Michelle E.

Michelle Engel is the Chief People Officer at [solidcore], where she leads the People function with a focus on culture, connection, and creating an exceptional employee experience. Michelle’s career spans high-growth environments in healthcare, behavioral health, and technology, including leadership roles at Clarvida, Evolent Health and AOL.

Before joining [solidcore], Michelle served as Chief People Officer at Clarvida, a national behavioral healthcare organization supporting 4,000+ employees. There, she led the transformation of the People function — evolving strategies for talent, onboarding, total rewards, leadership development and culture to support both operational scale and improving the overall employee experience.

At Evolent, Michelle helped scale their people operations, navigate organizational change, and strengthen culture during times of transformation. She led a global HR team through multiple acquisitions, a successful P&L model transition, and award-winning employee engagement and DE&I initiatives. Her approach blends strategic acumen with a deep commitment to operational understanding, believing that employees are the foundation of business success.

Throughout her career, Michelle has worked across all areas of HR — from talent attraction and leadership development to compensation, benefits, and M&A. She has scaled and transformed People functions, integrating talent acquisition, DE&I, total rewards, leadership development, and HR operations, into cohesive strategies that drive both culture and performance. She has a track record of modernizing HR technology, implementing cost-effective benefits programs, and fostering inclusive workplaces rooted in empathy, accountability, and collaboration.

Earlier in her career, Michelle held HR roles at AOL and Footstar, Inc, where she built and led HR teams through rapid growth, acquisitions, organizational redesign, and shifts in workplace models. She’s also worked with healthcare startups and executives as a consultant and certified executive coach, helping them build strong teams and sustainable practices.

Michelle’s leadership style is grounded in empathy, accountability, and servant leadership. She believes HR should be both strategic and deeply human — not just managing systems, but creating the conditions for people to thrive. She knows that when employees feel valued, supported, and connected to a shared purpose, great things happen — for individuals, for teams, and for the communities they serve.

She holds a B.A. in Psychology and English from Lehigh University, is a graduate of Harvard Business School’s executive program for HR leaders, and is a Certified Professional and Executive Coach through iPEC.