Meet Joanne Palmer: Organizational Change Management Lead
About Joanne: Joanne Palmer brings a dynamic blend of marketing, communications, and organizational leadership experience to her role as NGN’s Organizational Change Management (OCM) Lead. Her career spans private equity–backed companies such as Ivy Rehab and J.Crew, as well as nonprofit organizations such as the Brain Trauma Foundation. Serving as chief of staff in various organizations sharpened her ability to build strong cultures and guide teams through change with clarity and purpose.
Joanne earned her BA in Classical Civilizations from Wesleyan University and her MS in Organizational Leadership from Colorado State University. She also holds a Certificate in Corporate Communication from Cornell University and is currently pursuing certification from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Leadership in the AI Age.
Her education and experience converge into a people-first approach to change management—combining storytelling, branding, relationship-building, and business strategy to help organizations successfully navigate transformation.
Joanne’s NGN Journey: Joanne has been part of the NGN Program for nearly four years. As OCM Lead, she guides her team in ensuring stakeholders and building occupants are informed, prepared, and supported throughout their building’s migration to NGN, all while ensuring a systems-thinking approach and focus on continuous improvement for the broader program.
Her team also serves as the voice of building champions during migration planning to help ensure smooth execution with minimal disruption. In 2022, the OCM team refined its approach to include champion orientations and more targeted, streamlined communications—enhancements that helped ensure no stakeholder was overlooked and enabled the NGN team to significantly increase the number of buildings migrated year over year.
One achievement she is particularly proud of is the creation of the NGN stakeholder charter—a first-of-its-kind document at Yale that identifies building champions and departments for each migrated building. Designed as a living resource, it will support future enterprise-wide initiatives for years to come.
From awareness posters and self-serve quick-start cards to maintaining a robust NGN website with timely updates, Joanne and her team are committed to continuous improvement and delivering a 5/5 experience with every migration. In Joanne’s words, “We never stop improving, and are always adding to our offerings and increasing our breadth of knowledge. Visit our website at nextgen.yale.edu and check out our amazing poster at this year’s OneIT Conference to see our team’s work in action!”
Exciting Challenges and Innovations: Joanne finds it deeply meaningful that NGN supports the research and scholarship of some of the most brilliant minds in the world. She and her team embrace complex challenges, examining them from multiple perspectives to develop creative, community-centered solutions.
From a technology standpoint, centralized real-time visibility into system issues stands out as a major innovation—allowing for faster resolution and improved reliability across campus. The ability to rapidly deploy enhanced security protections in response to evolving AI-driven threats is another critical advancement.
And of course, the improved Wi-Fi experience is a game changer. As a parent of college-bound children, Joanne knows that the level of reliability Yale now offers through NGN is far from typical in higher education.
Words of Wisdom: “People are willing to help—you just have to ask.”
Joanne credits Yale’s culture of knowledge sharing as one of the program’s greatest strengths. The expertise you need is often there; sometimes you just have to knock on a few doors to find it.
Equally important is offering help wherever you can in support of Yale’s mission. You never know where collaboration and generosity might lead.
Beyond the Office: Outside of work, Joanne’s world revolves around her four children and the pool deck. A former competitive USA and Division III swimmer, she feels right at home with the scent of chlorine and the echo of cheers in a natatorium. Her children are swimmers as well, and she is especially excited to cheer on athletes she knows personally at the 2028 Summer Olympics.
She also makes it a habit to read every night and is currently immersed in a biography of Leonardo da Vinci. Cooking and baking for her family is another passion—especially her much-requested spaghetti and meatballs and Greek lemon chicken, inspired in part by time spent studying in Rome and learning from Italian grandmothers in the kitchen.
Joanne also serves on the board of The Patient Is U, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting compassionate healthcare for all.
Favorite Spot on Campus: Joanne’s favorite place first and foremost is anywhere Handsome Dan is! A close second is the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. As a classics major and former intern at the New York Historical Society, she developed a deep appreciation for rare manuscripts and the care taken to preserve them.
Standing in the presence of originals like Audubon’s Birds of America or early American correspondence is, she says, a humbling reminder of history’s enduring legacy.
Fun Fact: Joanne once appeared on the Today Show during what her friends teasingly call her “modeling era,” where she met Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford. She also shared the Green Room with John O’Hurley and Marilu Henner.
Earlier in her career, while working in public relations for a restaurant group, she met RuPaul and John Mellencamp—proving that life can take some unexpected (and memorable) turns.
Life has taken her in many directions—but today, she’s focused on helping Yale navigate change with clarity, confidence, and community at the center.
Learn more about Joanne on LinkedIn