After earning a Bachelor of Arts in communications from the University of Memphis, Rochelle Noone began her career as a recruiter. As she began working with various human resources leaders and professionals, she realized that she wanted to be able to help people with their professional development. This goal was further cemented through an incident that occurred early on in her work as a human resources specialist, where two people, one white and the other Black, were hired for the same job, but with a vast pay disparity. Assuming it was a mistake, Ms. Noone approached her then boss, but that was not the case, and she vowed that she would become a leader in the profession to ensure that people were afforded equal pay and other opportunities.
Ms. Noone joined the University of San Francisco in 2002 to pursue a master’s degree and the following year attained her first human resources leadership position as the human resources director for the Telecare Corporation, a behavioral health service. Achieving her Master of Science in human resources and organizational development in 2004, she remained with the Telecare Corporation until 2014. Concurrently, she became the vice president of human resources and diversity and inclusion for University HealthCare Alliance in 2008, a position she holds to this day. From 2014 to 2018, Ms. Noone also served as the vice president of human resources for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte.
In her role with University HealthCare Alliance, Ms. Noone is responsible for all of the strategy and development for the human resources department as whole, from policies and procedures to designing and implementing various programs. She notably leads the diversity and inclusion program and serves on the inclusion, diversity and health equity steering committee to ensure that all of their policies are properly implemented. Furthermore, she manages a team of roughly 18 professionals who do recruitment, talent requisition, training and organization. Continuing to cultivate her expertise in the field, Ms. Noone obtained additional certification in fostering inclusion and diversity from the Yale School of Management in 2020.
Attributing much of her success to her love for her job, Ms. Noone has made a name for herself through the level of knowledge and skill she has developed by spending her entire career in human resources. She also notes that the opportunities she has had to work in a variety of different environments, from nonprofit to union to corporate, have helped her to grow as a professional. Furthermore, she is very proud to have excelled as a Black woman in a field not known for having a large number of minority leaders and hopes to inspire others like her. Continually motivated by her desire to make an impact in the inclusion and diversity arena, Ms. Noone’s main goal as a human resources leader is to bring empathy and compassion to her role as a resource to help others and she finds it incredibly gratifying to watch the people she has helped go on to excel in their own careers.
Looking toward the future, Ms. Noone hopes to continue on in her current position, helping her employees to grow and feel valued. Her major ongoing project is the development of a leadership academy that will help teach soft skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, communication, teamwork and more. In order to keep abreast of developments in her field, she maintains professional affiliation with the National Association of Health Services Executives, the Society for Human Resource Management and the National Diversity Council, among others. Furthermore, Ms. Noone has plans to involve herself more in her local community through work with the San Francisco Unified Lions Club and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
For her excellence, Ms. Noone has been the recipient of a number of honors and accolades. In 2021, she was presented with a Leadership Excellence Award from the Women’s Conference of the National Diversity Council. More recently, she was named among the Top 100 Diversity Officers by the California Diversity Council in January 2022 as well as recognized at the California Conference for Women later in the year. Above all these achievements, Ms. Noone considers the absolute highlight of her career to be the work she has done with University HealthCare Alliance to advance their commitment to inclusion, diversity and health equity.