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Kaitlynn Nesbitt ’09
B.S. Psychology (industrial organization concentration)
Manager, Talent Management and Analytics, Tiffany & Co., New York, New York
Hometown: Wawarsing, New York
Current: Brooklyn, New York

Kaitlynn Nesbitt PhotoThere is perhaps no greater symbol of life’s finer things than Tiffany & Co. But far removed from the chandeliers and gleaming cases, the legendary jewelry company employs specialists who see to it that Tiffany engages talent in the right way. Kaitlynn Nesbitt is one of them. Nesbitt is a manager who uses analytics to help identify and retain the top talent in order to support sales and the Tiffany customer experience.

“We are a 180 year-old American brand with a serious heritage we feel a responsibility to protect,” said Nesbitt, a prodigious Saint Rose scholar who seemed to pack more into a day than most people. “The question our team asks is ‘how do we leverage the best of our past while preparing and enabling Tiffany employees to propel the company to the future?’”

Nesbitt discovered her field, industrial organizational psychology, as a Saint Rose freshman and says she was instantly captivated by the idea that behavior and data could be combined to help organizations make better decisions. She became immersed in the open-ended possibilities of the discipline, presenting posters at the College’s undergraduate research symposium and before the Eastern Psychological Association. Her research into such questions as how gender, ethnicity and body type affect perceptions of leadership netted her the department’s Donna L. Reittinger Research Award for outstanding psychology research.                                                                                                  

“I had the opportunities to learn both from a research and applied perspective that is much more common in large universities,” Nesbitt said of Saint Rose, “except, with a real sense of community and individual support.”

She graduated magna cum laude in three years and went on to simultaneously earn a master of business administration and a master of industrial organizational psychology from Farleigh Dickinson University.

Today, Nesbitt uses her tools to help Tiffany managers develop their talent. While she sits in an office removed from the glittering diamonds, she has the same awe of them as any visitor to the Fifth Avenue flagship store.

“I had the opportunity to visit a manufacturing facility and left even more amazed by the brand after seeing first-hand the level of craftsmanship and quality that goes into every piece of jewelry,” she said.