Industry Leader and International Consultant Receives Colorado State University’s Distinguished Alumna Award

Colorado State University will honor an alumna who is a former leader of industry and who now focuses on developing leadership qualities in others.

Colorado State graduate Vicky Farrow will receive the distinguished Alumna Honor Award for the College of Natural Sciences at the Colorado State University Alumni Association Distinguished Alumni Awards Dinner on April 26. The award is presented annually to a former student who, through a distinguished career and service to the university, state, nation or world, has brought honor to Colorado State University.

Farrow is an independent consultant specializing in leadership development. She works with CEOs and senior executives of high-tech companies to build the leadership skills needed to advance business performance. She additionally works with human resource organizations to build results-focused leadership development systems.

Before beginning her own consulting business in 2000, Farrow served as vice president for organization change at Lucent Technologies. She also held the positions of vice president for human resource development and business services, and vice president for business partners at Lucent. Among other leadership positions throughout her distinguished career, Farrow served as human resources vice president for Bell Laboratories and director of executive development for Sun Microsystems.

Farrow is a board member of several industry and non-profit organizations including the Center for Excellence in Non-Profits, the Career Action Center and the Professional Business Women of California. As a woman leader in the information technology sector and an internationally recognized specialist in the human resource field, Farrow is highly sought as a speaker and leadership development expert.

"In all her activities, Vicky Farrow has been an outstanding representative for Colorado State University," said Thomas Sneider, interim dean of the College of Natural Sciences. "The education she received at Colorado State was the foundation for a distinguished career that, in turn, serves as a model for our student to emulate."

Farrow received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Colorado State in 1972 and her master’s in human development from the university in 1975.