Your Team is Growing
Faster Than You Can Manage It
Scaling a team is nothing like starting one. You need senior people leadership - someone who designs hiring systems, shapes culture, manages retention, and handles the legal side. A Fractional Chief People Officer gives you exactly that, without the full-time salary.
Strategic People Leadership at every stage
A Fractional Chief People Officer, also known as a Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), works at the strategic level rather than day to day HR administration. Your CPO guides the leadership team through hiring decisions, designs talent strategies for growth, shapes the culture you want to scale, and makes sure compliance is solid from the start.
They mentor internal HR managers, providing the seniority and strategic oversight that transforms people operations from transactional to transformational. They might lead a culture programme, oversee a restructure, design retention strategies, or rebuild your hiring process from the ground up. It depends entirely on where the business is today.
Most Irish scaleups discover that hiring fast and managing loose costs more in turnover, disengagement and risk than getting it right the first time. A fractional CPO gives you the senior judgement to get it right, at a fraction of the cost of a permanent hire.
Start the ConversationAccess senior people leadership at a fraction of the cost of a permanent hire, while keeping your internal team supported and your culture intentional.
People Problems. Solved
From the first conversation to a people leader inside the business, typically inside a single week.
A focused conversation. You tell us where you are, where you want to be, and the capability gap that is holding the business back.
We hand-pick two or three vetted Chief People Officer Directors from our network with direct experience in your sector and growth stage.
Your people leader embeds with the team on a flexible schedule, typically one to three days a week, delivering tangible outcomes from week one.
People leadership across every stage
A scalable people plan aligned with the commercial roadmap. Workforce planning, succession, and the senior hires that unlock the next phase of growth.
Employer branding, recruitment process, structured interviewing and onboarding that gets the right people in the door and productive faster.
Engagement diagnostics, listening programmes, manager coaching and the day to day rituals that keep your best people building with you.
Clear goals, role expectations and review cycles. Performance and development conversations that lift the bar without slowing the business down.
Defining the culture you want to scale, embedding values into hiring and reviews, and tackling friction, burnout or cultural misalignment head on.
Irish employment legislation, GDPR, contracts, handbooks and disciplinary procedures. Protect the business and treat people fairly at every step.
A day to day view of Fractional Chief People Officer work
The role flexes to the business, but most engagements cover four broad areas of work. Some weeks lean into hiring and onboarding, others into performance, compensation or a culture programme. The constant is a senior people leader inside the business, available on the days you need them.
- People strategy aligned with the commercial plan
- Organisational design and workforce planning
- Leadership team coaching and succession planning
- People due diligence ahead of investment, sale or restructure
- Employer brand, careers messaging and recruitment funnel
- Job architecture, role scorecards and structured interviewing
- Onboarding programmes and 30, 60, 90 day plans
- Senior hire search briefs and offer strategy
- Goal setting, review cycles and performance frameworks
- Compensation benchmarking, pay bands and total reward
- Bonus, commission and share option design
- Manager enablement and feedback culture
- Culture and engagement diagnostics with practical actions
- Employment contracts, handbooks and policy frameworks
- Irish employment law, WRC readiness and GDPR for people data
- HR technology selection and HRIS rollout
When you need a Chief People Officer
People issues rarely arrive as a single moment. They build up gradually, until the cost of not having senior people leadership becomes obvious. If two or three of these feel familiar, it is the right time to have a conversation.
Open roles stay open too long, offers fall through and the leadership team is spending its time on recruitment instead of running the business.
Regretted attrition is creeping up, exit conversations point at the same themes, and you want a clear retention plan before the next departure lands.
Contracts, policies and processes were pieced together as the team grew. You want a proper foundation in place before something slips through the cracks.
Friction between teams, manager confidence wobbling, engagement scores drifting. You want senior judgement to name the issue and design the fix.
Reviews happen in pockets, expectations vary by manager, and accountability is uneven. You want a clear framework everyone can rely on.
Investment, acquisition, restructure or rapid scale. You want the organisation, leadership and people story ready before the change begins.
If this sounds familiar, you need a CPO
You are 30 to 150 people, growing quickly, and there is no senior people leader in place. A Fractional Chief People Officer builds the structure that lets the next phase happen safely.
You have a capable HR manager or generalist who needs senior strategic cover, mentoring and sign off on the bigger calls. A fractional CPO partners alongside them.
Organisational design, leadership bench, share option schemes and people due diligence. A fractional CPO gets the people side of the deal investor ready.
If the founder or CEO is still writing contracts, handling grievances and running interviews, a fractional CPO takes that load and turns it into a proper function.
Burnout, friction, low engagement or values drift. A fractional CPO diagnoses the cause, coaches the leadership team and rebuilds the culture intentionally.
Diversity, equity, inclusion and wellbeing programmes designed to fit your business, not lifted from a template. Practical, measurable and embedded.
Experience across Irish industry
Our network of Fractional Chief People Officer leaders has built and scaled people functions in many of the sectors that define the Irish economy. Each brings practical understanding of the talent markets, regulatory context and growth patterns of the industries they work in.
Engineering hiring, equity and share option schemes, remote and hybrid operating models, and the talent strategy to scale through seed, Series A and beyond.
Skilled trades hiring, shift planning, union and works council engagement, and capability programmes for Irish manufacturers scaling at home and in export markets.
High volume hiring, frontline manager development, scheduling and seasonal workforce planning for retail, hospitality and consumer brands across Ireland.
Career paths, partner promotion, utilisation and reward design for consultancies, agencies, legal and advisory firms.
Regulated environment hiring, clinical and scientific talent, GMP culture and people planning for life sciences, medtech and healthcare businesses.
Operations workforce, family business succession, ESG reporting on people and sustainability led culture for food, agri and climate focused businesses.
Flexible engagements shaped around the business
Most engagements run one to three days a week. The shape flexes with the business, lifting during a hiring push or restructure, easing back once the foundations are in place.
Day rate, scoped around the days per month the business actually needs. You access the same calibre of executive as a permanent hire, at a fraction of the cost, with no recruitment fees or equity dilution.
Your CPO joins the leadership team, partners with internal HR and managers, and builds capability inside the business. The goal is a stronger people function, not a long term dependency.
Questions founders ask before they start
What is a Fractional Chief People Officer or Chief Human Resources Officer?+
A Fractional Chief People Officer, also known as a Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), is a senior HR leader who works with your business on a flexible basis, typically one to three days a week. They develop and implement your people strategy, from hiring and retention to performance, culture, compensation and employment law compliance. The role sits at the leadership table rather than running day to day HR administration.
How does this differ from a traditional HR manager or consultant?+
A fractional CPO works at the strategic level, guiding the leadership team and shaping the people agenda. Our CPOs are embedded as part of your management team, not external consultants delivering a report and leaving. An HR manager handles operations brilliantly. A fractional CPO sits above that, designing strategy, mentoring the team and bringing executive level judgement to the bigger calls.
What if we already have a small HR team?+
A Fractional Chief People Officer can mentor your internal HR manager, provide strategic oversight, or lead specific transformation projects such as a restructure, a senior hiring push or a culture programme. The goal is to strengthen the team you already have, build capability internally and give them the senior cover they need.
Is this suitable for companies preparing for sale or funding?+
Yes. We support businesses in strengthening operations, improving people reporting and creating investor ready organisational models. That includes leadership bench review, share option scheme design, organisational structure, succession planning and the people due diligence pack that investors and acquirers want to see.
What employment law support does a Fractional Chief People Officer provide?+
A fractional CPO helps ensure compliance with Irish employment legislation, including the Employment Equality Acts, the Organisation of Working Time Act and GDPR requirements for employee data. They draft compliant contracts, build employee handbooks, advise on disciplinary and grievance procedures and guide redundancy processes. The result is fair, lawful employment practice and protection from costly Workplace Relations Commission claims.
How quickly can a Chief People Officer be in place?+
Tell us where the people challenges are and we will be back in touch within 48 hours to set up a discovery call. From there, most clients are introduced to two or three matched fractional CPOs within a week. Once you choose the right person, the engagement typically begins within days, with the first month focused on a people health check and a 90 day plan.
Ready to Find Your CPO?
Tell us where your people challenges are. We will be back in touch within 48 hours to set up a discovery call.