Congratulations to Dan Spaulding, MHRIR 00, on being named the School’s 2022 recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award. The Distinguished Alumni Award is the highest honor afforded a graduate of the School of Labor & Employment Relations. It recognizes those who have made an extraordinary impact in their field, which includes all aspects of labor relations and human resources management, general management, government service and academe.
Dan will be honored at a dinner and reception at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center on Thursday, September 8. At the same ceremony, Will Murphy, MHRIR 12, will be awarded the 2022 First Decade Achievement Award. All are welcome and may RSVP through the event site for the 75th anniversary weekend at https://go.illinois.edu/LER75thplus1.
Dan currently serves as the Chief People Officer for Zillow Group leading all aspects of people operations, recruiting, equity and belonging, total rewards, talent development, and employee success. Zillow Group is the industry leading provider of online tools and resources for consumers and real estate professionals. Founded in 2005, Zillow Group went public in 2011 and a current market capitalization of $10B. Dan leads a team of 280 HR professionals that support over 6,500 employees across the US and Canada.
Prior to this role Dan served as the Vice President of US Stores and Operations HR for Starbucks. In this role his team drove strategy and support for ~8000 stores and ~140,000 partners across the country. Before his time at Starbucks Dan was part of the leadership team that built Life Technologies through an M&A heavy strategy- eventually resulting in the 2013 sale of the company to Thermo-Fisher Scientific for $13.6B. Dan led the HR M&A efforts through the formation of Life Technologies, building an integrated HR function to support the new company. Dan started his career as a LER intern, and later held multiple HR positions, with Dell Computer, completing a three-year international assignment building HR operations across Asia based in Shanghai, China.
Dan lives in Seattle, WA, with his wife, Liz, and daughter, Abby. In addition to his master’s degree from the School, he received his B.A. in Political Science and History from Knox College.