Career Lessons from Steven Rice: Cultivating a Mission-Driven Culture

Steven Rice’s professional and personal passions converged when he joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropic organization, to serve as its chief human resources officer in 2015.

“Leading human resources at an organization sharing my strong belief that all lives have equal value has been rewarding in ways I never imagined,” he says.

Rice is responsible for leading the global HR function at the Seattle-based nonprofit with 1,500 employees around the world. The foundation focuses on global health and development, U.S. high school and postsecondary education, and supporting vulnerable children and families in Washington state. 

Rice, who has more than 30 years of experience designing innovative human resource strategies, is blunt about how HR leaders can build strategies that move their organizations forward: “We need to minimize the language of HR and stay focused on the impact we can have, and not on how the sausage is made.” 

He recently spoke with HR Magazine about his career journey.

Family Roots 

My parents met at Pearl Harbor during the Korean War. My dad was a Marine, and my mom—a native Hawaiian—was working as a switchboard operator. They were products of the Great Depression, which meant that they were grounded in hard work and they expected me and my siblings to do what we could to make our community better. One thing they didn’t believe in was allowances. They left it up to me to figure out how to earn my own pocket money. 

Mr. Independent

Moving into HR 

When I joined HP in 1982, the company was the Google of its day. Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett still walked the halls. Being part of a founder-led organization was a great experience. After working for a year in quality control, I wanted to explore what else I could do. I saw a job posting for a position in personnel as a records and benefits administrator. I applied and got the job. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the start of my HR career. Working at HP for 25 years was a tremendous learning opportunity. In my last role there, I was responsible for global delivery of HR, leading a team of 2,000 people in 172 countries. 

From HP, I went to technology provider Juniper Networks, where I worked with co-founder Pradeep Sindhu, holding a range of HR leadership positions. I also chaired the Juniper Networks Foundation Fund, which invests in educating students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM); providing scholarships for emerging engineering leaders; bringing technology to rural communities; and stopping human trafficking.

Hiring His Team

Into the Future 

Don’t Get Tripped Up by Trends

Let Self-Doubt Serve You

Sparking a Sense of Urgency

Adapt or Die

Work/Life Lessons

Two leadership lessons that really resonate with me are “fail fast” and “trust your intuition.” The first one is about learning how to accept failure, recover quickly, and then move on so setbacks don’t weigh you down. 

The second is something I picked up from a former boss at HP who told me that, while she valued my expertise, as a leader I sometimes came across as too analytical. She advised me to trust my intuition. Her insight was a gift that I will never forget.

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