Josh Friedlander is the Chief Human Resources Officer for Latham & Watkins, LLP.
In addition to leading the global Human Resources function, Josh is an active member of the Firm’s Diversity, Security and Legal Professional and Paralegal Committees and the Firm’s EEO Review Board.
Josh is also a part of World 50, a private community for C-level executives at globally respected organizations to discover better ideas, share valuable experiences and build relationships that make a lasting impact.
Prior to joining Latham, Josh was the Managing Director of Human Resources responsible for Marsh Inc.’s US and Canada Division. During his tenure at Marsh, Josh was also responsible for Human Resources for the Global Infrastructure and the Consumer line of business as well as Consulting Services Group of MMC’s Kroll Inc. and Marsh Risk Consulting. The Global Infrastructure included IT, Operations, Finance, Compliance, Strategic Planning, Operational Risk, Corporate Communications and CSStars, LLC. The Consumer line of business included Marsh’s Affinity, Private Client Services, Executive Benefits, and Private Client Life Insurance businesses. Josh joined Marsh as the Manager of Corporate Staffing function and was responsible for staffing permanent and temporary positions at all levels within the organization and the development of national staffing and background verification policies and processes.
Before joining Marsh, Josh was with Online Benefits, Inc., a benefits communication company. As the Vice President of Human Resources and Relationship Management, he was responsible for the management of Human Resources and the supervision of the group that established and maintained relations with distribution partners and clients. Prior to his work at Online Benefits, Josh held various domestic and international positions in Human Resources with brandwise LLC, GE Capital, and Exxon.
Josh earned a Masters Degree in Labor and Industrial Relations from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. In addition, Josh has a General Course Certificate from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
More from Josh…
Building relationships and maintaining connections can make a big difference in engagement and networking. Josh shares ways that he keeps those connections and where he learned to make them.
“For everybody who is a staff person at Latham and Watkins, every staff person gets an anniversary card for me every year. Those that I know, actually get a half a page note that’s about them as a person. I have a couple 100 that I still need to sign for the upcoming month… We had 6000 of them, or 5000, I actually delivered six cases of them. [They] were just delivered two days ago and my wife Heidi was like, ‘Why do we have all these anniversary cards?’
It’s that idea of showing you care and people say ‘Well, you can send them electronically.’ I have terrible handwriting.” People will say, ‘Well, they can read your handwriting?’ That’s not what it’s about. It’s about taking that time thinking about that person. Talking about something related about that person. That in my mind is about engagement.
It’s about when I go in and I did a presentation to our staff population several months ago. I think it was out of 2300 people, I think it was worldwide on the staff side, 24 [hundred] or something like that. There were 18-1900 people who logged in. I think that level of engagement is so important because it’s that connection. It’s that showing you care…. I think I grew up with some great managers, but I also think I had some terrible managers…. I’m not gonna give you the names of the bad ones, but the bad ones taught me almost as good as the great ones on what not to do. I say that to people that I’m mentoring. I want you to think of your worst managers. What did they teach you? Well, I shouldn’t do this. Great, then don’t do it. What are the best ones teach you? All this. Great then do it. Create your own path by taking the best from everyone, but avoiding the worst.”
