From Team Player to Team Leader: Meet Zicklin Alumna Denise Compitello (MS, ’15)

Taylor Swift sang, “You can’t spell ‘awesome’ without ‘me.’” Now a Zicklin School alumna says, “You can’t spell ‘thrive’ without ‘HR.’”

Denise (Messineo) Compitello, who received an MS degree in human resource management (at the time known as industrial and labor relations) from Executive Programs in 2015, recently launched her own HR firm after 15 years in the business. She calls it HR in Thrive.  

“The name came to me as I was driving one day,” Denise explains. “I was playing with slogans and reflecting on what parts of my career excite me and make me feel I’m thriving. And it hit me—you can’t spell ‘thrive’ without ‘HR.’” 

Her motivation was the lack of thriving in her own career at that time. “I was a vice president of HR in a corporate role, I had two small children, and I was working from 6 a.m. until my eyes closed at night,” Denise recalls. “What I love about HR is the connection with people, but now I was sitting with the executives while the folks under me were meeting with employees, and I missed that contact.” 

It was in a Zicklin School class in training and development that Denise discovered her passion for public speaking and connecting with groups. “I love engaging and educating people,” she says. HR in Thrive will focus on this niche, providing trainers and training materials for large organizations.  

She found her way to the Zicklin School the way a lot of people do—by word of mouth:  “I was working at a hospital in Brooklyn at the time, and four of my colleagues there had been in the Zicklin program and spoke very highly of it.” She found “wonderful, inspiring” professors who shared “amazing” stories that students “were able to learn from.” 

As she works on positioning HR in Thrive for the training and development niche, Denise has been positioning individual clients for the current job market: “I look at their credentials and help them identify the proper roles for them,” she says. “Nowadays people are applying to anything and everything. I’m helping them streamline the process and find roles where they can succeed.”  

Summing up, she adds, “My time with the Zicklin program is something I will always look back on fondly. It undoubtedly has contributed to the success I have had working within the HR field.” 

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