Leading significant organizational change in a global organization requires a steady hand and a clear vision. For over four decades, Hilary Ware has embodied these qualities, serving as the architect of complex organizational transformations.
As a C-suite executive, transformation expert, and trusted advisor to global organizations, Hilary has dedicated her professional life to optimizing corporate structures to enhance their efficiency and humanity. She has successfully navigated the intricate processes of mergers, functional overhauls, and CEO successions.
However, when you sit down with Hilary today, the Founder of both hilaryware.com and the Transition Strategies Group, the conversation quickly shifts from the mechanics of corporate change to the complex, often messy reality of human transition. She has spent her life transforming companies, only to discover that her greatest achievement lies in helping individuals transform themselves.
A Life in Motion
To understand Hilary’s comfort with disruption, you have to look at her beginnings. She was not raised in a static environment. Born in California, she left the United States at the age of three.
“My father was in engineering construction, and we moved a lot,” Hilary recalls. She spent her formative years in England, Ghana, and various brief stints back in the US. She was educated primarily within the English school system, returning to America only at the end of high school. It was an upbringing defined by adaptation. When your geography constantly changes, you learn to anchor yourself not to a place, but to a process.
She attended the University of California at Berkeley, funding her education by working in a dental practice. She majored in Industrial Psychology, drawn to the intersection of human behavior and organizational structure.
“I had enjoyed my studies in Industrial Psychology and had always wanted to go into Human Resources,” she says.
Hilary’s entry into the corporate world was pragmatic. She joined a Project Administration training program at Kaiser Engineers, learning the hard, quantifiable skills of project management, cost, and schedule tracking. These were not the soft skills typically associated with HR at the time; they were the rigid metrics of engineering. This dual fluency, understanding both the psychological needs of a workforce and the cold math of a spreadsheet, would become her defining advantage.
The Corporate Crucible
The pivot toward human resources happened when Hilary joined SOHIO in San Francisco. She started in the HR administrative group, absorbing the principles of process excellence and technological application.
As SOHIO merged into BP, Hilary transitioned across the globe and across divisions: San Francisco, Alaska, Cleveland, Houston, London; Upstream, Downstream, Chemicals, Aviation.
“During my career at BP, I was asked to take a lead in assessing the HR outsourcing market and stimulating its growth,” Hilary notes. This was a monumental task during the complex period of the Amoco, Arco, Burmah Castrol, and BP mergers. It was during this period of industry consolidation that Hilary found her true calling.
“It was during this stage of my career that I discovered my passion to be in the transformation space, and it became my hallmark in the ensuing years of my career.”
Hilary became a specialist in organizational transformation and change management. She left BP to become the CHRO at Hanover Compressor, driving a complete functional and organizational transformation. She then moved to BHP Billiton as VP of Human Resources in the upstream space, executing another large-scale restructuring. She served as CHRO and CAO for Bristow Helicopters globally, leading groundbreaking work in safety, process, and technology change. Finally, she joined Cheniere Energy as CHRO, SVP HR, helping to stand up the organization and leaving a legacy of strong teams that fueled its success.
Through it all, she was the steady hand guiding executive teams and boards through periods of significant business evolution.
The Anatomy of Evolution
When you spend forty years watching companies attempt to change, you notice patterns. Why do some organizations successfully evolve while others struggle to adapt?
For Hilary, the answer is architectural. It requires a clear vision translated into a rigorous roadmap of execution. But a roadmap is useless without the people willing to walk it.
“When disrupting or changing the environment, technical/functional excellence, trust, and credibility are essential,” she explains. “This requires ongoing communication, transparency, and relationship building to achieve.”
This is the strategic genius of her “WHY.” Hilary understands that financial, operational, and human metrics are not separate silos; they are woven together in a single tapestry.
“Meaningful change in the human dimension is when the individuals who are part of the organization feel proud to be part of the organization, are engaged, and are motivated to do the best and find alignment in the purpose and values of the organization.”
The Ultimate Test
No roadmap could have prepared any leader for the spring of 2020. COVID-19 was a transformation forced upon the world, a disruption without a blueprint.
“When we went through COVID as an organization, my leadership was truly tested,” Hilary admits. “It was completely uncharted territory.”
Her response was characteristically methodical and collaborative. She did not retreat into executive isolation. She created a multidisciplinary team to guarantee diversity of thought. She convened panels of experts and relentlessly shared best practices with peers across the community.
“Constant communication with the organization at all levels was required during this difficult time,” Hilary says. For her extraordinary efforts during the pandemic, she was awarded the prestigious Exxon Powerplay award.
The Personal Pivot
When Hilary retired from Cheniere Energy, the corporate world expected her to quietly transition into standard consulting. And she did, forming hilaryware.com in 2022 to provide executive coaching and organization transformation advisory services. She utilizes Marshall Goldsmith’s “feedforward” approach, centering her coaching on changing the perceptions of the coachee in a sustainable way.
But parallel to her corporate triumphs, Hilary had been navigating a series of profound, personal transitions.
“During my career, I had also become fascinated by personal transition,” she shares, the corporate polish giving way to a raw, deeply human vulnerability. “Caring for ill children, caregiving for my parents, caring for my husband during a lung transplant and subsequent ongoing care, losing my husband, breast cancer…”
She had survived a gauntlet of grief, illness, and loss. And through it all, she retained the observant eye of a transformation expert.
“I was interested in why some people were better able to move through significant life events than others.”
Hilary didn’t just wonder; she studied. She obtained several certifications, focusing heavily on methodologies from Harvard, Linda Rossetti, and the Modern Elder Academy. She realized that the same principles of vision, execution, and support that guided a company through a merger could guide a human being through a tragedy or a major life shift.
The Next Chapter
In 2025, Hilary founded the Transition Strategies Group. It was born from a desire to serve: to provide a pragmatic, helpful resource for those facing key life transitions. The team she assembled has personal transition experience, offering support and curated resources across a spectrum of life events.
She is currently finishing a book on navigating life transitions, slated for publication this year. Her “WHO” is clear: she is serving the individual standing at the precipice of change, unsure of how to take the next step.
When asked about work-life balance, Hilary is refreshingly honest.
“I do not have a perfect work-life balance,” she says. But she has an intention. She incorporates family, travel, fitness, music, theater, cooking, gardening, reading, and painting into her life on an ongoing basis. “I have to be very intentional to do this, and I think that is an important part of navigating life change generally.”
As she looks at her own life now, after decades of executive leadership and profound personal loss, she is engaged in a different kind of transformation.
“I think this is a period of my life about intentional simplification,” she reflects. “Letting go of what was ‘supposed to be’ and choosing what is most true now.” It is about making the most of my next chapter.
It is, as she calls it, “editing with wisdom.” It is keeping what matters and releasing what doesn’t. It focuses on family, engagement, community, health, service, and continuous learning.
Hilary Ware spent her life proving that organizations can survive the deepest disruptions if they have the right guidance. Now, she is proving that the human spirit can do exactly the same thing.
Quotes
