While passionate about the public health sector, Jodi Morrison Deputy began to consider a career switch after graduating from college and working in the field for three years. She forged a new career path in human resources, a move she made because she saw how HR fit her personality. Deputy says this transition was enabled by the MBA program at the BYU Marriott School of Business, which she graduated from in 2002.
Deputy studied public health at Utah State University (USU). After graduating in 1997, she worked for IHI Environmental in Salt Lake City as a consultant. “I’m an outgoing person,” she says. “The research-based job I was doing at IHI didn’t have much interaction with others, so I pondered other options. I remembered that one of my public health professors at USU suggested that I would excel at HR.”
As she began to explore a potential career switch, Deputy realized she could still utilize her love for public health in a human resources job. “I learned that many businesses combine environmental health and safety (EHS), which I studied during my undergrad, with human resources. EHS involves caring about employees and making sure they are safe, which is a natural partnership with HR,” she says.
Deputy decided that pursuing an MBA with a focus on organizational behavior would expand her technical business background and aid her career switch. Initially, she planned to apply to many graduate schools, allowing her several options to choose from. “I ended up only applying to BYU Marriott,” she says. “I followed my heart and ultimately BYU Marriott was meant to be.”
While in her MBA program, Deputy enjoyed its focus on practical education. “My professors taught using real-world settings,” she explains. “That kind of education pushed me beyond my boundaries and also prepared me for big roles early in my career.”
One of Deputy's big roles after she graduated was with GE Healthcare, a medical technology company, where she worked after graduation. While there, she created the training for a new financial tool utilized by the company’s international financial team. Deputy says the skills she learned at BYU Marriott helped her perform well at that task despite her relative newness to the company.
Deputy also gained a valuable network from her time at the BYU Marriott MBA program. “I reach out to my MBA network when I run into a brick wall and don’t know how to solve a certain issue,” she says. Her connection to the MBA program’s network has paid off countless times in her career.
After working at GE for 10 years, Deputy held a variety of other HR positions, culminating with her being the leader of human resources at Purple, a Utah-based mattress company. Most recently, she pivoted careers again to work as a full-time mom. In 2017, Deputy and her husband, Christian, had twin girls, and she now devotes her time to caring for them at the family’s home in Midway, Utah. When she can, she also loves to travel the world with her family.
In her free time, Deputy stays in touch with her HR background by doing freelance consulting. “Although I didn’t intentionally pursue the field, I fell into consulting work,” she explains. “Clients keep asking me for help, and I can solve their problems because of the breadth of my experience.”
Deputy appreciates the opportunity to be surrounded by people, both at home and through consulting, because a passion for connecting with others is what drove her to human resources in the first place. “My HR background provides variety and keeps my life interesting,” she says. “Every day is different and fun.”
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Writer: Mike Miller
