Officials have hired a long-time consultant to lead GW’s efforts to attract, develop and retain employees.

Marlon Sukal, a principal consultant at The Academics Analytics Group – an educational consulting firm – started as the assistant vice president for talent and organizational development on Jan. 6, according to a University release and Sukal’s LinkedIn profile. Sukal will lead the University’s employee orientation, performance management and employee engagement efforts, the release states.

“My overarching goal is to build a talent and organizational development team that functions in the areas of training and development, organizational development, leader and manager development, employee engagement, succession planning, and rewards and recognition to boost GW employee morale, improve performance and retain our best talent,” Sukal said in the release.

Sukal will report to Dana Bradley, GW’s inaugural chief people officer who arrived in September.

“Marlon will have an instrumental role in organizational development, leadership and learning strategy in support of the OUR GW cultural initiative,” Bradley said in the release. “This is a great opportunity for our University to place our “putting people first” initiative, by developing our talent, at the forefront of what we want to accomplish.”

Officials posted a job opening for an assistant vice president for talent development in August.

University President Thomas LeBlanc named improving GW’s institutional culture one of his top five initiatives as president when he arrived at the University more than two years ago. As part of a broad effort to revamp the University’s culture, officials have held culture trainings for faculty and staff and formed work teams to develop recommendations to improve employee culture.

Sukal received his doctorate in industrial-organizational psychology from Alliant International University in Los Angeles and a master’s degree in business administration from National University in La Jolla, California.