How Marcela Used a Career Transition to Build AI & Analytics Skills for Her Next HR Leadership Role

Marcela Cabrera Martínez grew up in Honduras and was originally trained as a dentist. Twenty-two years ago, she relocated to the Netherlands to be with her partner, expecting to continue her medical career. 

When transferring her qualifications proved to be much more difficult than expected, Marcela needed to make a change. By pure chance, she landed her first HR role. Marcela took the job and never looked back.

What started as an unexpected pivot became a two-decade career built entirely by doing. Marcela moved through Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, HR Business Partnering, and senior leadership, most recently serving as Senior Director of People & Culture for a global retail company, where she shaped people strategy, advised executives, led HR and payroll teams, and worked to connect frontline retail employees and head office teams.

The AI and analytics skills Marcela kept putting off

Marcela describes how she approached her career without a formal HR education. “I earned my stripes,” she said. “I climbed the ladder by doing, learning by myself, being curious, and never accepting no for an answer.”

That hands-on approach served her well for most of her career. But Marcela began to realize that experience alone wasn’t enough to keep pace with HR’s rapid evolution.

“There was so much happening around new technological tools,” she says. Her company introduced its own AI agent, but she only scratched the surface of what it could do. At the same time, she realized she needed to strengthen her skills and become more confident using data and analytics tools.

Yet the demands of day-to-day HR operations consumed most of her time. Between leadership responsibilities, organizational challenges, and supporting large employee populations, Marcela kept putting her own development on hold.

“I didn’t want to be left behind,” she said. “Technology is moving fast, and there’s a lot happening with AI. I wanted to shape HR’s evolution, and I couldn’t do that with yesterday’s skills.”

Then her Senior Director role came to a close. Marcela intentionally created a professional transition to prepare for future leadership opportunities. Throughout her career, she’d coached her own team members and senior leaders wherever she worked. Now it was time to focus on her own development.

Why AIHR stood out from established HR associations

Whenever Marcela needed a framework, a template, or a bit of guidance, she found herself back at Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR). Its blogs, templates, and practical resources have made it a familiar name.

Now that she was ready to enroll in an HR e-learning program, she compared AIHR with HRCI and other established certification bodies, ultimately returning to AIHR. AIHR combines in-demand HR certificates, practical frameworks, and ready-to-use resources all in one place.

She enrolled in AIHR’s Full Academy Access and picked the HR certificate programs that aligned with her next leadership step.

Investing in herself with future-ready AI in HR & people analytics skills

Marcela integrated learning into her everyday life alongside mentoring, networking, and other professional development activities. She started with the Artificial Intelligence for HR Certificate Program to learn real, working fluency with AI in HR. From there, she moved on to the People Analytics Certificate Program to build data-driven, analytical skills.

She is now working through the Organizational Development Certificate Program. Even though organizational development wasn’t new to her, she still wanted to revisit it. “It’s always nice to have that refresher, to get a different view from others and see how you can do things differently.”

The certificate program’s format enabled Marcela to move through the material efficiently without carving out hours at a time. “They get to the point, help you with the exercises, and show you how to apply it,” she said.

Beyond the HR certificate programs, she attended a live coaching skills session. It gave her new angles on something she already did throughout her career: coaching team members and senior leaders. “It gives me so many ideas,” she says. “I don’t feel like I’m being lectured. It’s human.”

She also joined AIHR’s community mentorship program as a mentor, supporting three early-career women in HR. She knew what it felt like to start a career with no one to turn to. She didn’t want the next generation to figure it out alone the way she had. “I want to be able to shape the next generation of professionals,” she explained.

Building practical AI and data skills to prepare for her next role

Before the AI for HR Certificate Program, Marcela was already experimenting with tools like Copilot and ChatGPT. In preparing for her next role, she now uses AI as a complementary thinking partner to explore perspectives, test assumptions, and refine her preparation for strategic conversations while preserving the essence of her own thinking. She also leveraged AI to translate her CV into Dutch and to fine-tune the English version, ensuring the essence and structure of her original document remained fully intact.  

“Prior to taking the certificate program, I wondered why people write such complicated prompts,” Marcela said. “Throughout the course, I understood. It was a real eye-opener.” 

She also chose to deepen her people analytics capabilities. “Power BI was new to me, but I quickly saw how it could elevate the strategic insights HR brings to the business.” 

Through the dashboards module, she learned how to use Power BI for HR, turning static, manual reports into interactive insights. For someone who spent her career in the strategic and human dimensions of HR, dashboards expanded her ability to translate HR strategy into data-driven insights.

Earning the HR credentials and skills to back up her expertise

For twenty years, Marcela carried an unofficial label of “the dentist in HR”. She entered a career in HR unconventionally, and her background as a dentist has never stopped being the first thing people bring up.

“Every time I have a conversation, the first thing people ask me is if I’m going to go back to dentistry,” she said.

Today, she’s not only bridged the skills gaps but earned the credentials to validate her expertise. She is ready to head into her next role with AI fluency, analytics capability, and a set of strategic frameworks she can apply from day one. 

The learning also did something she hadn’t planned for. Working through case studies in the certificate programs reconnected her to why she stayed in HR in the first place.

“I’m passionate about helping people. I still think of myself as a doctor, just in a different field. I help companies and their people become healthier.”

What’s next for Marcela

Asked how she feels now, Marcela didn’t hesitate to answer: proud and validated. She is preparing for her next director-level role with credentials and frameworks she’s now acquired.

“When I start my next role, AIHR is one of the things I’ll ask to have for the team,” she says. “It’s not just an HR learning platform. It’s a multiplier.”

She’s already thinking about what that looks like: connecting people, culture, and business goals in a way that’s intentional, but also human. “I want to spend more time shaping the future and creating more clarity. When those elements are strong, everything flows in a natural way.”

You can check out the preview lessons of the AI for HR Certificate Program and the People Analytics Certificate Program for yourself to see what Marcela loves so much about AIHR.

Are you ready to future-proof your own career? Browse our extensive course catalog or explore Full Academy Access, the plan Marcela chose, and make your HR skill set future-proof!

Building your peer network? Connect with Marcela on LinkedIn.

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