Alexander Alonso, PhD, SHRM-SCP is the Society for Human Resource Management's (SHRM's) Chief Data & Insights Officer leading operations for SHRM's Certified Professional and Senior Certified Professional certifications, research functions, and the SHRM Knowledge Advisor service. He is responsible for all research activities, including the development of the SHRM Competency Model and SHRM credentials.

During his career, he has worked with numerous subject matter experts worldwide with the aim of identifying performance standards, developing competency models, designing organizational assessments, and conducting job analyses. He was also responsible for working on contract task orders involving the development of measurement tools for content areas such as job knowledge (like teacher knowledge of instructional processes) and organizational climates (like organizational climate forecasting in military health care).

Dr. Alonso received his doctorate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from Florida International University in 2003. His works have been recognized for their contribution to real-world issues. They include being recognized by the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology (Division 14 of the APA; SIOP) with the 2007 M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace for the development of the federal standard for medical team training, TeamSTEPPS; being awarded a 2009 Presidential Citation for Innovative Practice by the American Psychological Association for supporting the development of competency model for team triage in emergency medicine; and receiving the 2013 SIOP Distinguished Early Career Contributions for Practice Award.

Throughout his career, he has published works in peer-reviewed journals such as Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, People and Strategy, Personality and Individual Differences, Quality and Safety in Health Care, and Human Resources Management Review. He has also authored several chapters on community-based change initiatives in workforce readiness, as well as co-authoring Defining HR Success: A Guide to the SHRM Competency Model in Practice.

Dr. Alonso also served as a columnist analyzing major trends in the workforce for The Industrial Psychologist and HR Magazine. In addition, he has served on several professional society boards including the SIOP and the Personnel Testing Council of Metropolitan Washington.

Kate currently serves as the SVP of Partnerships for Climb Hire. Most recently, Kate served as Global Talent Lead for Public.com, a venture-backed high-growth retail investment startup based in New York. This is actually Kate’s second stint at Climb Hire - from 2019-2022 she built Climb Hire’s employer partnerships function from scratch, having built 60+ partnerships with companies like Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, Discord, IBM, Gusto, and more. Prior to Climb Hire, she was an Associate Partner with Arete Partners, a boutique SF-based executive search firm, where she ran VP+ level searches in Engineering, Product Marketing, Product Management, and more for Seed-Series A startups globally. Previously, Kate held leadership roles in sales & recruiting at Frederickson Partners in Menlo Park, where she oversaw business development, co-led the consulting & contracting practice, and ran C-level HR searches for marquee companies nationwide. Kate holds an M.A. in Philosophy of Religion from Yale University and a B.A. in French from the University of Redlands. She's thrilled to continue pushing the envelope on systems-level change with Climb Hire, helping companies think more broadly and creatively about entry-level hiring.