JHU’s Human Resources leadership team guides the design, development, and implementation of the HR practices, policies, and programs that help make JHU a world-class institution. In all that it does, the team is guided by our Strategic Priorities and Mission, Vision & Guiding Principles.
Our vision is to have constituents view us as One HR, which they can access from a variety of touch points. HR Business Partners are the HR leaders who work in the various departments and schools throughout JHU. They partner with our Centers of Expertise to navigate complex employee relations issues, contract with new hires, facilitate promotions and transfers, and ensure that training objectives are achieved.
Vice President for Human Resources
Pierre Joanis is the Vice President for Human Resources.
Pierre plays an integral role in strengthening and expanding the university’s HR function by partnering with stakeholders from across the institution to advance key strategic priorities and initiatives. He guides a team of nearly 300 human resources professionals across the university responsible for implementing practices, policies and programs to support JHU’s exceptional workforce.
Known for his highly collaborative leadership style and deep knowledge of universities and their mission, Pierre joined JHU in March 2022 after eight years as vice president for human resources at Bucknell University, where he served as a strategic and operational leader responsible for inspiring and promoting a positive and diverse faculty and staff culture. He served on Bucknell’s COVID-19 Emergency Response Team, its Financial Response Team, and the team charged with safely reopening the university, helping improve health outcomes and lowering health care costs by successfully transitioning Bucknell to fully self-insured health insurance programs. He developed a consultative recruitment model that improved talent acquisition, embraced new approaches to faculty and staff total compensation, and partnered with the faculty chair of the university planning and budget committee to support the annual budget building process and long-range financial planning.
Prior to his role at Bucknell, Pierre was a human resources leader at Princeton University and was a commissioner and chairman of the New Jersey Employee Relations Commission, a quasi-judicial administrative agency to prevent and resolve labor disputes.
Pierre earned an MBA from Arcadia University and a bachelor’s degree in labor studies at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, MD.