America’s CAR-MART, Inc

Jules Gianneschi serves as the Senior Vice President of People at America’s CAR-MART, Inc., a publicly traded automotive retail and finance organization operating over 150 dealerships across 12 states. With more than 25 years of experience at Walmart Inc., Jules progressed from frontline roles to senior leadership positions, supporting a diverse range of global functions including operations, human resources, aviation, security, innovation, marketing, real estate, finance, legal, compliance and ethics.

Renowned for fostering collaborative partnerships and designing forward-thinking talent strategies, Jules excels in aligning the employee experience with business objectives to drive measurable results. With deep expertise in P&L and general management, they position organizations for growth and operational excellence.

Jules is passionate about cultivating global talent pipelines, guiding associates to realize their full potential, and empowering leaders to excel. With a commitment to connecting insights from the employee experience to overarching business strategies, Jules strives to build a culture of learning and innovation that fuels organizational success.

An Overview of Gianneschi’s Professional Journey

In my current role as SVP of People at Car-Mart I lead a team of professionals who care for our associates across the associate life cycle from hire to retire (HR Strategy, Workforce planning, Acquisition, Onboarding/Associate Support, Learning & Development, Total Rewards, Communications, Payroll, HRIS Systems & Operations)

Prioritizing and Balancing the Employee Needs and Business Objectives

As an HR leader you need to provide support for Associates so that they can support the business. I prioritize balancing associate needs and business objectives by actively listening to associates, using data, connecting those insights to business performance and then making decisions that remove those obstacles and enhance engagement and productivity. One of our four values is compassion and fostering a people-first culture anchored to is one way we can reinforce that value. Regular collaboration with leaders across departments ensures that decisions reflect both Associate well-being and the organization's success. This balance drives sustainable growth and a thriving workplace culture.

Building Strong Global Talent Benches

Identifying high potential is always an interesting topic as it requires leaders to thread the needle between art and science. It is easy to identify high performers, those who are achieving results, more challenging to articulate their “how” of achieving the results. To do this in a consistent manner we built a competency model with input from leaders across the company, Left Lane Leadership. Our intention was to focus on a few key attributes for those looking to accelerate their career; change champion, talent multiplier, culture keeper, performance ignitor, connection catalyst.

"Be curious, be candid, be compassionate"

Coaching has played a significant role in my personal development and is one of the key components to being a successful HR leader or partner. We often must help leaders make difficult choices and a strong coaching model can help you examine both the opportunity and the options to address. A coaching approach allows you to scale leadership much faster as you focus on empowering the coachee which creates growth, and when they repeat that action, they become a talent multiplier!

Incorporating Innovative Practices into People Strategies

Read. Don’t just read HR theory or practice but business insights, leverage industry articles for whatever space you are in. Join groups or forums where you can dive in and be curious and speak to others about how they are solving the same challenges. Don’t be afraid to explore insights outside of your industry and consider how they might apply to your business.

Empowering Executives and Businesses

Seeing individuals discover and then lean into being the best version of themselves. When you get a leader to be great at conducting regular self-evaluation and reflection, they do a much better job of really generating meaningful growth development plans which are not just check a box and now I should be at the next level. It creates sustainable growth, because they are empowered and not waiting for others to show up with the opportunity.

The Evolving Role of HR in the Future

We actively participate in strategic business discussions, all of the work coming out of HR should evolve from striving to help the business achieve success. There is a lot of untapped potential in understanding how to engage the workforce, continuing to drive the purpose of work, and striking the balance for the multiple generations in the workforce while also adapting to the intersection of technology advancements.

Be curious, be candid, be compassionate.