seccl - Interim head of people

• Partnering with the CEO and exec team to ensure people strategy is fully aligned to business goals and growth plans • Holding senior leaders to account for embedding our culture and role-modelling our operating principles • Leading organisational readiness for Enhanced SMCR, strengthening governance, accountability frameworks and regulatory learning • Shaping organisational design and workforce plans to ensure we have the right skills, structure and succession in place • Preparing the business for European expansion, including hiring, policy localisation and operational setup • Driving the evolution of our hybrid and location strategy, including office moves, future footprint planning and health & safety oversight • Supporting responsible AI adoption across the business, ensuring our approach enhances productivity and innovation while maintaining fairness, compliance and strong ways of working. • Overseeing performance and engagement frameworks, ensuring insight from feedback and survey data translates into clear action • Acting as an escalation point for complex people relations and regulatory matters, ensuring fair, consistent and compliant outcomes • Leading and enabling the People team, setting priorities, running quarterly planning and ensuring operational excellence across the full people lifecycle • Partnering with Finance on reward strategy, salary reviews, executive incentives and long-term workforce cost planning • THIS ROLE’S FOR YOU IF... • You’ve led a people function in a scaling, commercially driven and regulated environment • You have direct experience of SMCR and ideally Enhanced firm governance requirements • You’re confident operating at exec and Board level, able to influence and hold senior leaders to account • You bring strong organisational design and workforce planning capability • You have deep knowledge of UK employment law and regulatory people risk (European experience desirable) • You balance strategic clarity with operational pragmatism and are comfortable rolling up your sleeves • You’re calm in ambiguity and energised by growth, change and evolving complexity • You lead through others, building trust quickly while combining empathy with accountability • THIS ROLE ISN’T FOR YOU IF... • You rely on a lot of top-down direction. Here, you’ll have a lot of freedom and ownership of your role, and you’ll be expected to shape your own progression • You’re not comfortable working in a fast-paced environment. Our speed and scalability are what set us apart; you need to be able to act quickly and think on your feet • You struggle to follow through on ideas. We value people who do what they say they will. If you care about something, you have the freedom here to make it happen • You don’t like change. You’ll get on great here if you relish the ambiguity of rapid growth and are willing to embrace uncertainty