Scaling Skills, Shaping Careers: Inside Greif’s Global Talent Strategy - 2026 Next Practices Weekly

In this February 26, 2026, session of Next Practices Weekly, Bala Sathyanarayanan, EVP & CHRO, and Tara Plazarin, VP of Global Talent at Greif, shared how their 148-year-old industrial packaging company is transforming workforce development through a bold, enterprise-wide learning strategy. At the center of this evolution is Greif University, a global platform designed to embed continuous learning, upskilling, and internal mobility directly into business growth.

Hosted by Nathaniel Hudson and Tom Stone, the conversation highlighted how Greif University - launched in 2021 with more than 20,000 multilingual courses - has become a cornerstone of the company’s employee value proposition. By aligning learning with leadership development, safety, customer excellence, and career mobility, Greif is reinforcing engagement, strengthening retention, and building critical capabilities at scale.

Key Topics Discussed

• Building a Scalable Global Learning Ecosystem
  Greif University delivers more than 20,000 courses in multiple languages, ensuring accessibility for employees worldwide. The platform reflects a deliberate investment in scalable infrastructure that supports enterprise-wide capability building.
• Positioning Learning as a Core Pillar of the EVP
  Rather than treating development as a perk, Greif embedded learning into its employee value proposition. This strategic positioning reinforces retention, strengthens engagement, and signals long-term career opportunity.
• Driving Internal Mobility Through Skills Transparency
  By expanding access to leadership and professional development pathways, Greif enables employees to envision and pursue internal career growth, external hiring dependency while increasing workforce agility.
• Aligning Leadership Development with Business Strategy
  Executive sponsorship and senior HR leadership involvement ensure that skill-building initiatives directly support operational priorities and global expansion goals.
• Sustaining Momentum Through Culture and Accountability
  The speakers underscored the importance of embedding continuous learning into everyday workflows, measuring impact, and reinforcing leadership accountability to maintain long-term success.

More than a learning platform, Greif University represents a cultural commitment: positioning skills development as a shared responsibility between the organization and its people. Bala and Tara emphasized that sustainable talent strategies require intentional design, executive sponsorship, and measurable impact, demonstrating that when learning is integrated into business strategy, it drives performance, agility, and long-term workforce resilience. For HR leaders looking to see how this strategy translates into practical action, the on-demand recording offers valuable real-world examples and candid insights from both executives.

Resources Shared

• Register for the 2026 Conference
  Don’t miss i4cp's premier annual event - Next Practices Now Conference - where forward-thinking leaders gather to explore the future of work. Secure your seat

• 2026 Priorities & Predictions Report: Explore i4cp’s latest insights to guide your talent, leadership, and culture strategies in the year ahead - read the full report

To ensure open discussion, this event was exclusively for HR practitioners. Vendors and consultants were not permitted to attend.