Michael Alicea Breaks Barriers and Creates Opportunities

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Many Fortune 500 companies have methodical ways of being successful as they carry on day-to-day business. Over his thirty-plus-year career as chief people officer at both NielsenIQ and Nielsen, while also a public board member of Emerald Co. (EEX), Michael Alicea developed three cardinal rules of his own for executives.

1. Don’t work for people you don’t respect.
2. Put yourself around smart people who have hard work to do.
3. Value transformational opportunities where you can make an impact.

Over his tenure at Nielsen, Alicea became a go-to person, and he did it by outworking everyone around him.

“I was willing to sacrifice my time to bring results and make a difference, and that was a good brand to build for myself,” Alicea says. “I tell early career employees to do the same. Volunteer early and often for the hard assignments. Run to the problem.”

In his role, he served as part of a critical due diligence team that analysed and completed acquisitions, which later generated billions of dollars. When his time at Nielsen drew to an end, he had opportunities to join many different Fortune 500 companies.

Head-hunters were calling. What made the recruiters so excited? The dramatic, consistent, and repeated outcomes that happened in difficult environments through his leadership. Alicea has led complex HR operations across 100-plus different countries in over six continents and operated within both public and PE environments.  He enjoyed the challenge of resource constrained environments where creativity can be used to create great outcomes.

“I was willing to sacrifice my time to bring results and make a difference, and that was a good brand to build for myself.”

Michael Alicea

He was steadfast in his desire to find the right match for his vision. In the end, he chose Trellix, where he is now chief human resources officer. Alicea felt that the firm represented his integrity and sense of purpose, something Alicea learned from his Puerto Rican parents. Alicea’s father was an elevator operator who held many other jobs, while his mother worked just as hard as a homemaker in New York.

Alicea was fascinated by numbers and processes. He attended a high school that specialised in aviation career and technical education, and then studied business administration at Baruch College. That’s where an employer gave him an assignment that would change his life.

Alicea was asked to work on a compensation project that combined his ability with numbers and people skills. He was able to deliver the project early. The boss, noticing how quickly Alicea was able to connect with other individuals, convinced him to change his major and graduate with a dual degree in HR and business operations.

All of Alicea’s experience eventually led him to meet Bryan Palma, CEO of Trellix, a global cybersecurity firm with an open and native extended detection and response platform that 40,000 businesses and municipal customers rely on. As the two talked, Alicea realised that Palma and Trellix checked at least two of his boxes. He is someone Alicea respects, and the company is full of smart people doing hard work.

But what about number three: transformational opportunities? As Alicea dug in, he learned about the disparity in cyber talent.

“This is a super insulated industry where a majority of people and especially leaders are middle-aged men from within the cybersecurity industry.” he says.

There are few women, few African Americans, and fewer Hispanics. Additionally, the industry has at least three million unfilled positions. Alicea, who previously built diversity, minority leadership, and early career programs at other organizations, had finally found a worthwhile challenge and a job he could take without betraying his principles.

“This is a super insulated industry where a majority of people and especially leaders are middle-aged men from within the cybersecurity industry.”

Michael Alicea

He jumped right in. “This is important work, and this is a for-profit business,” Alicea says. “I wanted to build an organization that will help us beat out competitors. Let’s bring them onto a playing field that they can’t compete in.”

And that’s exactly what Alicea has done. Trellix’s leadership is more inclusive now and so are thirty-four percent of all new hires. How has Alicea accomplished this? By understanding what was really important in getting the work done and changing job postings so people of color and women don’t self-select out as often. “When you have three million open jobs and you’re only pulling from a select population, you are never going to reach your goals,” he explains. Trellix now focuses on skills-based hiring.

Alicea is thrilled his work is helping Trellix and the cybersecurity community, but he’s most pleased to be helping others change the trajectory of their careers. “These are six-figure jobs that will change many lives for under-represented professionals,” he says.

Giving back is important to Alicea because he remembers a time when help was hard to find. Now, he’s on the board of the Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement, where he focuses on getting people of color into tech roles. He also co-chairs the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education program for the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

As he continues to elevate both his company and his community, Alicea encourages others to find innovative ways to do the same.

“The quietest voice in the room often has something important to offer,” he says. “If you’re Hispanic and you become an executive, you have to give others a voice. You have to lend a hand.”

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