Meet our November Member of the Month: Ryan Blood

Tell us about your experience in the Talent Development space including places you've worked, roles you've held, and organizations you're a part of. 

I've spent more than 10 years in talent development, almost all of it with Aetna and CVS Health. I started as an instructional designer on the Medicaid side, building training for new state contract launches. From there I moved into supervisor and manager roles leading design teams, owning our content in the LMS, and keeping us 100% compliant across more than a dozen state contracts. Most recently I was Senior Manager of Learning & Development, leading two teams totaling 50 people and supporting more than 8,000 employees with onboarding, leadership development, compliance, and partner training. Before Aetna, I did contract instructional design for universities and private companies. Next, I'm looking for an L&D leadership role where I can keep building programs that change how people work. I'm especially interested in practical AI adoption in HR and L&D.

What are some of your interests, strengths, and unique qualities that would help others get to know you better?

I'm a dad of four, so some of my favorite things are cheering my kids on in cross country, track, basketball, and volleyball. I volunteer as an Associate Director with Special Spaces, which designs bedroom makeovers for kids with cancer and refreshes for their siblings. Professionally, I care a lot about whether training actually changes performance on the job, and I like digging into the data to find out. I'm also curious about how AI can take the busywork off L&D teams. I’ve built systems that have successfully onboarded and trained thousands of employees annually, as well as creating programs designed to individualize content for just a handful.

What "work related" accomplishment(s) are you the most proud of?

One I'm proud of was a development day for our learning and training teams where we blocked off the entire day to focus on skills development and team culture. We worked with the business to protect one day for workshops, team virtual lunch, and fun activities. It was team led, with topics coming from identified gaps and individual interests. This experience built momentum and expertise going into a busy training season and helped us create closer relationships that we could rely on across our team.

Do you have a favorite quote?  If so, what is it?

“Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.” Thomas S Monson “When a player has a slump, we do not trade them, we coach them. It is the same with our employees.” Simon Sinek “Attitude reflects leadership, captain” - Julius Campbell, Remember the Titans

Do you have a lesson you've learned in your career you'd like to share with others?

I did a project in my MBA program that’s always stuck with me. A company gives us a bunch of employee survey data for us to analyze, to identify what motivated their employees. Our goal wasn’t to find definitive causes, but to see where the strongest correlations were to productivity. At the end of the day, we found that two things stood out. Increases in productivity were strongly correlated to: People who knew how their job affected company success, and People who knew what steps to take to achieve success in their job. So one of my goals in developing people is to always help them connect meaningful metrics to clear direction.

LinkedIn URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanblood/

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