The Learning Forum, a non-profit, member-driven, executive peer network that focuses on enhancing the strategic role of the human resources and leadership development functions, has established a new council for SVPs of human resources who have been recruited or promoted in the last two years. The purpose of the council is to share strategies and experiences as new leaders build their team talent and functionality to meet the ever-changing talent demands of today's large corporations.

Key issues include CEO and C-Suite dynamics, linking to business strategy, board of directors' issues, HR transformation and building a top HR team. Their next meetings are in New York on September 26-27, 2006 and San Francisco on February 5-6, 2007.

"Since it is only recent that human resource leaders have begun to be viewed as strategic partners in advancing corporate objectives," said Brian Hackett, director of The Learning Forum, "we are interested to hear how the most recently hired and promoted heads of HR are building their department capabilities to truly be strategic: what are their experiences? what lessons have they learned? what are the best practices others who follow can benefit from?"

Members of The Learning Forum include 3M, BT, Best Buy, Boeing, Booz Allen, Burger King, CVS, Cargill, Capital One, Caterpillar, Charles Schwab, Colgate, Dell, Deloitte, The Gap, HP, MetLife, Pfizer, Plantronics, Qualcomm, State Farm, The Southern Company, Texas Instruments, UPS, Wellpoint and Weyerhaeuser.