Transforming the Human in Human Resources | Helping Leaders Master Compassionate Leadership to Reduce Turnover & Protect Employee Dignity | USA Today Bestselling Author | SPHR & SHRM-SCP | Founder, The Complete Manager Makeover
Who is Lisa I. Perez?
Lisa I. Perez, based in the Miami–Fort Lauderdale area, is a human resources consultant, keynote speaker, and the Founder and President of HBL Resources, Inc., a firm dedicated to transforming how organizations lead, manage, and care for their people. With over three decades of experience in HR consulting, leadership development, and management training, she is widely recognized for her mission to “transform the human in human resources®” by helping businesses lead with both compassion and effectiveness. A USA Today bestselling author and creator of The Complete Manager Makeover®, Lisa equips managers with the practical skills needed to handle real workplace challenges while preserving employee dignity. Guided by a defining belief that every employee deserves to be treated with respect, she works with organizations across industries to reduce turnover, strengthen leadership, and build workplace cultures where people and performance thrive together.
The smell of dry curing wood and the sight of massive glass display windows in a Brooklyn glass shop might seem like an unlikely place to learn about leadership and entrepreneurship. But for Lisa I. Perez, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, the foundation of a thirty-five-year career in human resources was poured right there, in her father’s glass shop. At just eight years old, she climbed onto the cushioned chair behind her father’s massive desk and answered the ringing phone for the family business. That moment did more than just teach her a professional greeting; it planted the seed of ownership and a profound respect for the weight of leadership. Today, as the USA Today Bestselling Author and founder of HBL Resources and The Complete Manager Makeover, Lisa has transformed those early lessons into a mission that has touched thousands of lives.
Brooklyn Roots and the Butterfly Effect
Growing up in Brooklyn, Lisa witnessed the dual nature of entrepreneurship. While her father, Laval Joseph Brown Sr., provided the inspiration for business ownership, she also saw the silent burden he carried to keep the business afloat. This early exposure cultivated a rare level of empathy for the “employer” side of the desk. Meanwhile, her mother, Maria, a dedicated legal secretary, provided the steady influence of stability and professionalism. It was through her mother’s love of butterflies that Lisa adopted her own guiding symbol: a representation of transformation, strength, and the courage to be seen as one truly is.
Her academic journey further reflected her commitment to communication and management. She first earned her degree in Business Management from Southern College and later continued her Sign Language studies at Oklahoma State University, where she pursued certification. Lisa’s path took her from legal secretarial work into the high-energy world of hospitality, where she started at the very beginning as a front desk clerk with Interstate Hotels Corporation. She quickly realized that her true calling lay at the intersection of people and processes, progressing into the HR discipline and reaching the role of Corporate Director of Recruitment and Succession Planning within a decade. She reflects:
“I fell into human resources by chance… It was the perfect blend of people and paperwork,” Lisa reflects.
The Layoff Binder: HR at Its Best
The true test of Lisa’s philosophy arrived in the harrowing wake of September 11, 2001. As the Director of Human Resources at a 1,200-room luxury resort in Miami Beach, she was tasked with the unimaginable: coordinating the layoff of over 200 employees as the travel industry buckled. While most would have focused on the cold mechanics of termination, Lisa chose a path of radical dignity.
She developed the “layoff binder,” a comprehensive support system that treated every departing individual as a human being in transition rather than a liability to be cleared. This system, which provided personalized job leads and counseling resources, was so impactful that the Department of Labor recognized it as a national best practice. But the true measure of what Lisa and her team built came from a man named Jose, a purchasing department employee Lisa had always had a friendly relationship with. After she finished walking him through the binder, explaining the reemployment services and benefits extensions, Jose sat back in his chair. He looked at the binder. Then at Lisa. Then back at the binder. “Miss Lisa,” he said, “are you having this conversation with everyone?”
When she confirmed the entire executive team was conducting these conversations the same way, he leaned in and said two words that would shake her to her core: “Thank you.” Lisa held it together until Jose left with his binder. She had carried the weight of every one of those conversations, but Jose’s words were the moment that broke through her professional composure. After he left with his binder, she turned to her assistant director and said, “I need a break.” Then she cried. “He saw my heart,” Lisa reflects, “and how much it was hurting for them.”
Jose became the standard Lisa would measure everything against. Every manager she would later train, every curriculum she would develop, every client she would advise, it all came back to one question: Would this person’s Jose be treated with the same dignity? “My purpose on Earth is to effect change in how people are treated,” Lisa says. Her professional motto captures it simply: transforming the human in human resources.
The Lessons of Compromise: HR at Its Worst
Not every day in HR tested Lisa’s principles so starkly. The same hotel that produced the Department of Labor’s model for compassionate layoffs would later teach Lisa a different lesson. After new management arrived, an employee came to collect her paycheck. Her Driver’s License had expired, though at the time it was still a valid employment document, perfectly legal and proper under the law. The new leadership refused to release the paycheck.
Lisa challenged the decision. She explained the law, made her case, argued for what was right. The employee was given their check. But for Lisa, the damage was done. She had seen HR at its best during the post-9/11 layoffs. Now she was seeing it at its worst over a routine transaction. Soon after, she made the decision and walked away from that luxury resort, a property considered the crown jewel of the hospitality industry.
“Some principles can’t be compromised,” Lisa shares. “An employee’s dignity is not negotiable.”
A Breaking Point and a New Beginning
She had achieved what many would call the pinnacle of corporate success. Yet, even at the top, the pressure and impossible expectations never stopped knocking. Despite her corporate success, reaching the heights of Vice President of HR for a boutique hotel management company, Lisa encountered a breaking point that many working parents know too well.
When she raised a conflict between a late corporate meeting and the commitment to her daughter’s eighth-grade dance, the response was a sarcastic, “do what you gotta do.” Nothing more needed to be said. The tone alone made her feel that choosing her family would come at a professional cost. That moment of unspoken pressure and lack of compassion became the final push she needed. On August 13, 2011, she relaunched HBL Resources, determined to prove that “business effectiveness and human dignity are not trade-offs.” Becoming a consultant wasn’t just a business decision. It was a values decision.
As a corporate employee, Lisa had been trapped inside organizations that refused to uphold dignity. As a consultant, she could distance herself from companies not aligned with her values, recommend best practices, and choose to work only with employers who actually wanted to do things right.
“If you’re contacting an HR consultancy, you’re interested in doing it right,” Lisa shares. “Not everybody reaches out. The ones who do, I value that.”
Transforming the Human in Human Resources
Lisa’s impact is felt most deeply through her proprietary curriculum, The Complete Manager Makeover, and her latest book of the same name released in June 2021. She identified a gap that most of the industry was ignoring: sixty percent of employees leave their jobs due to poor management, yet most managers are promoted for technical skill without ever being taught how to lead people. The training industry has plenty of advanced leadership programs for executives. But rarely is anyone teaching the fundamentals. Lisa’s approach starts at the foundation, the basic skills of how to have a tough conversation, how to onboard someone, how to manage performance, how to handle a termination with dignity, while including the practical words to say.
“The first step toward great leadership is knowing how to treat, communicate, motivate, and manage people,” Lisa says. “You have to get the foundation right before anything else matters.”
As a DISC Certified Human Behavior Specialist and Certified BridgeBuilder Trainer, she facilitates vital training on generational diversity and the “human element” of management. Her expertise has made her a trusted advisor to global brands and public entities alike, including Virgin Hotels, Miccosukee Resort & Gaming, Brinks International, and the City of Coral Gables. Her peers recognize this unique mastery, as noted by keynote speaker Bob DePasquale: “Lisa is incredibly knowledgeable… She truly does ‘put the HUMAN in human resources’ as the tag line suggests.”
Lisa’s commitment to her community is as robust as her professional portfolio. Since 2014, she has been a mainstay at S.C.O.R.E. and currently serves on the Executive Board of the Miramar/Pembroke Pines Regional Chamber of Commerce. Whether facilitating the HR track for The Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship or teaching fifth graders about the workplace through the KAPOW program, Lisa is dedicated to giving back. Her efforts have earned her two 2020 American Business Awards Silver Stevie Awards for Entrepreneur of the Year and HR Professional of the Year, alongside the prestigious Pinnacle Award.
A Legacy of Dignity
Looking forward, Lisa I. Perez is focused on scaling her message through the annual observance of National Management Training Week every third week of August. She continues to lead a family-centered operation, supported by her husband and children, ensuring the values of the Brooklyn glass shop live on. Her vision includes a world where leadership gaps are closed by training managers before problems happen, creating healthier workplaces for everyone.
When the Department of Labor shared the luxury resort’s layoff binder with other employers across the county, they set off a chain reaction. Companies facing their own post-9/11 layoffs suddenly had a model for how to do it with humanity. That’s the ripple effect Lisa is working toward, not just helping one company get HR right, but shifting how the entire industry thinks about its purpose.
“That’s world change,” Lisa shares, “one conversation at a time.” Her legacy is not about being the loudest voice in HR. It is about proving, one company at a time, that business effectiveness and human dignity are not trade-offs.
“No matter how tough the conversation, every employee should be able to walk out of their manager’s office with their dignity intact.”
Editorial Note
Lisa I. Perez’s journey reminds us that the most powerful tool in any leader’s arsenal is the ability to preserve another person’s dignity. Her story challenges every executive and manager to look at their team not as “resources,” but as humans with lives and intrinsic value. As you reflect on your own leadership path, ask yourself: Are your decisions protecting dignity, even in the hardest moments?
