People Director - Growing Brand Ideal location London, Surrey, East Sussex Competitive Package - c£120k

An exceptional opportunity has arisen for a strategic and people centric People Director to join a high growth, private equity backed organisation operating within a purpose led, service driven sector.

This is a newly created, board level role, reporting directly to the CEO, with full accountability for shaping and delivering the people strategy during a critical phase of growth.

The Opportunity

It is a transformational position, responsible for building a high performing, values led culture across a large, distributed workforce, while supporting the organisation through a clearly defined growth and investment journey.

• Driving employee engagement, recruitment and retention
• Scaling the organisation while maintaining a strong, people first culture
• Building leadership capability and succession pipelines
• Aligning the people agenda to a private equity backed value creation plan

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and deliver a People Strategy aligned to the business and investment objectives
• Act as a trusted partner to the CEO and leadership team, contributing at board level
• Lead initiatives to improve retention, engagement, and overall employee experience
• Build scalable recruitment and workforce planning strategies
• Embed a strong learning, development, and leadership culture
• Implement robust people analytics and reporting frameworks
• Drive a values led, high performance culture across all areas of the business
• Ensure effective governance across employee relations, compliance, and risk

The Candidate

We are seeking an individual who combines strategic thinking with operational credibility and thrives in fast paced, evolving environments. Ideal backgrounds are hospitality, leisure, wellness.

You will bring

• Proven experience in a senior people leadership role, ideally within a scaling or multi site organisation
• A strong track record of improving retention, engagement, and culture
• Experience operating in a private equity backed or high growth environment (highly desirable)
• The ability to influence at board and executive level, while remaining close to frontline teams
• A commercial mindset, with the ability to link people strategy to business performance
• A collaborative, engaging style with a genuine passion for people

Why Apply

• An exciting and rare opportunity to shape the people agenda within a high growth, purpose led organisation
• Direct partnership with an ambitious and experienced CEO
• A key role in delivering long term value creation
• The chance to develop and embed a culture that truly differentiates the business

We are keen to speak to people with

• Proven experience operating at People Director / Head of People level within a large, complex, multi site business (1,000+ employees)
• A track record of building or transforming a People function in a high growth environment
• Strong experience driving culture, engagement and retention across frontline workforces
• Experience working in, or closely with, private equity backed or fast growth businesses (highly desirable)
• Strong executive presence, with the ability to influence at board and investor level