Cencora Lands Verizon's CHRO as the Top HR Seat Heats Up

Why are Fortune 50 companies now recruiting senior HR leaders from each other's executive suites? Because they're racing to redesign work for the AI era.

Cencora just made that move, pulling Samantha Hammock from Verizon to lead its 51,000-person workforce transformation.

She succeeds Silvana Battaglia, who steps down after seven years, remaining as special advisor through year-end. The move lifts a marquee people leader from a major telecom into a top-15 Fortune 500 distributor with more than 51,000 team members and roughly US$300bn in annual revenue.

"We are excited to welcome Sam to Cencora," Robert (Bob) Mauch, CEO, says in the company's announcement, pointing to her experience "leading human resources strategy at scale with technology-forward thinking".

What pulls a sitting CHRO across sectors

The more interesting question is what tempts a CHRO to leave the top of one Fortune 50 company for another.

Samantha is not climbing a rung, she is changing the ladder, swapping telecom for pharma distribution at a moment when both wrestle with the same puzzle: how to redesign work as AI reshapes it.

"I look forward to working with Bob and the leadership team to advance Cencora's workforce transformation, strengthen its culture and empower team members," says Samantha.

Before Verizon she ran global talent and learning at American Express, the kind of cross-industry experience that travels clean. Bob's nod to "technology-forward thinking" is the tell. Cencora is hiring less for sector fluency than for a CHRO who can rewire a 51,000-person workforce while the tools beneath it change.

A US$300bn distributor swaps one veteran for another

Silvana does not leave quietly so much as hand over a fully furnished house. Across seven years she steered the company now known as Cencora, formerly AmerisourceBergen, through acquisitions, a rebrand and a near-doubling of scale.

'I will leave knowing that our team members have the tools and resources they need to support Cencora's success in the years ahead,' Silvana says in a statement. 

The regulatory filing notes her exit owes nothing to disagreement over operations, policies or practices. 

The same week ING runs the same play

If one cross-sector CHRO move looks like a one-off, two in a week looks like a market. Hours before Cencora's announcement, ING confirmed Hilde Gaarsen, Chief People Officer at Dutch telecom KPN, will join as Chief Human Resources Officer on 1 September.

The symmetry is hard to miss: two telecoms people chiefs, both poached into regulated giants

When boards bet on AI-era workforce redesign, the people leader is the name they shop first.

A decade ago the head of HR was the executive least likely to be headhunted. Cencora has made the most visible move in what's becoming a heated market for CHRO talent.