

Joseph sits firmly in the second camp, with enthusiasm. The caveat matters, though. When someone's spoken voice bears no resemblance to their emails or their presentation talking points, the gap becomes obvious, and originality quietly disappears from their thinking. Used well, the payoff is concrete. Take a manager with 10 or more team members: writing a single performance review can absorb anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes, and AI can plausibly cut that roughly in half. The rating is still the manager's. The knowledge of what the person actually did is still the manager's. The tool simply drafts. Joseph encourages managers and employees alike to use it that way, and has watched it save real time on reviews and on everyday work such as reviewing communications. The broader industry effect, in Joseph's read, is that everyone has become a better writer and a better communicator, particularly in virtual settings.

Advice for 2026

Joseph's guidance for other talent leaders is short and hard to argue with: listen to your people. The context behind it is the uncertainty many employees are carrying, tied to the current US administration, the job market and the economy, and the fear and doubt that come with it. Leaders who want engagement and retention should be asking what will keep people bringing their best selves to work, and then actually hearing the answer.

None of which means ignoring the P&L. Whether the organization is a for-profit publicly traded company or a not-for-profit, there is a business to run. "Striking a balance between what the business needs and what the people need is always a good way to bridge things," Joseph says. It is a fitting summary of a career spent translating psychology into the systems that decide how organizations grow their own.