We're representing a highly profitable Insurance and Financial Services platform across Southeast Asia access financial services and business tools.
With a view to double their headcount in the next 12-18 months, our client is scaling with discipline and focused growth.
Their leadership team has strong commercial instincts and moves fast
The Role
We are looking for someone who can build the People function from ground up, but you're doing it with a company that already knows how to execute.
This is rare: most CHRO positions are either greenfield (no foundation) or inherited (existing politics). You get both opportunities and constraints.
What you'll own:
- People Partnering & Organisational Development — You're not an HR services provider. You're a strategic advisor to the CEO and management team. You diagnose where people decisions are blocking growth, surface patterns before they become crises, and coach leaders on the hard conversations. You build rhythms (quarterly talent reviews, org health dashboards) that make people problems visible early.
- Performance Management & Talent Density — You design a performance culture that is actually self-reinforcing. High performers get stretch opportunities, coaching, and disproportionate rewards. You help the CEO evaluate whether the management team is scaling. You think about succession at every layer.
- Compensation & Levelling Frameworks — You're fixing a system that grew ad hoc: pay inversions, title misalignment, inconsistent ESOP allocation. You build sustainable structures that scale to 750 people and support IPO readiness. You make trade-offs with eyes open.
- Learning & Development — Not training programs. People development as a competitive advantage. You identify which capability gaps are blocking revenue. You design learning journeys that measure behaviour change and business impact, not completion rates.
- Management Team Composition & Capability — You're partnering closely with the CEO to evaluate the 9 direct reports: who's scaling, who's hitting a ceiling, where gaps exist. You coach executives. You help design org structure for growth.
What Makes You Right for This
You think like a business leader who happens to work in People, not an HR professional who services business leaders.
Specifically:
- You diagnose before you build. You ask better questions than you give answers. When someone brings you a problem, you reframe it: Is this a performance issue, a team design issue, or a systems issue You don't jump to solutions.
- You connect people decisions to business outcomes. You know which attrition actually costs money and which you can live with. You understand that performance management is how the company allocates its best people to highest-leverage problems. You speak the CEO's language.
- You've built from scratch and know what's messy. You've designed frameworks, run calibration cycles, coached difficult conversations. You're comfortable with ambiguity and willing to do the operational work while things are scaling.
- You can deliver hard truths and be heard. You're not afraid to push back on the CEO or management team. When micromanagement is hurting retention, you say so—and you say it in a way that leaders listen rather than defend.
- You think in systems, not silos. You see how levelling informs comp, which informs performance calibration, which informs L&D priorities. You don't treat these as separate workstreams.
- You have a philosophy, not a playbook. You're not looking for a checklist of what great CHROs do. You have a point of view on how people work should be done, why it matters, and how it compounds over time.
What You'll Need
- 10+ years in People leadership, ideally with 5+ years in a strategic People/CHRO role
- Proven experience building people functions and frameworks from scratch (or close to it)
- Track record working with CEOs and boards, you speak that language
- Experience scaling a company through a significant inflection (1000 → 2000+ people)
- Deep expertise in compensation, performance management, and organisational development
- Comfort with ambiguity and the ability to make good decisions with imperfect information
- A commercial mindset: you understand that People work exists to serve business outcomes
What We Offer
- Access to the CEO and leadership team that moves fast and thinks strategically
- The chance to build a People function that becomes a competitive advantage, not a cost centre
- A region with thin talent markets and real scarcity, your work matters
- Autonomy with guardrails: you own the strategy, and we'll back you
Are you up for the challenge Apply now, and show us what you're mad of!
