CHRO Role Insights

In the recently concluded Future CHRO program at IIM Mumbai, one case study sparked debate: What should a CHRO do when a high‑performing business head shows serious behavioural issues, but the CEO may hesitate to act for fear of hurting business numbers?  The common view was that the CHRO might face resistance from the CEO or even choose to walk out. My take was different, shaped by a real experience.  Years ago, I was asked to relocate to a geography with 50% of the company’s headcount but ranked third in productivity. The business leader was seen as resistant to L&D. In our first meeting, I set a bold vision: “In a quarter’s time, this geography will be the No.1 performer".  Instead of pushing training, I asked: “What behaviours and knowledge do your people need to get there?” That reframing shifted the conversation from HR to business. I then made one request: that he co‑own the learning agenda. He agreed, even co-facilitated many sessions along with me. The message was clear: leadership and L&D were aligned behind a common vision. Within a quarter, the geography became No.1 in productivity.  Later, when a mid‑level leader behaved inappropriately, I acted decisively: escalated the issue, ensured accountability, and reinforced behavioural expectations. The business leader coached his team member, behaviour changed, and performance stayed intact.  My reflection: These decisions were not just about numbers, they were anchored in the principles of HR, leadership, and culture. By understanding business pain, speaking the language of business, and translating it into HR action points, we establish credibility. When HR is seen as a driver of both value and values, CEOs are far more likely to take fair decisions, knowing that business outcomes and culture will both be safeguarded. #Reflections #HRLeadership #CHROImpact #WorkplaceTransformation

Every CHRO goes through these 3 phases. Most stall at Phase 2. Here's how to break through. 🔹Phase 1: The Administrator  Focus stays on compliance, policies, and keeping HR operations running smoothly. Essential work, but invisible when business decisions are being made. 🔹Phase 2: The Implementer  Leadership trusts you to execute their decisions efficiently. You're in every important meeting, but rarely consulted before those decisions are made. 🔹Phase 3: The Strategist  You shape business strategy and drive culture transformation. Leadership doesn't finalize key decisions without your perspective, and conversations happen in P&L language, not just HR language. Here's what I've observed over three decades: Phase 2 has all the markers of success: title, trust, meetings, and recognition. That's exactly why most CHROs get stuck there. They mistake presence for influence and being informed for being involved. That's the trap. Here's how to break through: 📌 Talk revenue, not engagement.  📌 Solve for growth, not just grievances.  📌 Be in the debate, not the announcement.  📌 Deliver value that makes your tenure irrelevant. The shift from Phase 2 to Phase 3 doesn't happen with time. It happens with intention. Most CHROs aren't stuck because they lack capability. They're stuck because Phase 2 feels like the top. Which phase are you honestly operating in today?

The future of work is no longer an abstract idea or a long-term horizon. It is already reshaping jobs, power structures, and competitive advantage inside organizations today. Every major business issue leaders are grappling with right now—AI adoption, skills shortages, productivity stagnation, disengagement—ultimately comes down to how work is designed and who does it. That makes the future of work not a strategy problem or a technology problem, but a workforce architecture problem. And workforce architecture lives with the CHRO. CEO surveys consistently rank talent, skills, and workforce capability as top risks to growth—often ahead of regulation, capital access, or geopolitics. Yet many organizations still treat HR as a support function rather than a design authority. That mismatch is becoming dangerous. Whether the title changes or not, CHROs are now the Chief Future of Work Officers—and organizations that fail to empower them as such will find themselves reacting while others are redesigning.

Most first-time CROs fail. Not because they’re bad leaders — but because they still think like a VP of Sales. Being a CRO isn't about Disco skills or pipeline reviews. It’s about one thing: creating ENTERPRISE VALUE. I’ve coached 100+ CROs across $1T+ in ARR. Here are 5 brutal lessons I wish I knew before my first CRO gig: 1. You must have P&L fluency You need to read a financial statement, calculate unit economics, and know the difference between ARR, revenue, and bookings. As a VP of Sales, you can slide by without understanding how the pieces fit together. But as a CRO, you must have a deeper understanding of the financial performance of the business. 2. You have to hit the number at the right cost Yes, you have to hit the number. But your economics matter. You can’t just hire more reps. You have to have a perspective on CHANNEL EFFICIENCY. You have to think creatively about the best path to your number - not just the simplest one (which can also be the most expensive). 3. You have to be able to recruit and build a great team When you’re a VP of Sales at a larger org, you have talent acquisition resources. If you don’t hire the right people, you can outsource the blame to HR. But delivering great results starts with hiring the best people. And those people have to want to work FOR YOU. Your personal brand. Your commitment to development. Your willingness to recruit personally. All adds up to the right pool of talent you’ll need to hit your goals. 4. You must work cross functionally There’s nobody to blame when you’re CRO. You can’t blame Marketing. You can’t blame Sales or Product. You signed up to own the overall number and that number is generated across all the departments. You must be aligned with the CMO and the CPO. They have to view you as a trusted peer, not an adversary. 5. The Exec team is your first team Too many VP of Sales think their job is to defend their team. Bring back the best comp plan. Bring back the best spiff. But as a CRO, your job first and foremost is to the company and that means to the ELT and the CEO BEFORE your team. If you’re just advocating for your people, you can’t be trusted. Fundamentally, that means you’re out for yourself. As a CRO, your job is to bring your team along with you even if that means short term pain. If you’re always in a face off with the CFO about comp, you’re on your way out. My biggest mistakes as CRO ultimately came down to EGO. EGO is often the vestige of a precocious young VP of Sales. You’re out for yourself. Your team. Your money. Your resources. But the CRO needs to have a bigger perspective. A long term perspective. You need to understand how the business works. The CRO is the architect of a system and committed to building that system with their peers. If you’re a VP of Sales, it’s time to learn these skills through Pavilion's CRO School. And if you’re a seasoned CRO, you might need a refresh. It starts today, but I can get you in. DM me and I'll set it up.

"We talk a lot about HR having a seat at the table. But very few talk about what that table is actually accountable for." I’ve sat in rooms where revenue, margin pressure, and EBITDA forecasts were dissected line by line. And then someone would say, “We’ll let HR handle the people side.” That sentence always worried me. Because the “people side” is not adjacent to EBITDA. It determines it. - Regretted attrition in revenue roles is not an HR metric; it’s a revenue leak. - Poor incentive design is not a policy issue; it’s margin erosion. - Weak leadership capability is not a culture problem; it’s execution drag. - Misaligned workforce planning is not a staffing issue; it’s capital misallocation. When I led in a $6B business environment, one thing became clear: Talent conversations that don’t connect to operating performance remain philosophical. And philosophy doesn’t move markets. A CHRO at enterprise scale must understand: - Where profit is generated - Where margin is vulnerable - Where productivity can be unlocked - And where capability gaps will show up on the P&L If HR cannot speak in terms of revenue acceleration, margin protection, and enterprise value creation, it will always be seen as support, never as strategy. The future CHRO is not the custodian of policies. The future CHRO is the architect of performance infrastructure. And performance reflects in numbers. The real question for boards is not: “Does HR have a seat at the table?” It is: “Does the person in that seat understand how the business makes money, and how talent decisions accelerate or erode that reality?” #CHRO #EnterpriseLeadership #EBITDA #BusinessStrategy #TalentStrategy

I've sat in rooms where the CFO presented for forty minutes and the CHRO got five. No one planned it that way. The agenda just reflected what the room believed mattered. Finance had numbers. Strategy had slides. They all built from the CEO's narrative. The CHRO had an update on some HR program. It sat next to the business narrative. That pattern tells you everything about how most organizations actually value people strategy. Here's what I've observed across dozens of leadership teams: the CHRO's altitude is set before they walk in the room. It's set by what they're asked to present, which meetings they're invited to, and whether talent shows up in the strategy conversation or after it. Most CHROs inherit a mandate built around programs, compliance, and employee relations. They execute it well. And the system learns to keep them there. The CHROs who become genuinely indispensable do different work, not just better work. They don't wait for the business strategy to land and then build a people plan. They're in the room when the strategy is being shaped, asking which capabilities will make or break execution. They don't manage succession planning as a documentation exercise. They own talent density in pivotal roles like the CFO owns cash position. They don't treat onboarding as HR paperwork. They treat speed-to-productivity as a competitive metric. They don't build programs. They design the human operating system that makes strategy executable. The gap between a CHRO who manages HR and one who architects how work actually gets done is the gap between a cost center and a business lever. Most CEOs say people are their greatest asset. The calendar, the agenda, and the org chart tell a clearer story. If the CHRO isn't one of your most valuable executives, the question is what mandate they were handed and whether it has ever been revisited. #AdjustTheAltitude #TalentSherpaPodcast

For CHRO/Future CHRO Development--The Gartner World-Class CHRO Model Still Holds Up Last week I posted about the expectations of a CEO when hiring a CHRO. (What great responses - thank you!) From conversations with CHROs, I know that living these expectations — and building a team that can deliver against them — is difficult. Earlier in my career, I worked at CEB/Gartner, and I still believe Gartner’s World-Class CHRO model is the best framework for developing CHROs. What makes it powerful is its clarity: it separates what CHROs must do from what they must be grounded in to do it well. Here is a simple summary: 1) Board’s Leader of Human Capital The CHRO is the board’s primary lens into leadership, succession, culture, and talent risk. This includes CEO and executive succession, leadership bench strength, and honest assessments of organizational capability. 2) Creator of Talent Strategy This goes beyond programs. The CHRO translates business strategy into workforce and leadership implications — what capabilities are needed, where to build vs. buy, and how talent decisions support growth, transformation, or cost discipline. 3) Enterprise Change Leader Whether it’s transformation, M&A, restructuring, or operating model shifts, the CHRO plays a central role in orchestrating enterprise change — aligning leaders, structure, incentives, and behaviors to make strategy executable. 4) Driver of Culture and Purpose Culture is treated as a performance system, not a set of values on the wall. The CHRO ensures purpose, values, and ways of working are embedded in how leaders lead and how decisions get made. 5) Trusted Advisor and Coach This is where real differentiation shows up. The CHRO serves as a confidential advisor and coach to the CEO and executive team — helping leaders navigate high-stakes people decisions, tensions, and moments of truth. The Foundations That Make It Possible 1) Business Acumen World-class CHROs deeply understand the business model, financials, customers, and external markets. They frame people and culture topics in the language of enterprise performance, not HR. 2) Business Strategy Development They don’t just “support” strategy — they help shape it. These CHROs influence strategic choices by surfacing talent implications, organizational constraints, and leadership risks early, partnering with executive peers to move the business forward. 3) Functional Business Leader Finally, credibility matters. The CHRO builds a future-focused, financially disciplined HR function that runs well, scales, and frees the CHRO to operate at the enterprise level. This is why the Gartner model endures: It makes clear that world-class CHROs are enterprise leaders first — with HR as their platform, not their identity. (Model linked in comments) Are there alternate models you think should be considered? — I’m Brad Pugh and I help companies hire C-suite executives, develop their leaders, and plan for executive succession.

I once watched a new CHRO spend her first three months redesigning the performance management system. She was thorough. She was rigorous. She consulted widely. By month four, she had the cleanest appraisal framework in the industry. She also had no seat at the leadership table. Not because the work was poor. Because the business did not experience it as help. Meanwhile, the plant head at their largest facility had been unable to fill a critical operations role for seven months. The production line was being covered by a team that was stretched beyond what the numbers showed. The CFO knew the cost. The CEO knew the risk. Nobody in HR had asked. When she eventually found out — in month five — she closed the role in three weeks. That was the moment her credibility as a CHRO began. Not the framework. The closed problem. I have given a version of this same advice to every first-time CHRO I have met since. Do not start with the HR processes. Start with the P&L owners. Here is the 90-day map: Days 1–30: Your only job is to understand what talent gaps are costing the business real money. Not HR's version of the gaps — theirs. Sit with every business head, plant head and CFO. Ask what talent problem is costing them sleep. Write everything down. Do not speak about HR strategy yet. Days 31–60: Pick the one most visible business problem with a talent root cause and close it. A stuck hire. A succession gap about to become a crisis. A compensation benchmark that has been causing every offer to fail. Close it. Let the business head whose problem it was tell the rest of the room. That moment earns more credibility than any onboarding presentation. Days 61–90: Produce the talent intelligence the business does not know it is missing. Real compensation benchmarks. A capability gap map against the next 18 months. Succession readiness at every critical role. A talent risk register. Most CHROs produce this in year two. The ones who produce it in week ten earn a seat at the table they keep for the rest of their tenure. The appraisal system can wait. The business problem cannot.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗛𝗥 𝗗𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗖𝗛𝗥𝗢. Becoming a CHRO means you: 🗣️ 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗛𝗥 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀. Instead of just reporting a "10% drop in attrition," you present the multi-million dollar impact on recruiting costs, lost productivity, and training expenses. You are as comfortable with a balance sheet as you are with a talent matrix. ♟️ 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗛𝗥 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀. Don't just "build a leadership program." Instead, identify the key product launch that's at risk due to a leadership gap, and design a targeted talent solution that directly enables that launch's success. 🤖 𝗣𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀. Partner with the CTO to pilot an AI-augmented team structure. Your job is to build the business case, measure the productivity output, and design the new roles needed for scaling. HR should ensure employees have the tools to be optimally productive. 📈 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗱𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀. The new toolkit requires fluency in corporate governance, finance, and investor relations to be a credible partner to the CEO, CFO, and the rest of the ExCo. 🚀 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲. You’re no longer stewarding internal people programs. Instead, you’re shaping how employees, investors, candidates, and the market perceive the company's culture, leadership, and future. You influence the story told at earnings calls, board meetings, and in the press about how talent forms a competitive advantage. How have the requirements of CHROs changed in the past decade? Share your experience in the comments. 👇 🔖 Save this post for later or share it with a colleague preparing for the CHRO leap! #CHRO #HRLeadership #FutureOfWork #ExecutivePresence #BusinessStrategy

BCG’s recent data confirms what many CHROs are already seeing: international mobility among highly skilled workers is slowing... and unevenly so. The U.S. continues to attract the largest volume of skilled talent. Much of Europe is moving in the opposite direction. The Middle East is gaining share. Asia-Pacific is diverging. But the bigger shift is this: relocation is becoming more selective on both sides. Employees are weighing moves based on: - career upside - compensation - immigration certainty - long-term stability for families At the same time, companies are sending fewer people, because the cost of global assignments is higher, and the margin for error is smaller. That creates a clear implication for CHROs: Global mobility can’t be treated as a broad development mechanism anymore. Short-term assignments, project-based global exposure, and stretch opportunities need to be intentionally woven into talent plans. And for the leaders who do relocate, the stakes are higher than ever. Success requires the right support — for the employee, the family, and the business — so the assignment delivers on its full value.