CEC Teams With Accenture for First-of-Its-Kind Talent Innovation Lab

Students learn the most by doing—that’s the principle behind many of the Claremont Evaluation Center’s (CEC) collaborations and partnerships with organizations worldwide.

Now, the CEC is proud to announce that it has teamed with Accenture to launch an exciting new hands-on experience for positive organizational psychology and evaluation students: the CEC Accenture Talent Innovation Lab at Claremont Graduate University (CGU).

“Accenture is an incredible partner, and we are excited to team up with them to introduce even more opportunities to our students,” said Stewart I. Donaldson, CEC Executive Director and the Lab’s faculty director. “Real-world experience is important in every discipline, and that is especially true for positive organizational psychology and evaluation. The Talent Innovation Lab will give our students a chance to engage on the front lines of a world-class corporation.”

As one of the world’s leading professional services companies, Accenture helps its clients imagine and reinvent their future. Committed to innovation, the company’s vision is to improve the way the world works and lives—and with more than 435,000 people globally, the possibilities are endless.

Managing the lab alongside Donaldson will be Division of Organizational & Behavioral Sciences (DBOS) doctoral student Christopher Chen, who will be joined by DBOS faculty member Jeffrey Yip, as well as DBOS doctoral students Scott Donaldson and Sharon Hong.

CGU graduate students will also work on Accenture projects in the lab this semester.

“Collaborating with CGU has brought a new level of scientific rigor to Accenture Talent’s work, which will greatly benefit the global Accenture employee experience,” said Molly Maymar, manager at Accenture Talent. “We’re so grateful for what we continue to learn from CGU’s incredible students and are excited about the lab.”

The lab will kick off with projects focused on global recruiting’s transformation and a research-and-evaluation project focused on Performance Achievement, Accenture’s reimagined approach to global performance.

According to Donaldson, the Talent Innovation Lab is a starting point for a long-term partnership leveraging the opportunity to provide students with hands-on experience working with a global corporation defining talent trends of the future.

The first team of students to join these projects includes Jason Beck, Jessica Diaz, Wing-Yan (Vienne) Lau, Adrian Reece, and Brandon Sorenson.

Learn more about the Claremont Evaluation Center and about Accenture.