Strategic HR leadership, built on two decades of doing it from the inside.

Candy Olesen founded Hilltop HR Partners after two decades of building HR from the inside: leading through mergers and acquisitions, guiding organizations through culture rebuilds, and navigating some of the most complex employee relations challenges a company can face. That experience shaped a simple belief. HR is at its best when it's strategic first, not just administrative, a partner in the decisions that shape where a company is headed, not just the department that manages the paperwork after the fact.

Along the way, she saw the same pattern repeat across different organizations: good people caught in HR systems that were reactive instead of thoughtful, built to manage problems instead of prevent them. Fixing that, one employer at a time, could only reach so many people. Hilltop exists to do that work on a larger scale, bringing strategic HR leadership to organizations who don't yet have it in-house, and building workplaces where employees are genuinely supported rather than just processed.

For more than twenty years she has advised leaders inside manufacturing, fintech, engineering, insurance, education, legal, and marketing organizations, with HR experience across 35+ states. Along the way she rebuilt people functions twice, co-created a mentorship program, and built an internship program from scratch. She also co-owns a family retail business, open since 2011, where she built the people function from the ground up.

Candy is a PHR-certified HR executive and fractional partner, embedded exactly as much as a business needs, for exactly as long as needed.

PHR®, Professional in Human Resources, HRCI HRCI Pro Certificate — Talent Management HR Ethics Series: Building an Ethical Organization BA, Human Resources Management

Hilltop is not an administrative HR service. No payroll processing, no benefits enrollment. The value is entirely at the strategic level, and that's exactly where we stay.

Strategic HR leadership where purpose and people meet.

To be the trusted HR partner every growing business turns to first.