Cheri Alexander

Cheri Alexander is the Executive Director of Corporate Learning at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business Executive Education Department. She also teaches Leadership and Managing Human Capital in the Bachelors and Masters of Business Administration Programs. In addition, she teaches assorted leadership and HR topics for Executive Education. Prior to retiring from General Motors, she was the President of the General Motors University and Executive Director Global HR. In that position, she was the Chief Learning Officer of the company overseeing Global Learning & Performance. Cheri was also part of the company's Global Integration Team that oversaw Global HR Implementation, focusing on the emerging markets. At GM, Ms. Alexander had thirty-three years of successful International Human Resource Management and Labor Relations experience. She has HR expertise in Mergers and Acquisitions, JV formation and execution, talent management, succession planning, leadership development, corporate universities, security, crisis management, safety, industrial health engineering, and business process outsourcing. She was nominated several times and received the Chairman's Award for her work in positive downsizing. In addition to the multiple areas inside HR in which she has worked, Alexander had assignments in Plant Management, Quality, and Engineering. She lived and worked in 4 countries on 3 continents and was responsible for all HR outside of North America, as the Vice President of HR for International Operations, overseeing and visiting operations in 51 countries. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Cheri received her Bachelor's Degree from the University of Michigan, as well as, her first Masters in Industrial Health Engineering. She was selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and completed her second Masters of Science in Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is also a Certified Executive Leadership Coach. Cheri has published work on Noise Induced Hearing Loss and completed her thesis on the Relocation of Dislocated Automobile Workers. Her work is cited in two books, United We Stand, by Wilbur and Weakley, and in Successful Mergers, Acquisitions, and Strategic Alliances by Gancel, Rodgers, and Raynaud. In addition to her work, Cheri is on the Boards of the Inforum Center for Leadership and debunk-it, LTD, a European consultancy. Cheri is dedicated to global education and often speaks on her favorite topics, "Being International" and "Global Superficial Homogenization – What it Means to be Global." She lives in Ann Arbor with her husband, Dr. Richard Redding, a professor and archaeologist at the Kelsey Museum, University of Michigan who is also the CRO/COO of Ancient Egyptian Research Associates (AERA). Their daughter is an educator and entrepreneur currently studying for her Doctorate at Harvard.

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Managing Talent (Coursera)

In this course, you will learn best practices for selecting, recruiting, and onboarding talent. You will also learn about the key approaches to measuring performance and evaluating your employees. In addition, you will learn how to develop and coach your talent so that they can realize their full potential [...]

Personal Branding: Stand Out and Succeed (Coursera)

In Personal Branding: Stand Out and Succeed, you’ll explore how the branding strategies used by top-brands can inform your own personal brand, one that’s authentically you. Define what a brand is, and explore the overlap between branded products and personal branding in this 4-week course. You’ll reflect on your [...]

Emotional Intelligence: Cultivating Immensely Human Interactions (Coursera)

This course is a multi-media exploration into important intra- and interpersonal skills required for Emotional Intelligence. Professors Sanchez-Burks and Alexander teach a model that brings together all of the areas that are necessary to improve and take skills in the interpersonal space to the next level. People call these [...]

Reigniting Employee Engagement (Coursera)

Welcome to Reigniting Employee Engagement with Professors J. Sanchez-Burks and Cheri Alexander. Engagement at work is tenuous at best. Stress and unhappiness remain elevated resulting in a myriad of challenges that limit the ability for us and others to thrive in our jobs. This course introduces three interactive levers, [...]