HIREground Executive Search, LLC

Bios

Advisory Council

Carol Zoner: Former Chief Executive Officer of Visa
Susanne D. Lyons: SPHR, CCP

Carol Zoner, SPHR, CCP

Carol Zoner has more than 20 years of experience in building and leading human resources strategies in rapidly growing and changing environments. As both an executive and as a consultant, Carol has focused on change management and culture development, creation of recognition and rewards strategies, performance development, the assessment and creation of core human resources functions and the management multiple mergers and acquisitions. As Senior Vice President of Human Resources for United Commercial Bank, Carol engineered the complete restructure of the human resources function and created talent acquisition and reward programs to more effectively support its high growth strategies. Carol also served as the head of Human Resources for Bay View Capital Corporation where she had the primary responsibility for developing and implementing the company’s workforce strategies and business plans which included multiple mergers, acquisitions and reorganizations. Carol has held other senior-level management positions in the financial services, professional services and the healthcare industries where she specialized in compensation, benefits, HRIS and employee relations.

Carol served on the Board of Directors for the Northern California Human Resources Association (NCHRA) and as Chair of the NCHRA Peninsula Chapter. She also is committed to supporting job growth and training in the local community and was appointed to a 3-year term on San Mateo County Workforce Investment Board where she held the positions as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Business Services Committee.

Carol earned an MBA from the Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and Bachelors degrees in Economics and Spanish from Thiel College in Greenville, PA. She also holds professional designations as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and as a Certified Compensation Professional (CCP).

Susanne D. Lyons

Susanne D. Lyons has held senior marketing and general management roles at some of the largest financial services companies in America. She has recently retired as the Chief Marketing Officer for Visa USA, where she was responsible for all aspects of brand, advertising and marketing services for the world’s most successful payments company, and served on the company’s Executive Management Committee. She introduced the well-known campaign, Life Takes Visa.

In her ten year career at Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., she held various marketing and general management positions, including Enterprise President of Retail Client Services, where she was responsible for 4000 customer service employees. She was President and General Manager of the $1 billion Active Trader business. She was also the Chief Marketing Officer for Schwab. Previously, Susanne spent ten years at Fidelity Investments, where she held senior positions in marketing, product development and business strategy.

Susanne is on the board of CNET, an online media company. She is a key advisor for Campaign 2020, an organization facilitating acceleration of sustainable solutions, and also sits on the advisory board of an alternative energy company.

In 1999, the Financial Women’s Association named her “Financial Woman of the Year”. She has also been named many times as one of the 50 Most Influential Bay Area Business Women. She was “Women of the Year” for the American Diabetes Association for 2005. In 2006, Susanne was named one of America’s top 50 Marketers by Advertising Age.

Ms. Lyons received her undergraduate degree from Vassar College and received her Masters in Business Administration from Boston University. She resides in the Bay Area with her husband and two children.