What is a Chief People Officer?

A Chief People Officer (CPO) is the senior leader responsible not only for leading HR, but for helping lead the organization through people.

It goes beyond ensuring the HR function operates effectively. A CPO has a broader enterprise responsibility: helping the organization build the talent, leadership, culture, structure, and organizational capability required to achieve its strategy.

Said simply, the CPO doesn’t simply make HR work better, a CPO partners as part of the executive team to lead the enterprise through a lens on its people.

A note on titles: I use Chief People Officer (CPO) throughout this page to describe the senior-most leader responsible for talent and HR across the organization, typically reporting to the CEO. Depending on the organization, that role may be titled CPO, CHRO, VP or SVP of Human Resources, Head of People, or something else. In smaller organizations, some of these responsibilities may even sit with a COO. The title matters less than the role the leader is expected to play.

Organizations don't need a CPO simply to run HR, they need a head of HR/people because organizational performance depends on people and someone at the executive table needs to ensure the business intentionally builds the capability required to execute its strategy.

Instead of (or in smaller orgs in addition to) staying compliant, addressing employee issues, providing pay benefits, and ensuring appropriate hiring, a CPO asks different questions:

• How do we preserve what's special about our culture while we scale?
• How do we develop leaders instead of continually hiring them from outside?
• What capabilities will our next stage of growth or change require?
• How should our organization and roles be structured?
• How do we retain the talent we've worked so hard to attract?
• How does this change or decision impact the collective engagement and productivity of our people?

Those aren't HR questions. They're business questions viewed through a talent-centric lens.

Many organizations still evaluate their Chief People Officer primarily by the quality of the HR function.

Are people being hired quickly?

Are policies compliant?

Are programs well managed?

Those things do matter, but the CPO role goes broader: 

• From solving HR problems to solving organizational challenges;
• From optimizing HR processes to strengthening organizational capability; 
• From managing a function to influencing the future of the enterprise

I've helped a lot of HR Directors step into CPO roles. The biggest transition usually isn't learning more HR; it's learning to think more broadly: What does the business need to accomplish, and what will that require from the organization and its people?

Instead of primarily solving HR problems, the CPO helps solve organizational problems and focuses on the impact and value HR creates for the organization.

This is also why I've never particularly liked the adage about HR "earning a seat at the table." If you're the head of HR and a member of the executive team, you already have one. So it's not about earning a seat at the table. It's about owning the seat you have and using it to shape how the business runs.

That means contributing to conversations that don't have “people” in the title: Growth, profitability, customers, technology, operations, risk, investment.

Every one of those decisions has talent implications, and the CPO should help the executive team see them, because the CPO is the executive responsible for helping the organization perform through people.

A common misconception is that a CPO is a lofty title for a senior HR Director. Or that only large companies need someone at this level over HR.

On the difference between director of HR and CPO, it’s not about title or tactical vs strategic, it’s about scope of accountability. The CPO, shares responsibility for enterprise outcomes and performance whereas an HR director is typically more focused on the functional outcomes of the HR team.

On the size of the organization, it’s not about headcount as much as organizational complexity. In fact, a small organization experiencing rapid growth, culture challenges, sophisticated compensation needs, and leadership succession issues may need CPO-level leadership sooner than a much larger but stable organization. When what once worked through individual judgment and informal practices now needs repeatable systems and standards, and when organizational structure and workforce strategy increasingly determines enterprise outcomes, it’s time to consider having a CPO.

CPOs don’t lead HR, they lead through HR.

We’ve outgrown the question about HR earning a seat at the executive table. A CPO has that seat and now needs to own it by challenging assumptions, asking different questions, and driving performance. 

When the organization is considering a new growth strategy, you don't wait to hear how many people you'll need to hire. You ask what new capabilities the strategy requires and whether the organization can build, buy, or access them.

When the executive team is considering a reorganization, you don't simply help move boxes. You talk about the work that’s changing, where decisions should live, and what structure will make execution easier.

When performance declines, you don't immediately change your performance management process. You examine leadership, clarity, capability, work design, incentives, collaboration, and accountability.

When technology changes how work gets done, you don't limit HR's role to change management or workforce reductions. You direct the redesign of roles and influence where humans can create greater value.

A CPO partners with executive peers to help them see organizational challenges through a different lens. It's not about earning a seat at the table. It's about owning the seat you have and using it to shape how the business performs.

One of the most rewarding parts of my work is helping HR leaders make this transition, or coming alongside of those who already have (or COOs who have inherited HR) to strengthen executive influence and translate HR expertise into business decisions, 

Together, we shift the conversation, from managing HR to shaping the business through people. Sometimes that means redesigning the HR operating model. Sometimes it means clarifying roles and building new capabilities across the HR team. Sometimes it means designing talent systems or organizational structures.

Often, it’s all of the above.

My purpose is always the same: To help HR become a function that doesn't simply support the business, but helps shape how the business performs. And CPOs are ultimately responsible for that exact objective.