HR Grapevine 2015 Speakers - Valerie Hughes D'Aeth, HR Director, BBC

Valerie Hughes D'Aeth, HR Director, BBC, will be speaking at this year’s HR Can Change the World conference. She talks to HR Grapevine about her motivations and inspirations…

What have been the highlights in your career that have enabled you to sit where you are today?

I decided I wanted a career in HR when I was 16 and working on Saturdays in the Personnel department of my local Sainsbury’s store. After graduating I worked in retailing HR before moving to the Netherlands for a few years in my late 20’s. There I was very fortunate to get experience across all of Europe in specialist areas of recruiting then compensation and benefits before taking on my first operational HR director role and moving back to the UK. Over the years I have worked with a number of other countries including extensively with India. I have also worked across a number of different sectors including IT, support services, retailing and now media. It's one of the real benefits of working in HR that we are able to move across sectors like this and it has resulted in me being very fortunate to have such an interesting career. I now feel very privileged to bring my experience to the BBC, helping to produce the world leading content it is famous for.