Kay Smart Joins Abbott as Business HR Director, EMEA Nutrition

Abbott has appointed Kay Smart as Business HR Director, EMEA Nutrition, bringing more than 22 years of experience in human resources across global HR leadership, talent acquisition, workforce strategy, organizational transformation, leadership development and HR business partnering.

Before joining Abbott, Kay spent nearly 18 years at Reckitt, where she most recently served as Global HR Director, Finance & IT&D. She worked closely with the CFO, CIO and SVP of Global Business Services to develop global workforce strategies across Finance, Global Business Services and IT&D.

In her previous role, Kay supported more than 3,000 employees across over 40 countries. Her responsibilities included organizational design, global restructuring, workforce planning, leadership development, culture transformation and the integration of business services.

Key Highlights:

• Kay joins Abbott as Business HR Director, EMEA Nutrition, with over 22 years of HR experience.
• She spent nearly 18 years at Reckitt in senior HR and talent leadership roles.
• Kay brings expertise in workforce strategy, talent acquisition and organizational transformation.

Previously, Kay was Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Reckitt, where he led a global recruitment team of over 120 staff in 13 countries, responsible for recruiting around 8,000 staff members per year.

She spearheaded the global talent acquisition transformation of the company's operating model, process and technology along with a recruitment budget of around £6m per annum. The function said it reduced its time to hire by 30% and saved over £5m a year during her time.

Kay's wider Reckitt experience encompassed various positions ranging from Regional HR Director, UK & Ireland, Talent Director, Emerging Markets, HR Director, Malaysia & Singapore, Talent & Resourcing Manager, Northern Europe, and HR Business Partner, UK.

These assignments provided her with leadership experience throughout Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, across talent strategy and succession, organizational design, culture and diversity and inclusion, capability building and transformation.

Prior to Reckitt, Smart joined Dyson as an HR Advisor, leading organizations on change and performance management & succession planning across commercial and customer service. She started her HR career with the HR Graduate Program from NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement. With many years of international experience, she is now expanding her role at Abbott as HR leader for the Nutrition business in EMEA.

Abbott is a global healthcare organization with a business portfolio that includes diagnostics, medical devices, nutrition and branded generic medicines. The technologies and products it creates are meant to assist people in various life stages and a wide spectrum of health care.

With about 122,000 colleagues worldwide, who serve people in over 160 countries, Abbott has a strong global presence in the healthcare technologies, products and services business.