Pegasystems Inc., the software company that crushes business complexity, today announced it has appointed Katherine Parente as chief people officer, effective today. Parente is responsible for driving Pega’s global people strategy and operations, reporting to Alan Trefler, Pega’s founder and CEO.
In her 20-plus years of human resources experience, Kate has established and led strong international teams across a wide range of HR disciplines within firms in the financial services, technology, and professional services industries. Her areas of expertise include people strategy, compensation and benefits, recognition, organizational and leadership development, workforce planning, and culture and value proposition.
Parente joins Pega from FactSet Research Systems, a data technology company with more than 10,000 employees across 20 countries servicing over 6,000 financial service firms. As senior vice president of human resources, she was responsible for the global HR strategy across product, content, and technology functions. Prior to that, she was vice president of people at Axiom, a global leader in providing high-calibre, on-demand legal talent. Ms. Parente also held HR management positions with increasing responsibility at Investment Technology Group (ITG, now Virtu Financial) for nearly a decade.
Parente graduated from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a degree in Business Management. She also studied human rights at University of Leicester, England. Ms. Parente is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Institute for Applied Management and Law (IAML).
Pega employs more than 6,000 people around the globe in The Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific. The company was recently honoured by The Boston Globe, the hometown newspaper of Pega’s global headquarters, as one of the Top Places to Work in Massachusetts for 2021, was named a Best Company for Women to Advance by Parity.org in 2021, and has been recognized around the world as an employer of choice.
“Kate brings Pega a wealth of experience and innovative ideas that will enable us to continue to nurture our people and attract new talent to our offices around the world,” said Alan Trefler, founder and CEO, Pegasystems. “It is a pleasure to welcome Kate to Pega at an exciting time in our history as we look to our people function to help power our ongoing growth trajectory.”
“It’s an exciting opportunity to join and lead such a world-class people function that has significantly contributed to Pega’s continued success,” said Katherine Parente. “I look forward to helping further evolve and enhance our approach so we can meet new challenges during a time of unprecedented change in the employment marketplace.”