Meet Nora Abdoun, Visier’s New Head of People and Culture

Get to know Visier’s new head of people and culture, Nora Abdoun! We recently caught up with her to learn more about why she’s passionate about data, what she learned from a year of traveling to 31 countries, and what drew her to Visier. 

Nora brings a combination of over 15 years of global corporate experience and organizational psychology helping individuals, leaders, and teams do their best work. Her focus is on evolving organizational culture through systems and behaviors to ensure ongoing adaptation based on business needs. Prior to Visier, Nora held various leadership roles at Thorn, Asana, Salesforce, and eBay.

Q: Welcome! What drew you to Visier?

A: Thank you! I’m passionate about people and data—and that’s one of the key reasons I was drawn to Visier; it’s truly my dream job. I love understanding data from different angles—slicing it in various ways, combining variables, and exploring what stories those interactions reveal. Not only do I get to lead the HR function of an innovative SaaS company, but I also get to work with a product designed to provide people and work analytics, helping people in similar positions demonstrate the impact employees have on the business.

Q: What inspired you to pursue a PhD in Organizational Behavior?

A: Growing up as the daughter of immigrant parents, hard work and education were central to our lives. My parents believed in hard work as a path to improving our life, which was ingrained in me and helped shape my values.

At university, I took an industrial-organizational psychology class and loved how it combined psychology with business impact. I worked on a research study with the San Francisco Police Department, analyzing how in-car laptops affected community policing. That hands-on experience motivated me to pursue a career in the field. I started in HR, then worked at A Great Place to Work Institute, and eventually decided to pursue my PhD to continue applying my learning to great organizations like Visier.

Q: What exactly is organizational psychology, and how does it differ from clinical psychology?

A: Organizational psychology focuses on understanding human behavior at work and everything associated with that. It examines work through the lens of individuals, teams, and organizations.

At the individual level, I’m always interested in what motivates people, their relationship with work, and what role it plays in their identity and purpose. At the team level, I enjoy understanding how people collaborate and what makes teams successful, including factors like diversity (visible and non-visible).

On an organizational level, I'm particularly interested in leadership and culture, the social contract between individuals and organizations, and how an organization fits into society at large. My research explored if having a great internal organizational culture mattered more or less than having an external socially responsible brand reputation. I found that being a great place to work for employees has a stronger impact on organizational financial success than being a socially responsible corporate citizen externally.  

Q: How has the state of the workforce evolved, and how has it impacted the way organizations view their people?

A: Over the past few years, with challenges ranging from the Great Resignation to the Great Stay the employee experience pendulum has swung greatly in both directions. In the post-COVID world, there seems to be a reconsideration of what the employer-employee social contract is or should be. Reality is that organizations and employees need each other to succeed and I’m hopeful that the next evolution of this will highlight the mutual benefits for both. 

Q: You spent a year traveling and learning. Can you share a high-level overview of that experience and how it impacted you?

A: I reached a point in my career where I was feeling burnt out. I’d been working since I was 14, and work had become such a core part of my identity. I realized I needed a break to explore life beyond work, which felt out of character for me—and even harder for my family to understand! To them, the idea of choosing not to work was not a part of their worldview.

I joined a program called Remote Year, which organizes travel for professionals in a nomadic setting. I quit my job, opened an LLC, and initially did pro bono work, but soon started getting paid clients through my network. I lived in a different country each month for a year and ended up visiting 31 in total. It was eye-opening to see how differently people around the world relate to work, and it made me rethink my own relationship with it.

That year helped me gain perspective. I still see work as a big part of my identity, but am much more intentional about the work I do and the impact I make. It’s not just about a job—it’s about my passion for what work enables us to do together. I also learned that at our core, people around the world are the same, but we all have unique ways in which we approach life (and work).

Q: What perspectives did you gain during that year of global travel and seeing how humans relate to work?

A: It definitely broadened my perspective. I’ve spent a good amount of my career in organizational development, change management, and talent management. One of the key realizations I had during my travels was how much our lives, not just our work lives, are shaped by the systems we exist within. These systems can either expand or limit our choices, depending on their nature.

That insight made me want to shift the focus of my work to the systems themselves rather than just the individuals, teams, or leaders within them. This led me toward a head of people role, where I could look at how all the different pieces come together. I love James Clear’s (Atomic Habits author) “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” It reinforced my belief that we need to create better systems, however we define that. My travels also helped me see how individuals, organizations, and societies are all interconnected layers of various systems.

Nora Abdoun is on LinkedIn here.