Carrie Matthews

Carrie Matthews is the Vice President of People for the US at Penta Group. She oversees the employee experience for the Penta team in the United States, including recruiting, staffing/resource management, learning and development, and all operational components of human resources. Known for her ability to marry emotional intelligence with analysis and technology to advance employee outcomes, Carrie is a distinctive leader in the people operations space. Carrie has over a decade of experience building and upholding world-class employee experiences in professional services and tech companies in hybrid and remote structures. She is excited to be back at Penta where her people operations experience started!

Prior to rejoining the team at Penta, Carrie held senior leadership roles in people operations at 10Pearls, a global software development and innovation agency, and Accelevents, an event technology startup. In these roles she was responsible for the entire employee experience in hybrid and remote work environments - recruiting, onboarding, learning and development, compensation strategy, performance management, benefits and payroll, and immigration. At 10Pearls, she was responsible for facilitating a smooth employee experience through a period of several acquisitions at the company. At Accelevents, she established the talent & people function from the ground up and quickly scaled the business during a period of explosive growth.

Carrie started her people operations leadership journey as the Director of People Operations at Hamilton Place Strategies (now Penta Group), an economic policy communications consulting firm in Washington, DC. Carrie was the first staffing, recruiting, and people operations leader hired at the firm and over her tenure she saw employee growth from 20 to 80 and facilitated an excellent employee experience through formal and informal learning and development, culture-building, and performance management initiatives. Her achievements at Hamilton Place Strategies include building and scaling a highly competitive on-campus recruiting program for interns and entry-level hires and nurturing a tight-knit network of company alumni which supported employee growth and development and facilitated a strong external employer brand.

Originally from a suburb of Boston, Carrie now calls Washington, DC her home. She is a graduate of the University of Maryland and is part of several professional networks and communities, including CPOHQ, Resources for Humans, and Startup Experts.