Head of People & Talent

About the role

We are seeking a strategic Head of People & Talent to design and implement the human infrastructure that will support rapid multi‑city expansion for a high‑growth hospitality group. Reporting directly to the executive team, you will act as the chief architect of talent pipelines, succession planning and leadership development across both front‑of‑house and kitchen operations.

Key responsibilities

• Conduct structured evaluations of existing management and operational teams to map competencies, identify high‑potential talent and uncover succession risks.
• Translate expansion roadmaps into future leadership needs, defining lead times, internal promotion versus external hiring ratios.
• Build succession frameworks for critical branch, culinary and corporate support roles, ensuring each new opening is backed by vetted leaders.
• Partner with Operations and Culinary Directors to create career progression matrices, skill certifications and leadership development programmes.
• Drive end‑to‑end recruitment for critical management, specialist and executive positions where internal successors are unavailable.
• Implement performance management, KPI tracking and onboarding systems that accelerate time‑to‑productivity.
• Champion high‑performance leadership behaviours, employee engagement, retention strategies and employer branding.

Required profile

• Proven track record in talent management, succession planning or organisational development within high‑growth, multi‑unit environments.
• Experience building talent pipelines for large frontline workforces in hospitality, QSR, retail, FMCG, banking or telecom.
• Demonstrated ability to create competency frameworks, succession plans and workforce expansion models from scratch.
• Strong commercial mindset, treating people strategy as a business enabler.
• Executive presence, analytical acumen and communication skills to influence senior leadership and mentor field teams.

Required skills

• Competency framework design
• Succession planning methodology
• Workforce modelling for expansion
• Leadership development programme creation
• Performance management system implementation