Adele Cook

Adele Cook is Chief Learning Officer at Arizona Department of Economic Security and Office of Professional Development Adele s a learning leader with 24+ years’ experience in employee and organizational development in both the public and private sector. She specializes in building successful teams that drive success not only within the learning and development function but across the organization. Most recently, she joined a team of professionals who had been traumatized by prior events within the organization, and which as a result was under-performing: she rebuilt the team, added staff, reduced vacancy from 50% to 4%, reduced regrettable attrition to 7% improved quality and timeliness by 10% and 75% respectively, reduced costs, and as a result improved employee engagement by 300%, She has expertise in aligning learning and development interventions and services with the needs of the organization. She has led several changes with far-reaching organizational impact, the move from a decentralized to an enterprise learning function; the establishment of a multi-faceted leadership development program; adoption of best-in-industry standards and practices for learning design, delivery, and evaluation; and use of rigorous certification programs to ensure product and service quality. She led the adoption of the state's Lean management system within her part of the organization. Adele holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Pomona College in Claremont, California, and has attended both Harvard and Oxford. She is a member of the Association for Talent Development.