Strategic Mandate
The Global People Director will be a key architect of Cambridge Consultants' transformation to inspire and lead a new era of deep tech innovation. They will be the strategic bridge between Capgemini (our parent company) and CC. They will steer the cultural, talent, and organisational transformations to enable the company to:
- Build an entrepreneurial, innovation‑driven culture where teams embrace calculated risk, experimentation, and rapid learning.
- Shape an AI‑native organisation, equipping all employees with the mindset and fluency to leverage the latest AI tools.
- Create a diverse leadership pipeline and talent engine that strengthens innovation, client partnership, and global reach.
- Operationalise the cultural and behavioural expectations of our strategy through hiring, development, reward, leadership capabilities, and organisational design.
About the Role
You will act as a strategic partner to the executive team and senior leadership, linking the people agenda to our strategy. Driving transformational change in our People & Culture, to build a diverse talent engine tuned to innovation & partnership.
At the core of this role is shaping an entrepreneurial culture where people run toward bold innovation challenges - and build a diverse, high-performing talent engine that enables it. You'll lead the Global People function, set direction for HR Business Partnering, Talent, L&D, EDI, and People Operations, and ensure integrated delivery across the employee lifecycle. You'll be a critical partner to the executive, offering courageous challenge and clear thinking to align decisions with company goals.
Work pattern: Hybrid – role holder expected in office frequently & some international travel
Reports to: CHRO, Capgemini Invent with dotted line to Cambridge Consultants CEO
Direct Reports: 4 – HR Business Partnering, HR Ops, L&D, Recruitment
Key Responsibilities
- Strategic Partnership & Organisational Leadership
- Lead the Global People Team, managing the Heads of Functions to deliver the Global People Strategy
- Partner with the executive team and senior leaders to translate business strategy into clear, outcome-based people plans that accelerate growth and innovation.
- Shape the Executive Leadership Team as a cohesive team - improving decision quality, collaboration, and strategic alignment.
- Lead org design and workforce planning (structure, capability, location strategy) for present and future needs in a global matrixed environment.
- Culture, Engagement & Internal Communications
- Champion a more entrepreneurial, experimentation-driven culture; reinforce psychological safety, ownership, and speed of learning.
- Build and sustain high employee engagement; craft compelling narratives and communications that bring strategy to life.
- Embed established feedback loops (listening strategy, pulse surveys) and turn insights into visible action.
- Champion organisational simplification to improve pace, autonomy, and agility.
- Talent Strategy & Leadership Development
- Lead the development of a future skills blueprint, incl. deep tech, commercial partnering, and AI-native capabilities.
- Build a diverse talent engine across succession and mobility; ensure equitable access to opportunities globally.
- Lead performance and career development frameworks that enable growth, accountability, and retention.
- Oversee design of leadership development pathways and manager capability uplift to scale consistent, inclusive leadership behaviours across regions.
- EDI / Inclusive Futures
- Own the EDI strategy (policy, governance, targets and reporting) aligned to local regulations and global best practice, to increase representation of diverse talent at senior and technical leadership levels with measurable targets.
- Embed inclusive hiring and progression
- Change & Transformation
- Lead end-to-end change and transformation programs (org design, process reengineering) to become an AI-native, innovation-centric, client partnership organisation, whilst ensuring business continuity and employee experience.
- Establish change methodologies, leader readiness, and change success metrics; coach leaders to role model change.
- Continuous improvement of the Global People Team and strategy – building capabilities and optimising process
- Employer Brand & Marketing Partnership
- Strengthen our Employer Value Proposition (EVP) to position CC as the global destination for exceptional deep tech and innovation talent and ensure its authentically reflected in the employee experience.
- Partner with Marketing to elevate employer branding
- People Analytics & Decision Support
- Leverage HR analytics to diagnose business health (engagement, attrition, performance, diversity), forecast workforce needs, and inform decisions.
- Build a data-driven culture within HR; improving people systems and data capture
- HR Solutions Delivery & Governance
- Ensure integrated delivery across Talent Acquisition, HR Business Partnering, People Operations, L&D, Reward, and EDI.
- Maintain high standards of compliance (employment law, data privacy), operational excellence, and scalable HR processes suitable for global growth.
Requirements & Qualifications
Experience
- Substantial HR leadership experience with a proven track record operating at Director level (or equivalent) in a global, matrixed organisation.
- Demonstrated success in strategic people leadership, culture building, and enterprise-level transformation.
- Experience leading cultural transformation in a technology, innovation, or consulting environment.
- Prior success in building AInative or data-driven organisations is strongly preferred.
- Proven delivery across talent management, performance, engagement, org design, and EDI.
Skills & Capabilities
- Strategic operator who links people plans to business outcomes
- Change leadership: design and deliver change; coach leaders through ambiguity
- Understand innovation culture, and high-performance technical teams
- Influence & challenge: a critical partner driving alignment of senior leaders; courageous, commercially grounded, and solutions oriented.
- EVP: partner with Marketing to position Cambridge Consultants as a destination for diverse, innovative talent
- Inspirational people leader who unites and elevates a people function
- Deep commitment to inclusion, equity, and belonging; credible on modern EDI practices and reporting.
