London

Hybrid

Competitive Salary

Our client is an ambitious, entrepreneurial recruitment business with offices in London and Miami, entering a defining stage of growth. The firm has achieved market-leading retention and eNPS without a dedicated senior People leader, a clear testament to the strength of its culture. To sustain that culture through its next phase of scale, the firm is now appointing its first People Director.

Working closely with the CEO, Chairman and senior leadership team, you will have full responsibility to set, implement and drive the people strategy across the business. This is a genuine build role: you will review and rebuild the firm's people infrastructure, strengthen its employee value proposition and act as a trusted, commercially minded partner to the business. You will also set the strategic direction for L&D and Talent Acquisition, enabling the existing specialist to focus fully on delivery in those areas.

Key responsibilities

People Strategy and Organisational Development

• Act as a trusted adviser to the CEO and senior leadership team on all aspects of people management and workforce strategy.

• Translate the firm's commercial ambitions into a clear, measurable people roadmap.

• Lead strategic workforce planning.

• Advise on organisational design, leadership structures and succession planning as the business scales.

• Support the people workstream of the firm's next investment milestone, including due diligence and integration planning where required.

Policy, Process and Compliance

• Conduct a full review of existing people policies and procedures, identifying anything outdated, unclear or no longer fit for purpose.

• Rebuild and relaunch a complete, legally compliant suite of policies and an employee handbook, including GDPR.

• Design clear, well-documented processes across the full employee lifecycle, from onboarding and probation through to performance, promotion and exit.

• Ensure full compliance with UK and US employment legislation across the London and Miami offices.

• Provide expert, pragmatic counsel on complex and sensitive employee relations matters.

Culture, Values, Engagement and EVP

• Define and embed the firm's values so that every employee understands them and sees them reflected in how the business operates.

• Develop a compelling, differentiated employee value proposition that strengthens attraction and retention.

• Safeguard and build on the firm's high-retention, high-engagement culture through a period of rapid growth.

• Own eNPS surveys, data and insights, turning feedback into meaningful action.

• Promote wellbeing and an inclusive culture, and shape the firm's DEI approach.

• Partner with Marketing on internal communications for all people initiatives, and identify industry awards the firm should target.

Reward, Performance and Progression

• Develop clear career pathways, a growth framework and promotion criteria so every employee can see how to progress.

• Benchmark salaries, commission and bonus schemes for both fee earners and central functions.

• Play an active role in salary and promotion decisions, ensuring fairness and consistency.

• Establish a performance management framework that drives accountability and high performance.

People Data and Leadership of the Function

• Build meaningful people data and dashboards covering hiring, attrition, engagement and diversity to inform leadership decisions.

• Work with the L&D and TA specialist to enhance onboarding, and improve off-boarding including exit interviews.

• Develop the people team to achieve its full potential and build the function as the business grows.

Person specification

Experience and knowledge required

• An accomplished People or HR leader operating at Director or Head of level, with a track record of building a function rather than simply maintaining one.

• Experience within a high-growth business, ideally having supported scale from 50 to 100 employees towards 500, across multiple locations.

• Recruitment, staffing or professional services experience strongly preferred, bringing an innate understanding of entrepreneurial, sales-led cultures.

• Demonstrable experience of rebuilding policy frameworks and people processes from the ground up.

• Proven delivery of people initiatives across talent attraction, onboarding, development and retention.

• Strong working knowledge of UK employment legislation; exposure to US employment law and visa processes is highly advantageous.

• Excellent stakeholder management, credible at CEO and Board level, and a skilled mediator.

• Data-driven, using people analytics to improve performance and retention.

• Innovative, current and forward-thinking, with exemplary integrity and discretion.

• Career-driven and ambitious, with high expectations of yourself and those around you.

Level of qualifications

• Significant HR leadership experience, including senior generalist leadership.

• Degree qualified in a relevant field, or able to demonstrate equivalent experience.

• CIPD qualified (Level 7 preferred) or equivalent people-focused professional development.