James Sayno took an economics class in high school that influenced his career path in human resources. He began his career in financial services and worked in consulting before moving to the United States Olympic Committee, where he has had a significant impact. Sayno helped create a scholarship program that has awarded over $1 million to athletes and also built up the USOC's training program, transforming managers' skills. Sayno had to overcome challenges from his non-traditional background in moving to human resources, but has been able to successfully help rebuild the USOC's HR department through his work.

1. 24 Human Resource Executive®
The ‘Impact Guy’
James Sayno
Director of Talent Development
and Rewards
United States Olympic
Committee, Colorado Springs,
Colo.
Greatest Challenge: Breaking
into human resources via a
nontraditional, non-HR route with
a background in financial services,
insurance and consulting, thereby
facing a significant and immediate
learning curve.
Greatest Achievement:
Helping to rebuild a nascent
HR department into a trusted,
impactful and service-oriented
organization.
W
hen James Sayno was a
senior in high school in
Colorado Springs, he took a
course in economics that, in essence,
helped guide the rest of his life.
Already equipped with a keen
intellect, based on the “superior
education” he says he received living
in the Philippines for most of his youth,
“that one economics class really tilted
my way of viewing human behavior,”
says the 38-year-old director of talent
development and rewards for the
United States Olympic Committee.
“In economics, there are models
of human behaviors,” says Sayno,
who began his career in the financial-
services and insurance industry at age
17, working after school. “I learned in
that course how people don’t conform
to models, yet there is still interplay
between people’s behaviors and
the systems we set up. So financial
incentives, for instance, do actually
work, but maybe not in the way we
thought they would.”
Those lessons sparked an interest
in change-management projects—an
interest he took with him in 2006 to
Deloitte Consulting’s San Francisco
office, where he would work for the
next four years as a human capital
consultant before returning to Colorado
to be closer to his wife, Danielle, and
then-1-year-old son, Randkai (who,
now 5, is a big brother to Royce, 1)
and become what he describes as “an
impact guy” for the USOC.
And impact he’s certainly had.
Answering a long-time need at the
USOC to help Olympic and Paralympic
athletes past their primes find a gateway
to a different successful career, he
worked with sponsor DeVry University
to create and lead a scholarship
program—the Academic Performance
Program—that has awarded more than
$1 million to deserving recipients (the
program now has 140 participants) to
help them get the education they need
to start a new career.
Also after coming to the USOC, Sayno
quickly recognized its internal training
function was sorely lacking, particularly
in bolstering managers’ basic business
skills such as developing business cases,
documenting return-on-investment or
leading change during complex new-
project-or-process implementations. He
was a critical player in building USOC’s
internal and external training program,
Team USA Academy of Learning
and Leadership, which has not only
transformed internal business acumen,
but also serves big-name-company
clients as part of a partnership with The
Conference Board.
“Five years before I got here,
I can safely say our managers had
not had any training in five years to
gain in executive disciplines,” Sayno
says. Yet now, training at the USOC
is so successful, “we’ve rebranded
the corporate university ... and we’re
sending that Olympic spirit back to the
business world.
“But what’s even more exciting
and satisfying to me,” he says, “are the
internal successes, seeing managers
gain confidence and expertise in the
types of things that make them effective
at their jobs. Those daily gains, being
able to articulate their gains and goals
and accomplishments better ... those
are what I’m truly proud of.”
In each of his endeavors, Sayno
never once was slowed by his lack
of experience in HR or a particular
discipline within the profession. The
project guy from Deloitte simply
formed the right teams, through
careful scrutiny and selection, to
address subject-matter needs, he says,
but also bring in additional skills and
expertise in keeping with the needs of
a professional team.
The learning curve as he shifted to
HR was challenging, though. “I needed
to create a compelling narrative about
parallel and complementary experiences
that made me suited for my [new]
role,” Sayno says. “For example, my
training and development experiences
[had to feed into my] organizational-
development role [and] my change-
management experience [would have
to be called on to] help me build and
implement successful HR programs.”
Personally, he often seeks learning
opportunities outside the organization
that can help him enhance his skills.
Early in his career, in 2005, while
working at the California Casualty
Management Co. in Colorado Spring,
he recognized he needed more
advanced business schooling to be
able to guide others through the
training-and-development trajectory
he envisioned himself on. So he
enrolled at the Thunderbird School
of Global Management and earned an
M.B.A. in global business. He’s also
a fourth-degree black belt in Kempo
Karate, which enhances his focus and
discipline, and strengthens his “ability
to influence others,” he says.
Members of the HR’s Rising Stars
judging panel as well as Sayno’s own
supervisor, Pam Sawyer, managing
director of human resources, point
out that achieving anything in the
intense USOC environment is to be
commended.
“The sports industry is very
relationship- and performance-
oriented, and a high percentage of
our staff are active athletes or sports
aficionados outside of the office,” says
Sawyer. “James [has been able to]
apply this cultural knowledge, strong
interpersonal skills, desire to see others
succeed ... and daily inspiration from
elite athletes ... to perform, himself, at
a high level on a daily basis.”
—Kristen B. Frasch
With a background in finance and consulting, James
Sayno has been able to build his own HR skills while
enhancing others’ to bring some needed changes to
the USOC.
HR’s Rısıng Stars