Ricardo Aparicio, PhD

Dr. Ricardo Aparicio is a Program Director of the Employee Engagement & Experience Council at The Conference Board. He has extensive experience generating, integrating, and simplifying human resource development processes. Ricardo brings thought leadership and best-in-class practices by leveraging over two decades of experience in human resources and marketing at Fortune 500 companies. With creatively tailored solutions to business-specific needs, he is committed to helping organizations unleash the full potential and engagement of their employees. 

Ricardo spent the last 19 years working in human resources and marketing at General Mills, most recently as director of organization effectiveness. In his role as director, Ricardo had global, organization-wide responsibility for the design and delivery of core HR process areas relating to engagement, development, and performance. In his various roles in organization effectiveness, Ricardo has worked on employee and leadership development, manager effectiveness, new manager training, coaching, performance management, e-learning, organizational culture building, 360 surveys, and engagement surveys. 

As the global practice leader for the General Mills’ engagement survey, Ricardo oversaw the administration of more than 30 distinct employee opinion surveys totaling over 175,000 survey participants across the world. Ricardo has a long track record of training others on how to review survey results, identify priorities for action, and create achievable action plans that will drive improvement. During his time leading the engagement survey, General Mills achieved record survey scores on both development and engagement. Prior to his time in HR, Ricardo spent seven years in marketing managing large national brands at General Mills and Colgate-Palmolive. 

Ricardo was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and currently lives in Minnesota in the Greater Minneapolis – St. Paul area. He holds a BA in government from Cornell University, an MBA from Stanford University, and a PhD in education and human development from the Work and Human Resource Education department at the University of Minnesota.