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VP of Human Resources at Nestle USA
Tony Chukuka by The Emerald Staff
Tony Chukuka (Cal State Long Beach ‘98) is currently the Vice President of Human Resources at Nestle USA. He possesses over 15 years of progressive HR experience across multiple industries, including Automotive, Government Contracting, and CPG. Tony received his Bachelor of Science in Finance from California State University, Long Beach, and his Masters of Arts in Management from the University of Redlands. He also possesses a Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification.
You’ve been with Nestle for almost ten years, tell me about how you got to this point in your career? A couple of things have helped me get to this point in my career. One is having courage; it is important to have courage and challenge the status quo within your organization and to challenge your team/colleagues to be great. Intrinsically people want to be great, and it’s your job to help them attain greatness. The other thing is being open to feedback. It’s important to continuously improve and being open to feedback helps
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with that. This was something I learned at El Rancho High School, while participating in athletics and it carried over into my undergraduate days in Sigma Pi. As a leader, I need to do my best to ensure that I and the team I lead continue to get better every day. The last thing is an appreciation for diversity. I attended Cal State University-Long Beach (CSULB), which is a very diverse school and commuter campus. Our chapter there represented that diversity and it allowed me to understand the importance of diversity and how to manage everyday biases that may negatively impact growth.
Winter 2021
