Chief People Officer

Isaacson, Miller (IM), a national retained executive search firm specializing in leadership recruitment in the civic sector, seeks a Chief People Officer (CPO) to facilitate the success of its workforce and business through the design and delivery of progressive and innovative people programs. Reporting to the President + CEO and serving as a member of IM’s Management Committee, the CPO leads and enhances all aspects of the firm’s people operations function. This role is pivotal in driving talent strategy, fostering an inclusive and high-performance culture, and ensuring alignment with the firm’s mission, vision, and business objectives.

Since its founding in 1982, IM has been committed to strengthening and diversifying the leadership of mission-driven organizations. A belief in the power of exceptional leadership and an unwavering commitment to service excellence, integrity, and impact animate the firm. IM’s more than 240 staff members share a fundamental commitment to its clients’ missions, motivating them to continue to achieve outstanding results, and their work is guided by seven core values that anchor IM today and drive the firm’s aspirations for the future:

• We value diversity, equity, and inclusion
• We value excellence in our craft
• We are intellectually curious
• We are generous colleagues
• We seek and support opportunities to grow
• We create social impact
• We are transparent

IM offers exciting opportunities for a talented individual who is dedicated to the success of mission-driven organizations, drawn to the intellectual demands and professional pace of executive recruiting, and wishes to have an impact on the caliber and diversity of leadership in organizations that advance the common good. To learn more about Isaacson, Miller, please visit our website: https://www.imsearch.com/.

The Organizational Context

Business Snapshot

The company’s steady growth has been largely organic and incremental — a path that has served IM well and allowed the firm to remain nimble and entrepreneurial. IM enjoys a nearly 80% returning client rate and completes 500 search assignments each year across the civic sector, producing approximately $50 million in annual revenues.

At IM, Partners are responsible for revenue generation and client satisfaction. They develop business and also lead multiple searches simultaneously, guiding the strategy, quality, and successful outcome of those projects. Partners represent the firm externally to current and potential clients, guard the quality of IM’s craft and reputation, develop and steward the relationships that strengthen the firm, and make essential sales. They work closely with Associates, who are responsible for candidate pool-building and presentation, and often play a significant role in client management. Search Coordinators serve in the important capacity of administrative project manager, while Researchers and Reference Specialists support candidate networking and due diligence.

The firm is currently engaged in a thoughtful organizational redesign, moving away from a geographically based model to a structure that better reflects our reality as a growing organization in which most employees work primarily from home. Our overarching goal for the new design is to maximize the benefits of smaller communities while continuing to nurture the cross-firm collaboration that has been one of the keys to our success as a firm. The new model seeks to enhance strategic revenue generation, strengthen development and accountability for search consultant performance, further ensure high-quality service to clients, and facilitate opportunities for more meaningful staff engagement. This is an exciting time to join the firm, as the Chief People Officer will play a key role in helping us shape the future.

Current People + Culture (P+C) Team

Comprising a Total Rewards Manager, Learning + Development Manager, Recruitment Manager, Learning + Development Designer, and People + Culture Coordinator, our people operations team is highly talented, committed, and respected across the firm. The team has an average firm tenure of nearly five years and brings a diverse mix of career experience in human resources, executive search, and other mission-driven work. Since 2022, the team has continued to focus on delivering exceptional service to the firm while also building greater role clarity and capitalizing on opportunities for collaboration across all P+C functions. This collegial, tight-knit team has been at the forefront of numerous recent accomplishments, including the following:

• Driving extraordinarily low employee attrition. In 2023, the firm experienced only 6% attrition, well below the average for professional services firms.

• Identifying, developing, and promoting talent. Recruiting talented employees across all roles has played a pivotal role in the firm’s success. A robust orientation program as well as tailored Learning + Development programs focusing on individual development and building colleague-to-colleague learning communities contribute to employees’ ongoing skill development and in-role performance.

• Providing competitive compensation and progressive benefits. IM has long offered a robust total rewards package to its employees. The firm pays 100% of employee medical and dental premiums, offers a Health Reimbursement Account, and contributes to Health Savings Accounts. On an annual basis, P+C evaluates its total rewards package and seeks opportunities to offer flexible benefits that fit employees’ diverse and changing needs. In the firm’s most recent engagement survey, 90% of full-time employees responded that “the benefits offered at IM meet my needs.”

• Remote and in-person engagement. IMers participate in a range of online and in-person engagement activities, including Downt(IM)e, a casual employee meet-up program through which more than 100 staff have connected over Zoom for conversations with colleagues. P+C also hosts scavenger hunts and wellness challenges, and the team assists IM’s office managers in offering in-person office meetups 3-4 times per year in DC, San Francisco, and Boston, where colleagues spend several days connecting and learning together.

The Chief People Officer Role

Demand for executive search services and appreciation of their value have increased significantly in the civic sector over the last decade. To ensure IM’s continued success in a competitive and ever-evolving marketplace, the firm seeks an exceptional talent leader to support our firm’s leaders and workforce in achieving our desired growth and performance goals.

The CPO will steward talent lifecycle strategies and plans that continue to evolve our culture, policies, and practices to meet the workforce and workplace challenges of a matrixed, high-growth, employee-owned professional service enterprise. In collaboration with the firm’s leadership, P+C team, and other colleagues, the CPO will develop compelling people solutions; enhance performance assessment to ensure that we are measuring what matters; help to ensure workforce well-being; integrate equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging principles into our talent culture and practices; and cultivate talent growth and development. Our people are our greatest asset. The CPO will partner strategically with leaders throughout the firm to achieve the firm’s goals regarding all aspects of people operations, including talent acquisition, engagement, performance management, learning and development, rewards, recognition, and retention.

Enterprise-Level Leadership

Since its founding, IM has continuously grown in revenues, volume of searches conducted, and workforce size and complexity. As the firm continues on this growth trajectory, the CPO will be a credible and trusted thought partner, influencer, and coach, as well as a strategic leader who facilitates necessary change at all levels of the organization through a data-driven and culturally sensitive approach to facilitate continued shared success. The CPO will set a clear vision for the people operations function and for people programs firmwide, ensuring they support IM’s growth and transformation objectives. They will continuously assess and improve people practices, helping the firm maintain a competitive edge.

In the context of strategic planning and execution, IM’s organizational structure and corporate culture necessitate a collaborative leadership approach. The firm prioritizes broad input and inclusive processes over speed. Unilateral decision-making is not in line with IM’s values and ways of working. Accordingly, the CPO must take an inclusive approach to the design and implementation of people strategies and initiatives that align with the overall business strategy. They will build and maintain strong relationships across the Management and Executive Committees – as well as the Partnership more broadly – providing opportunities for strategic input on all people-related matters and ensuring that people operations strategies support and enhance overall business goals. The CPO will also serve as a trusted advisor and thought leader on people strategies and will coach and support firm leaders in addressing evolving human capital needs, including workforce planning and utilization, talent acquisition, engagement, retention, compensation, performance, and professional development.

Importantly, the CPO will promote a culture where diverse perspectives are valued and considered in the decision-making process. Tactically, this includes serving as a liaison to a range of firmwide committees and employee resource groups. Strategically, the CPO must employ a high degree of cultural competence in the design and delivery of inclusive people programs and in effective partnerships with colleagues across multiple lines of difference.

Functional Leadership

The CPO will lead a high-performing department that develops and sustains talent solutions and services that support the firm's growth and the evolution of its people practices. Specifically, the CPO will provide a mix of strategic leadership and on-the-ground support to managers and individual contributors with regard to people operations. These efforts will include, but are not limited to, workforce planning and talent acquisition; the design and oversight of total rewards programs that attract and retain talent; identifying and addressing organizational development needs to support business objectives; developing and implementing L+D programs that enhance employee skills and competencies; ensuring compliance with all employment laws and regulations; overseeing all people-related policies, procedures, and systems to ensure efficiency and effectiveness; and empowering the people operations team to provide exceptional service to employees. The selected candidate will lead, develop, and mentor team members, fostering a collaborative and inclusive environment that encourages innovation and excellence.

IM is fairly decentralized, as Partners run their individual profit centers. The CPO will be a trusted colleague known to balance business needs with workforce perspectives, adopting employee relations and performance management practices that respectfully, fairly, compassionately, and equitably resolve workplace issues and drive performance success. They will deploy talent management systems, technology, tools, and practices that ensure timely and clear corrective feedback, shared accountability for success, equitable and robust opportunities for growth and advancement, and a consistent and engaging employee experience across the firm.

The Successful Candidate | Qualifications + Characteristics

IM’s next CPO will be an accomplished and resourceful human capital leader and team manager with prior experience in a successful professional services organization or analogous environment. The position calls for a collaborative professional with experience aligning talent programs to firm strategy within a matrixed, multi-generational, geographically distributed, professional services firm environment. The successful candidate will establish departmental and interpersonal trust through the application of broad human resources expertise, intellectual curiosity, rigor, humor, resilience, vision, and strong communication and consensus-building talents. Flexibility, resourcefulness, candor, and engaging interpersonal skills are essential. The CPO must be comfortable working at all levels of the organization and supporting an entrepreneurial environment in which independent professionals build and sustain varied practices in support of the firm’s mission. The successful candidate will bring experience with – or demonstrated and deeply felt interest in – the mission work of our client organizations whose work advances the public good.

While no one candidate will possess all of them, the successful candidate will bring many of the following experiences, skills, and attributes:

• Demonstrated skill in coaching, guiding, and influencing senior business leaders; leading people operations and organizational change; and implementing and sustaining high-quality services.
• A track record of successfully leading in a consultative and inclusive decision-making structure.
• Excellent time, project, team, and budget management skills.
• Demonstrated commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusivity.
• Functional expertise in two or more of the following areas: employee relations, compensation, benefits, recruiting, and learning and development.
• Strong listening, verbal, and written communication skills; the ability to gracefully navigate and coalesce divergent points of view.
• Superb relationship management skills; the capacity to build trust and rapport with people from diverse experiences, backgrounds, styles, and aspirations.
• Maturity, objectivity, discretion, and sound judgment in engaging with multiple constituencies.
• A track record of data-driven decision-making; the ability to collect, analyze, and communicate relevant data and leverage meaningful insights.
• High standards for consistently reliable delivery of people services, with rigorous attention to clarity, timeliness, accuracy, and detail.
• Technological facility; comfort with current HR technology and information systems.
• Integrity, honesty, resilience, and a healthy sense of humor.

Commitment To Equity, Diversity + Inclusion

Equity, diversity, and inclusion are embedded in Isaacson, Miller’s mission, founding impulse, core values, and practice. From the start, IM has worked hard to recruit outstanding leaders with diverse backgrounds and experiences and has been gratified to serve clients who share IM’s core values. IM has many successes to celebrate and looks forward to continued growth and learning. Through the firm’s commitment to be a welcoming community of colleagues where everyone can thrive, we become stronger and empowered to provide the very best service to IM’s clients and contribute to a vital and powerful civic sector.

Compensation

As an employee-owned firm, IM offers competitive compensation and benefits, including a non-contributory health and dental offering as well as participation in a profit-sharing pension plan and an employee stock ownership plan. The salary range for this position is $181,000-$227,000.

Equal Opportunity Employer

IM is an equal-opportunity employer and strives to create a safe work environment for its employees free of discrimination and harassment. IM hires the most qualified individuals for each position, and does so without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and medical conditions related to pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding), sex stereotyping (including assumptions about a person’s appearance or behavior, gender roles, gender expression, or gender identity), gender, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, age, mental or physical disability, ancestry, medical condition, marital status, military or veteran status, citizenship status, sexual orientation, genetic information, or any other protected status of an individual or that individual’s associates or relatives. This Equal Employment Opportunity policy applies to all areas of employment for all employees.