Laketta Hawkins

About Laketta Hawkins

I’m passionate about building business-ready workforces that fuel growth, innovation, and agility. For more than 15 years, I’ve partnered with leaders across Fortune 500, technology, and education sectors to align workforce capability and capacity with business strategy.My approach bridges HR, finance, and operations. I focus on understanding how talent decisions impact budgets, performance, and profit, and then design scalable solutions that strengthen readiness, optimize investment, and deliver measurable ROI.At NetApp and Cisco, I led global workforce strategy and planning initiatives that connected talent data to business outcomes. I’ve built models for forecasting capability needs, improving headcount decisions, and aligning workforce plans with enterprise budgets and strategic priorities. Along the way, I’ve helped teams accelerate internal mobility, improve retention, and expand leadership pipelines worldwide.I’m especially motivated by transformation: helping organizations evolve how they think about workforce design, skills intelligence, and leadership visibility in the face of rapid change.If you’re building a future-ready workforce and want to link people strategy directly to business performance, let’s connect.

Experience

1. Strategy Planning & Operations Leader

   Cisco

   May 2022 — Present

   Achieved adoption rates of over 85%, overseeing onboarding, skilling, and movement initiatives and aligning with broader business objectives for measurable impact.• Developed and executed internal and external strategic partnerships that enable our cybersecurity talent to display their technical excellence internally and externally across the Cybersecurity landscape, creating an atmosphere of talent excellence for Security & Trust Organization (S & TO), improving workforce visibility by 40%.• Created and enforced S & TO Workforce Plan, integrating geo-site strategies and building diverse talent pipelines, leading to more targeted recruitment efforts and an 80% increase in candidate placements.• Streamlined senior technical talent alignment and succession planning initiatives to boost workforce engagement, accelerate skill development, and propel organizational performance.• Cultivated an innovative team culture by leveraging Senior Technical Talent to lead high-impact projects, supporting next-generation solutions, and providing critical insights influencing key business leadership decisions.• Created and facilitated tailored career development programs, increasing executive-to-employee connections by 53%. • Acted as CBP Chief of Staff, overseeing professional development initiatives for underrepresented communities, promoting diversity and equity that expanded growth opportunities for diverse employees.• Championed Innovators for Change initiative, mobilizing 163 executives and employees worldwide, resulting in a notable increase in workplace equity, cross-functional collaboration, and measurable progress on People and Communities goals.

Education

• North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

  Master of Science - MS, Information Technology

  2006 — 2008

• North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

  Bachelor's degree, Electronic Technology

  2002 — 2006