Even after two decades in New York, it’s still a city that never gets old for me. One hot summer afternoon, I headed to Lincoln Center for an assignment to the corner of Broadway and West 63rd Street — also known as “Sesame Street” — for an interview with Diana Lee, the head of HR at Sesame Workshop, and the winner of Employee Benefit News‘ Benefits Professional of the Year Award. Not only does she have the fun job of working with the creative forces behind the beloved characters of Sesame Street, Lee — like all of this year’s Benny Award winners — is also a deep thinker on organizational change and the future of benefits.
Among artwork that evokes characters such as Bert and Ernie and the vampirelike Count von Count, she chatted with me about her career path and philosophy for managing change and better benefits for our story looking inside Sesame Workshop’s benefits evolution. “Our philosophy is that we consider benefits as part of your total compensation here. We are a nonprofit, and we are a mission-first organization,” she says, sitting next to an office lampshade covered with Big Bird’s yellow feathers. “People come to work for us because they’re drawn to our mission” of making children smarter, stronger and kinder.
