Morneau Shepell’s Rita Fridella to retire, Neil King to take role

Morneau Shepell Ltd. is appointing Neil King as executive vice-president and president of LifeWorks, effective Jan. 1, 2020, as Rita Fridella retires at the end of 2019.

In the role, King will also take direct responsibility for all of sales and marketing activities for LifeWorks, a group that currently reports to Jamie True. True will focus on his role as chief digital officer and executive vice-president, according to a note from Stephen Liptrap, the company’s president and chief executive officer.

With more than 10 years at Morneau Shepell, King was most recently U.S. chief commercial officer. Previous roles include senior vice-president of business development at LifeWorks and senior vice-president of sales for U.S. administrative solutions. Before he joined the consultancy, he worked at ADP and Wolters Kluwer Health.

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Fridella joined Morneau Shepell in 1980 as its first employee assistance program counsellor, a position she held for seven years. After 20 years as president and executive coach at 20/20 Corporate Coaching, she returned to the company in 2001 as vice-president of operations and chief clinician for its employee support solutions business. Since then, she’s held successive leadership roles within the business.

“Some of her greatest accomplishments here at Morneau Shepell included the work she did leading us to move our EFAP practice from traditional counselling to include more and different ways to help people,” said Liptrap. “Her unwavering vision and tireless efforts for employee health and well-being have helped us become the global leader in employee well-being.”

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