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Meet Kelly

Kelly Capra, M.S., is a seasoned HR Leader with over 25 years of broad HR experience. She enjoys building organizations for growth while fostering an engaging culture and a positive employee experience. In her Coaching practice Kelly works with leaders at all levels to help them achieve what they did not think was possible; both for their personal development and with demonstrated business results. She is passionate about helping leaders transform and explore areas for change and development. Her coaching philosophy is collaborative, and she builds mutually trusting relationships with her clients. Her approach is very individualized and practical, and she displays a supportive yet transparent and straight forward approach. Some of the areas she works with clients in include performance coaching; feedback and development coaching; high potential development; and new leader coaching.

An experienced leader

In her HR Consulting practice, Kelly works with CEOs to build scalable HR infrastructure by aligning the people strategy to support and achieve the business strategy. Working at both the strategic and hands-on level, Kelly is well versed in all aspects of HR with an emphasis on talent acquisition and development, employee engagement, culture building and change management.

Prior to starting her own consultancy Kelly held top HR positions for both public and private companies with US and Global responsibility reporting to the CEO and serving on Executive Leadership teams. She worked with CEOs and senior leadership teams to implement people strategies to enable companies to grow quickly and organizations to scale. Kelly has worked for companies such as Boston Scientific, Stryker, Dassault Systèmes and Repligen.

Kelly earned her Masters of Science in Human Resource Management from Lesley University, her Bachelor of Science degree in Social Science from Michigan State University, and a Graduate Certificate in Executive Coaching from William James College. She is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Human Development and a PhD in Organizational Development & Change with Fielding Graduate University.

On the personal side

Kelly has four adult children (2 biological and 2 step kids) who mean the world to her and she enjoys spending time with them. She lost her life partner, John, in May of 2020 unexpectedly. John was a kind and humble person who put others before himself and is missed and remembered every day.

Kelly enjoys running year-round especially in her town by the sea. She spends the summer boating and at the beach and enjoys downhill skiing in the winter – on the east coast and out west. She recently finished building a home in her ocean side town north of Boston. Her dogs, a border terrier and wheaten terrier, enjoy frequent walks and runs on the beach!

Contact Kelly

What People Say

Testimonials

As the CEO at Joyn Bio, I had the privilege of working with Kelly for over 3 years as she helped build the Joyn team as our Head of HR. She helped develop and run all aspects of our HR services, and she was especially helpful in coaching our managers and senior team. She played a key role in recruiting and developing our team, and we definitely benefited from her broad scope of HR expertise and coaching.

CEO, Joyn Bio

Kelly provides CHRO level support for MBX. Her experience helping biotech companies scale from startup to public company stage is invaluable.

She understands the key issues that can hinder an organization’s effectiveness and offers actionable guidance. I enjoy collaborating with Kelly on building MBX.

CEO, MBX Biosciences

I have known Kelly for about three years. She was our HR consultant at Joyn Bio where I have worked as a Plant Science Department Head. Being HR in a startup is not an easy job as one needs to build an HR strategy and system from scratch. Kelly was a fantastic support for my exponentially growing team and myself as a leader. She was my source when I needed guidance on how to handle difficult employees and resolve conflicts. Kelly was instrumental in offering multiple resources for the managers and employees through organizing workshops and inviting external facilitators. Although Kelly was a consultant and had a limited number of hours per week dedicated to Joyn Bio, it never felt that way as she was always available for our questions and requests for help. It was a great experience for me to work with Kelly.

Head of Plant Science, Joyn Bio

I am really glad to have had an opportunity to participate in a 6- month productive coaching program under Kelly. Kelly allowed me to request 360 feedback from my direct reports, peers, manager, and mentors and helped me reflect and constructively work on it. She is very focused, direct, and thorough and I have made significant improvements in leadership skills under her coaching. I would wholeheartedly recommend Kelly for coaching for leaders willing to see a step change in their leadership abilities.

VP, R&D, Biotech

We had the pleasure of working with Kelly for 3 years as we grew the company from about 18 to 85 employees. Kelly worked with us seamlessly as a business partner to establish the full framework of a corporate people management system. Her enthusiasm and engagement were essential to help us attract and recruit talent in a highly competitive biotech market and then retain staff during the challenges of the COVID pandemic.

CSO, Biotech

I’ve had the opportunity to work with Kelly at a couple growing life science companies and found her to be a great partner. She understands the startup environment and has been an invaluable resource for building the HR strategy and structuring HR as well as helping to create an engaging culture. She’s skilled at coaching and mentoring leaders and is always willing to listen to all employees. She herself is a leader of high integrity and team members trust her.

CFO, Life Sciences

Kelly partnered with us during a time of high growth but also great uncertainty due to COVID-19. Though an outside consultant, she became one of the team, a trusted coach and advisor through the changes we experienced, and a people-centric collaborator. With Kelly’s help, we were able to keep our staff safe, productive, and engaged through our transition to remote work and have come through the challenge in a position of strength.

CTO and Co-Founder, Medical Devices

I had the pleasure of working with Kelly in my previous role, and her coaching was instrumental to my professional development in my management role. Together we set measurable goals, and her consistent and timely feedback helped me to achieve necessary milestones that led to future promotion. She has my highest recommendation as a leadership coach!

Scientific Manager, Biotech

What People Say

Coaching Client Feedback

“It was helpful to talk with Kelly and discuss my plans out loud and have her provide assurance and tips for further progress. I am in a better spot with my managerial skills after working with Kelly.”

“I think it was important for me to talk to someone that had experience with the situation I was in. Someone that was also external to the company who could give me impartial advice. I was able to be more honest with Kelly and she also gave me honest unbiased advice.”

“I really enjoyed bouncing my managerial type issues and questions with Kelly. She had great ideas and resources that she shared that were really helpful.”

“It was helpful to discuss specific situations that I was struggling with, both to organize my own thoughts and as a way to get some practical tips and advice that I could implement right away.”

Get in touch

Free 20 min Consultation

HR Consulting and Coaching is very personal and requires a high level of compatability between the client and the coach. That is why Kelly offers FREE 20 minute consultations for prospective clients to get to know her.

Contact Us:

[email protected]