Adriana Bokel Herde appointed CPO of Pegasystems

Pegasystems has appointed Adriana Bokel Herde as chief people officer (CPO) and senior vice president.

Bokel Herde will be responsible for Pega’s global people strategy and operations, reporting to Alan Trefler, Pega’s founder and CEO. She will be based out of Cambridge headquarters, succeeding Jeff Yanagi, who will be retiring from Pega.

For more than 20 years, Bokel Herde has held leadership positions in fast growing companies and is recognized as an innovative, high-performing leader with the ability to architect, execute, and drive business growth. Her areas of expertise include business strategy, talent recruitment and development, diversity initiatives, change management, leadership development, operations, innovation and employee experience.

Most recently, Bokel Herde was chief people officer and chief evangelist officer at PeopleDoc, an HR technology provider, where she was responsible for internal people strategy and customer advocacy. Prior to that, she was vice president of people services at Biogen.

Born in Brazil, Bokel Herde has held positions all over the world and is fluent in English, Portuguese and German. She holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, a MA in Adult Educational Psychology from Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen, and a Clinical Psychology degree from the Pontificia Universidade Catolica in Rio de Janeiro. She is currently a member of the MIT Women Alumni Leadership team.

“With a proven track record of executing transformative HR strategies, Adriana will bring valuable experience to Pega as we continue to grow and innovate,” said Alan Trefler, founder and CEO, Pegasystems.

Adriana Bokel Herde said, “I look forward to strengthening and cultivating our employee community to evolve Pega’s culture and success.”