UK 
United States
She’s a personal trainer in her spare time [“I’m addicted to body pump classes – even though my downfall is wine!,” she admits], but there’s another type of pump that also features heavily in Vicki Savage’s life: heat pumps.
As Senior HR Business Partner at US multinational heating, ventilation, and air conditioning Carrier, Savage looks after employees in this organisation’s residential and light commercial business – which in layman’s terms means everything domestic heat pump and solar panels-related. And, thanks to demand for ever-greener heating technologies meaning growth in both of these sectors is predicted to be huge, this is a business very much on the up. Earlier this year, Carrier (globally) beat its first quarter profit estimates, and revised its 2025 outlook. But Savage has very much been on her own journey with this brand – a journey that continues to impact the work she’s doing now.
“The business I actually joined was Viessmann – a German business, that was still family run until it was purchased by Carrier in 2022,” she says [the building she works in is still branded Viessmann and this name is still used interchangeably due to it being an existing sub-brand]. She says: “It was a business that I admit I didn’t really know much about (it is actually head-quartered directly opposite one of her former employers Dance Depot, where she was head of HR), but when I visited it for the first time to be interviewed, I was bowled over by the culture of the place.” She adds: “The previous HR Director was retiring after 30 years’ service – which I took to be a great indicator of the type of business I’d potentially be joining.”
A very different place to now
The business she joined in 2022 was in a very different place to where it is now. “Their HR person had evolved from being the MD’s PA, and over the many years that ensued, things happened because that’s how they’d always been done,” she recalls. “I was brought in because the basics needed dealing with, revamping, with proper HR systems needing to be put in place.”
It was in 2024 though, that the acquisition of Viessmann by Carrier went through – a purchase that immediately transitioning the business from being a family-run, and very culturally distinctive business, to being part of a big multi-national. But while some might have found this unsettling, or even difficult to manage, the impression Savage gives is that there has bee one very good silver lining to all of this – new processes coming that have actually given her time to think and play a proper strategic role.
The previous HR director was retiring after 30 years’ service – which I took to be a great indicator of the type of business I’d potentially be joining
“There’s obviously been a big transition, but what’s there’s also been is a massive influx of even better Carrier processes and systems,” she says. “Carrier uses HR centres of excellence – in around areas like total reward and talent acquisition – and what this actually means for me is that it frees up my time to start to think more strategically about what HR needs to do.”
So while these centres are soon to introduce things like giving UK staff the ability to buy holiday (this benefit was not part of the offering at Viessmann), Savage says she’s is able concentrate on the things that matter to her – preeminent of what is talent acquisition and development.
