Serena Filson
VP Human Resources
Certara
Episode 87
Organizational Transitions: Why 'good enough' HR leadership wins.
Current chapter: Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built By PeopleJuly 29, 2025 · 15:35
Thesis
“Successful HR leadership during major organizational transitions like IPOs and divestitures demands ruthless prioritization, embracing iterative 'good enough' solutions, and fostering transparency and a sense of shared ownership among employees.”
Show notes
Serena Filson joined Certara as Head of Total Rewards and was almost immediately told the company was going public. The HR team was lean — private equity lean — and they had to build compliance infrastructure, job architecture, and stock plan administration essentially from scratch, while onboarding new leadership, during a pandemic.
Then she'd done it at J&J before, on the other side: managing the LifeScan divestiture, where her job was to extract an entire global benefits structure from one of the world's largest companies and reconstruct it inside a newly independent organization. Her analogy for the mindset shift that IPOs demand is one of the sharpest you'll hear: going public is like moving from renting to owning. Renters don't obsess over the pipes. Homeowners do. Getting employees to internalize that shift — to feel real ownership over company resources and decisions — is one of the hardest and most underestimated parts of the transition.
Her core advice for HR leaders navigating high-stakes corporate events: ruthlessly prioritize, define what "good enough" means before you start, and know when to say "I don't know" — because the willingness to go find the answer is more valuable than pretending you already have it.
- What HR needs to build before an IPO — and how to sequence it when everything feels urgent
- The "rental to homeowner" mindset shift: how to change employee relationships with company resources
- How Serena navigated the LifeScan divestiture from J&J — keeping benefits competitive through massive upheaval
- Why the "80/20 and evolve" approach beats perfectionism every time in high-change environments
- The HR-IT-Finance-Legal trifecta: why cross-functional partnership is non-negotiable in M&A and IPO work
This episode is brought to you by Previ — an employer network that saves employees thousands on the necessities they already pay for, at no cost to the company.
What you'll take away
- 1Ruthlessly prioritize the 3-4 most critical deliverables during high-stakes transitions (IPOs, divestitures) to focus energy on compliance and key business drivers.
- 2Define 'good enough' with an 80/20 approach, accepting that initial solutions will evolve, rather than striving for unattainable perfection during rapid change.
- 3Maintain transparency and empathy during cultural shifts by openly acknowledging challenges, sharing known information, and creating safe spaces for employees to process change.
- 4Cultivate strong, collaborative partnerships between HR, IT, Finance, and Legal to form a 'trifecta' of support essential for navigating major corporate events.
- 5Practice humility and resourcefulness by admitting when you 'don't know' and actively seeking external expertise or mentors to find answers and navigate unfamiliar territory.
What most organizations get wrong
- •Don't waste time on perfect; get to an 80/20 solution during transitions, knowing it will evolve, rather than delaying for an ideal but unachievable state.
- •The mindset shift from a 'rental' (private company) to 'homeowner' (public company) perspective fundamentally changes employee responsibility towards company resources.
In Serena's words
“From an HR standpoint, our team was certainly still lean. The complement of the HR structure was very different than it is today. Like, our team looks— there's some still common members, but we were extremely lean and structured, as you would expect a private equity HR company.”
Highlights the significant structural shift HR undergoes during a company's transition from private equity to public.
“And how do you have people become more responsible in the way that they're thinking about company resources when you're private versus when you're public? So I think that was— and that's still a journey, right? Some people's perceptions of how you would work in a private company are very different than sometimes how you would work in a public company. And I always say that, for me, working in a private company, to some extent, not in my role, some employees or whatnot, folks might say, perhaps that's like living in a rental, right? ... And when you go public, it's like you're now a homeowner...”
This vivid analogy effectively captures the shift in mindset and ownership required from employees and leaders when a company transitions from private to public.
“Some advisement would be making sure that you, I say, ruthlessly prioritize that what you are working on within the constructs of those deals, that that, you know, the focused energies that you have are really on the levers that are either driving towards compliance or the most important for the business at the time.”
Emphasizes the critical need for strategic prioritization in high-stakes HR projects like IPOs or divestitures.
“I would say define what good enough is. Meaning, if you're going through transitions like that, whatever you're working on is going to have to be good enough at that time, but it's going to have to evolve. So I usually say don't waste time on perfect. Get to an 80/20 and know that it's going to evolve and be okay with that as long as it meets the briefs of the business.”
This practical advice advocates for pragmatic, iterative solutions over perfection during times of rapid organizational change.
“I also would say know when to say, I don't know. I'd said that a lot during the process. I don't know. We're going to have to be resourceful. We're going to get the best resources. I'm going to go find the information.”
Underscores the importance of humility and resourcefulness in HR leadership, especially when navigating unfamiliar challenges.
The problems this episode addresses
- •Transitioning a lean private equity HR structure to one capable of supporting a public company, requiring rapid development of compliance, equity plans, and job architecture.
- •Managing a new leadership onboarding experience during a global pandemic while simultaneously preparing the company for an IPO.
- •Shifting leadership and employee mindsets from a 'private company' (rental) mentality to a 'public company' (homeowner) mentality regarding company resources and responsibility.
- •Extracting and restructuring complex global benefit plans during a divestiture, ensuring continued competitiveness and employee motivation while managing significant change.
- •Prioritizing a multitude of urgent HR tasks during major corporate transitions (IPO, divestiture) to focus on critical compliance and business drivers amidst overwhelming demands.
In this episode
Built by People podcast features insights from world's top HR leaders
Built by People
And as a starting question, I always love to ask about your career journey
Exploring Your Career Path
Serena joined Certara as the head of total rewards shortly after IPO
Going Public: The Changes to the HR Team
Company went from infancy to maturity quickly with compliance job architecture and stock plan administration
Employee Experience: Equity Plan and Compliance
Serena shares her experience with LifeScan divestiture from Johnson Johnson
Employee Experience at Johnson &Joint Venture
Taking a company public and managing a major divestiture can be challenging HR experiences
Post-IPO and Divestiture: How to Priorit
Serena says everything is fixable when going through transitions
Serena Hewitt on Her Final Words
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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