The F1 Chapter – Aligning High-Velocity Growth
Chief People Officer | Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team
The Scale: Exec Leadership Team | 1,200 Employees | Cost-cap Budget
In Formula 1, time is the ultimate metric. When I joined the team at the Silverstone campus, the organisation was navigating recent rapid, high-velocity growth. My mission was to evolve and scale the HR function from a foundational setup into an advanced, performance-enabling tool designed to support the team's long-term championship strategy.
- Executive Partnership: Partnered closely with both outgoing and incoming CEOs as a trusted advisor to establish a new leadership structure, manage executive transitions seamlessly, and align senior management workflows. Launched an executive leadership programme with Egon Zehnder.
- Digital Efficiency: Introduced an intuitive integrated HR tech ecosystem (HiBob, Pinpoint, and Thrive) that modernised people operations, delivered data insights, and significantly reduced administrative time for managers.
- Organisational Alignment: Established organisation design principles to streamline structures, define role accountabilities, introduced new performance management tools and developed grading and reward frameworks to sustainably manage future headcount growth.
- Securing Scarce Talent: Built the capability and capacity to deploy advanced external talent mapping to successfully secure high-demand technical skills in a highly competitive market.
The M&A Catalyst – Uniting Green Tech and Heavy Industry
Chief People Officer | Fortescue Zero (WAE)
The Scale: 1,200 Employees | Exec leadership team | £112m Revenue
When Australian mining giant Fortescue, listed on the ASX, acquired British WAE (originally founded as Williams Advanced Engineering) for its F1 ingenuity in advanced battery technology and energy storage solutions, I was brought in to guide the leadership and workforce through the integration. The focus was to successfully transition WAE into the parent company's structure while preserving the unique, agile engineering capability that made WAE so valuable.
- Post-Acquisition Integration: Partnered with the newly appointed CEO and leadership team to introduce a unified operating model connecting WAE and Fortescue businesses.
- Leadership & Engagement: Formed a new top-60 leadership group to engage the next level leaders, drive accountability, and established a proactive internal communication rhythm to maintain positive employee sentiment during the corporate brand change to Fortescue Zero and a significant office relocation.
- In-House Capability: Strengthened the efficiency of the core HR team, enabled the dedicated in-house recruitment function with a new ATS (Hireful) to build a proactive talent service and adopted the robust corporate processes of the parent company.
The Retail Chapter – Driving Digital Transformation
Chief People Officer | JP Boden & Co Ltd
The Scale: Exec leadership team | 1,000 Employees | £400m Revenue
As the landmark British clothing retailer navigated a re-brand and significant digital transformation, Boden required a parallel evolution within its people and culture strategy. I partnered with the new Executive Chairman and leadership team to align the workforce with a fast-moving, digital-first business model.
- Leadership Collaboration: Revamped the executive and senior management cadence to focus heavily on leadership empowerment, collaboration, and clear commercial accountability.
- Performance Optimisation: Redesigned the company's performance management framework and integrated it into Workday, successfully connecting everyday employee goals directly with corporate strategy and reward structures.
- Strategic Rightsizing: Conducted an organisational design and cost-efficiency review, executing targeted restructures to help fund and bring in new digital capabilities required for the company’s digital future.
The Global Chapter – Scaling A Tech Disruptor
Global HR Director | Global Talent Development Director | Dyson Technology Ltd
The Scale: 16,000 Employees | 65 Countries | £5.4bn Revenue
Dyson experienced an era of explosive commercial growth; the business achieved +25% global growth and 35% YOY expansion across APAC during the period I spent at Dyson. Living in Hong Kong and operating in the commercial markets gave me first-hand experience of strategy playing out into reality and how to build people infrastructure that scales globally.
- Hyper-Scale in China: Partnered directly with the China President and the local leadership team to support an exceptional growth strategy that doubled business velocity year-on-year.
- Transformation in Japan: provided high in-person support to enable the business improvement plan, leveraged global mobility for internal international leadership and hired new capabilities and re-invigorated belief in strategy that saw Dyson Japan return to strength.
- Established New International Markets: Set up new business entities, recruited the executive leadership teams and key talent to successfully launch operations in India, the UAE, South Korea, and Turkey.
- Matured Global HR Capability: Led five regional HR directors and 120 HR staff internationally, evolving the people function from localised, foundational setups into high-performing, strategically mature teams operating with modern, integrated systems like Workday.
- Global Talent Director (UK): Managed a multi-million-pound budget, developed innovative solutions that supported remote teams during Covid-19, launched a global talent review for 2,600 senior managers in Workday, designed succession plans reviewed directly by the Board, and invested in culture and engagement strategy.