About the Company
Our client is a high-growth fintech company operating in the payments and embedded finance space, backed by institutional capital and scaling rapidly across product, go-to-market, and operations. The company has grown headcount significantly over the past 24 months and is entering its next stage of maturity, building durable people infrastructure to match its commercial momentum.
The Opportunity
The Chief Human Resources Officer will build and lead the people function from the ground up, reporting directly to the CEO and partnering closely with the executive team and board. This is a builder’s mandate: the company has strong momentum but underdeveloped HR infrastructure, and the CHRO will own the full arc, including talent strategy, organizational design, compensation philosophy, and culture, as the company scales toward its next growth milestone.
Key Responsibilities
- Talent Strategy: Build the company’s talent acquisition engine to support aggressive but disciplined headcount growth across product, engineering, and commercial teams.
- Organizational Design: Design scalable org structures, career frameworks, and reporting lines as the company moves from founder-led to professionally managed.
- Compensation & Equity: Establish a defensible compensation philosophy, including equity strategy, banding, and market benchmarking appropriate for a venture-backed fintech.
- Culture & Retention: Protect and evolve company culture through a period of rapid headcount growth, with a clear eye toward retention of top performers.
- Compliance & Risk: Partner with Legal and Compliance to ensure HR practices meet the heightened regulatory expectations of a financial services-adjacent business.
- Executive Coaching: Serve as a trusted advisor to the CEO and executive team on organizational health, leadership gaps, and succession planning.
- HR Systems: Select and implement HRIS and people-analytics infrastructure to give leadership real-time visibility into workforce health.
- Board Reporting: Prepare and deliver people-related metrics and strategy updates to the board.
Job Requirements
- 12+ years of progressive HR leadership experience, including prior CHRO, VP People, or equivalent role at a fintech, financial services, or high-growth SaaS company
- Demonstrated success scaling a people function through 2 to 3x headcount growth
- Experience designing compensation and equity programs in a venture-backed environment
- Familiarity with regulatory and compliance considerations specific to financial services or fintech
- Strong track record partnering directly with a CEO and board
- Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree in HR, Business, or related field preferred
Key Attributes
- Builder: Comfortable creating infrastructure where little exists today
- Business-Minded: Thinks like an operator first, HR practitioner second
- Trusted Advisor: Earns credibility with founders and executives quickly
- Data-Driven: Uses metrics to guide talent and organizational decisions, not instinct alone