UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Human Resources Vice President Susan M. Basso has announced that Sara Oliver-Carter will join Penn State Human Resources as the senior director of talent, diversity and inclusion. She begins her new role on March 20.
Oliver-Carter brings to the position nearly three decades of successful, transformative talent management, and diversity and inclusion integration experience with multi-dimensional health organizations.
Reporting to Basso and serving on her senior leadership team, Oliver-Carter will assume the responsibility for leading the development, implementation and administration of University-wide, HR-based talent acquisition, talent management, and diversity and inclusion initiatives.
“Sara is a diversity leader, with a passion for the positive impact that true talent management, and diversity and inclusion can have on the institution and its strategic imperatives," Basso said. “Her proven ability to holistically attract and retain high-quality talent through innovative diversity and inclusion efforts, which simultaneously support business needs, will be a tremendous benefit to all colleges, Commonwealth Campuses and non-academic units across the University.”
Over a nearly 20-year career with Highmark Inc., Pennsylvania’s largest health insurance company with more than 5 million members, Oliver-Carter successfully managed the direction, implementation and alignment of Highmark’s diversity initiatives with its corporate strategy. As Highmark’s vice president of diversity and inclusion, she transformed the Diversity and Inclusion Center for Excellence by integrating change methodology into the strategic design, annual initiatives, and practices and processes.
Oliver-Carter had previously served as Highmark’s director of corporate staffing and diversity and inclusion, where she led the enterprise-wide talent attraction and recruitment strategy, and managed all activities related to talent acquisition and diversity practices and programs.
Her career also includes extensive experience in business operations and human resource management, including serving as a human resources consultant and as an employment specialist with Alliance Ventures, a Highmark subsidiary. Prior to Highmark, Oliver-Carter was the manager for client relations for Automated Health System Inc. in Pittsburgh.
She earned both a master’s degree in professional leadership and a bachelor’s degree in business communications from Carlow University, as well as an associate’s degree from Robert Morris University.