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Leadership Studies Alumni Spotlight: Holli Patke
Role: Human Resources
Year graduated: 2018
I am proud to have been part of the first graduating class of the Leadership Studies program at Cal Poly Humboldt. After earning my degree, my career truly took off and has continued to evolve in ways I could not have imagined. I transitioned into human resources, first building a strong foundation as an HR generalist, and then joining Accenture in 2021 as an HR partner.
Accenture is a Fortune Global 500 company and one of the world’s largest professional services organizations, with approximately 799,000 employees serving clients in more than 120 countries. Joining Accenture was a major career breakthrough for me and remains one of my proudest professional accomplishments. I directly credit the knowledge, confidence, and leadership skills I gained through the Leadership Studies program at Cal Poly Humboldt with helping me reach this point in my career. The program strengthened my ability to communicate effectively, think critically, lead with empathy, and influence others, all of which helped prepare me to succeed and continue growing within such a large and complex global organization.
At Accenture, I serve as a trusted HR advisor to leaders and employees across multiple North American accounts. I guide them through complex and often sensitive matters involving employee relations, performance management, talent decisions, redeployment, workforce transitions, and policy interpretation. By partnering closely with employee relations, employment law, talent leads, and business leaders, I help identify risks, bring clarity to challenging situations, and support outcomes that are fair, thoughtful, and well documented.
The Leadership Studies program gave me the confidence and skills to take my career to the next level. It strengthened my ability to communicate, think critically, influence others, and lead with empathy. Those skills have been essential to my growth at Accenture and continue to shape how I support people through some of the most important and challenging moments in their careers.
