Empowering Executives for Success
As a human resources executive for the global medical technology company Integra LifeSciences Corporation, Abigail Epane-Osuala didn’t plan a career in HR.
“I got into HR by accident and not by design,” she said. “When I conducted my first layoff and ensured fairness in the selection process, I quickly realized that compassion and care had a major impact on people’s lives. I knew then that working on a people platform agenda was my calling.”
Today, she successfully empowers chief executives to achieve higher levels of organizational effectiveness through improved team functioning and employee engagement. The company is a worldwide recognized leader in specialty surgical solutions, regenerative technologies and extremity solutions with revenues of nearly $883 million last year.
She has redesigned key process and optimization initiatives, launched strategy and talent reviews and board-related talent management initiatives, redesigned compensation plans, designed and implemented leadership and management learning curriculums, launched global recognition programs, and introduced diversity and inclusion initiatives.
As a Six Sigma Black Belt, Epane-Osuala’s most notable accomplishments include initiating, revitalizing and upgrading organizational programs that bring added value to large, global and growing businesses. Her contributions to Integra LifeSciences and to her community have not gone unnoticed by her colleagues. They say she is known as an ambassador of organizational progress, culture, diversity, and inclusion and her input has helped businesses propel to the next level of growth and opportunity.
Epane-Osuala is Cameroonian American who regularly contributes to the advancement of women executives and internationals in her community through local, national and international organizations.
Her many accomplishments include serving as Chairman of the Board for the Downtown West Orange Business Alliance, a board member of the Aquinas Academy, as well as previous board member of the Girl Scouts of Bergen County. She is an active member of the National Association for Female Executives, National Society for Human Resource Management, American Society for Training and Development and National Black MBA.
Epane-Osuala holds a BS in management from Seton Hall University and an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
She describes being a woman in the human resource profession as an amazing journey. “I am grounded by my Cameroonian/ Nigerian values of knowing myself and not being concerned with others shortcomings or analysis of who I am or who I am supposed to be,” she said.