Executive Perspective: Jyoti Chopra

The door that led Jyoti Chopra to a career in HR was opened in a rather unique place — at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York City. Chopra’s first job was as a media consultant at the U.N. Secretariat Building, which placed her around people from more than 170 countries who spoke dozens of languages, giving her a profound appreciation for humanity and leading her to pursue a career in HR. Chopra’s current role is chief people, inclusion, and sustainability officer at MGM Resorts International in Las Vegas.

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How did your job at the United Nations affect your decision to move into the HR field?

CHOPRA: The impact of the U.N.’s work in human development and alleviating global inequality resonated with me and became core to my career journey. My passion for supporting people — the desire to make a difference and to have an impact on the lives of people in a meaningful way — ultimately led me to pursue a career in HR.  

Which HR initiative that you’ve led are you most proud of?

CHOPRA: The work that my team and I have led for MGM in the field of digitization of data. At MGM Resorts, going back to 2020, we were one of the first teams that designed, created, and deployed a human capital digital dashboard for our company.

We introduced digital dashboards that look at, for example, the composition of the workforce across a number of fields — by job category, by job level, by tenure, and by different classifications of work type. We’ve subsequently expanded into areas such as hiring, turnover, and open job requisitions. Today, our leaders have access to real-time data in the form of digital dashboards that can help them make better-informed business decisions.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve overcome, either in your professional life or your personal life?

CHOPRA: With the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, every single restaurant, outlet, or facility we owned or operated was closed down and locks were put on the doors of our buildings, which had never happened in the history of MGM Resorts. It was one of the darkest and most difficult moments in our company’s history.

We had to deal with everything from furloughing the majority of our workforce to dispensing hundreds of thousands of pounds of food that we had in our buildings to food distribution centers and food banks in a matter of days. … I’m so proud of the resiliency of our company and the willingness of our people to put themselves at risk in the service of others. 

How would you describe your leadership style and philosophy?

CHOPRA: My leadership style is one of focusing on others, investing in the success of others, and following the model that MGM has taught me of servant leadership. As a human resources leader, the crux of it for me has been this: Through MGM, how do you enable people to see and realize the full potential of their capabilities and what they can be? How do we help them build meaningful career and development plans to achieve what they want in the long term? 

The essence of what I strive for through my leadership philosophy is helping people succeed and be the best that they can be.

How do you envision this role of the CHRO changing over the next decade? 

CHOPRA: I see the CHRO/CPO [chief people officer] role evolving into cultural leadership, extending beyond people into being the steward and the vanguard of a company’s culture.

The second big change I see coming in the next decade is through the evolution of emerging technologies and their applications across HR. The intersection of agile and adaptive technologies and the deployment of adaptive technology — and how it advances human development across a variety of domains such as learning, training, and shared service applications — is incredibly exciting right now.

What is a piece of advice that has shaped you the most in your career? 

CHOPRA: I would offer to pay it forward through advice given to me by one of my past leaders, who taught me to invest in the success of others.