Biography
Maria Scarangella is a dynamic senior leader with decades of experience in business operations and human resources. As the President of Scarangella Consulting LLC., she is a thought leader focused on talent strategy, leadership development, data-driven decision making, and coaching. She retired from GEICO, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc, after 37 years. Her expertise includes executive management, strategic planning, creative problem solving, P&L management, workforce planning, organizational design, talent management, coaching, performance improvement, learning & development, change management, HR services, sales, and customer retention operations. Maria led large-scale teams in operations and corporate departments and multimillion-dollar initiatives that increased revenue, reduced costs, and improved customer and employee experiences. After multiple promotions throughout her career, she retired as the Vice President of Talent and Enterprise Learning.
As the VP of Talent and Enterprise Learning Maria found creative solutions to ambiguous problems. She created the Talent Acquisition and Onboarding Center of Enablement. She designed the infrastructure, frameworks, and policies for employment branding, advertising, recruiting, selection, onboarding, and training for all seventeen company locations. The business impacts included a 50% decrease in 90-day new hire turnover, a 58% improvement in new hire promotion rates, and an 18% reduction in the cost per hire.
Maria drove the transformation of learning to create an entertaining, engaging way to learn insurance for 40,000 associates. Capitalizing on the intersection of learning and technology, her team converted instructor-led training to a brand-aligned personalized learner-driven experience. The programs incorporated virtual reality practice, artificial intelligence speech coaching, and smart simulations to apply learning and verify skill development in a psychologically safe environment for leadership and technical skill development. The Center of Excellence decreased the annual cost per learner by $54 million (35%), reduced the cost of content creation by 30%, and increased the delivery speed by 40%.
In her role as the Underwriting AVP, Maria oversaw insurance operations for seven states. She managed $2.5 billion in written premiums, 1.4 million customers, and 400,000 new sales per year and delivered 20% customer growth each year for five consecutive years. Her team of 700 was responsible for underwriting, product, pricing, sales, compliance, and customer retention operations. Additionally, she achieved the company's best results in talent development, employee engagement, retention, and performance improvement.
Maria has been married to her husband Michael for 35 years. While pursuing her challenging career she raised three successful daughters. Maria holds an MBA from Adelphi University and BS in Business Management from St. John’s University. She earned multiple awards for innovation, quality, process improvements, and sales. She is a member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), International Coaching Federation (ICF), Co-Active Training Institute (CTI), Advancing Women Executives (AWE), Executive Networks (EN), the Association for Talent Development (ATD), and WSJ Women.