Requirements
Experience spanning both commercial operations and people — not one or the other, genuinely bothHas worked in a group, holding company, portfolio, or multi-entity environment where they had oversight above individual business unitsHas sat close to a CEO or CFO office, chief of staff function, or group strategy functionHas built or run a cross-functional performance framework — not just departmental KPIsHas experience tracking whether acquired or invested companies delivered post-closeDeeply people-oriented — can walk into any room at any level and make people feel heard, not assessed. Non-negotiable.Very pleasant and outward-facing — goes to people, does not wait for people to come to themCommercially driven — understands how businesses make decisions, not just how people behave. This is not a pure people role.A connector — takes inputs from finance, people, and commercial and synthesises them into one clear picture that is more useful than any of those inputs aloneCan surface difficult truths — will know uncomfortable things about the organisation and must be able to bring them to leadership in a way that lands and can be acted onWHAT THIS PERSON IS NOTPurely HR background — will default to people metrics and miss the commercial dimensionPurely finance background — will default to numbers and cannot do the relationship layerHas only ever worked inside one function or one business unitConflict-averse — there will be moments requiring uncomfortable truths told upwardNeeds a defined process to operate — this function is being built from scratchSTRUCTUREReports directly to group leadershipCompletely independent — not within any existing departmentNo direct reports initiallyPeople Operations is a stakeholder and point of contact on people-related matters
Description
This is a completely independent, executive-adjacent function designed to sit entirely outside of traditionaldepartmental boundaries. It does not sit within HR, nor does it sit within Finance. Reporting directly to groupleadership, you will have the only truly holistic, cross-functional view of how the group is performing acrossall business entities, acquisitions, portfolio investments, and leadership layers.Responsibilities- Build and maintain a holistic performance view across all group entities — business units, acquisitions, and functions- Track whether acquired companies are delivering on the reasons they were acquired — integration, revenue targets, product delivery, embedment into the group- Identify whether business units are integrating into the group or operating as lone wolves- Determine what is not working across the group — whether the issue is people, management, structure, or embedment — and surface it clearly to leadership- Track synergies across group entities — are they collaborating, where are the gaps, where are the redundancies- Hold regular conversations up and down the organisation at all levels to build a picture no single stakeholder can see from where they sit- Feed findings to leadership so interventions can be made — through people, strategy, structure, or resource decisions- Be the early warning system — by the time something becomes a crisis it should already have been flagged