Chief People Officer — Remote, US Company

remote legal staff; United States; Remote; USD 190,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual performance bonus

Health insurance

Home office stipend

Internet allowance

Professional development

Job summary

Remote Legal Staff is seeking a top-tier HR leader to own the people function as a product for a fully remote organization servicing US law firms. You will drive org design, talent quality, recruiting, performance, and HR tech strategy across a distributed workforce.

You will lead a small in-house team plus senior fractional specialists, leverage AI to automate core HR tasks, and align HR outcomes with revenue and client success.

Qualifications

• 10+ years leading an HR function and reporting to CEO/MD.
• Led HR for 200+ people, remotely, across multiple countries/time zones.
• Built an HR or recruiting function from scratch and ran it.

Responsibilities

• Own org design, reporting lines, and change management for a growing company.
• Lead talent quality—hiring, retention, promotions, and performance.
• Oversee recruiting and internal hiring, with a Recruiting Director you’ll hire and lead.

Skills

HR leadership

People management

AI in HR

Remote work

Education

Bachelor’s degree in HR or related field

Tools

HRIS

ATS

Payroll systems

Job description

Introduction

Fully remote | Reports to the CEO, works closely with the President

At most companies, HR is a support function. Here, HR is the product. We place legal professionals from Latin America, South Africa and the Philippines with US law firms. We stay involved for the life of every placement: payroll, monitoring, performance reviews and replacement. When our people function is excellent, clients stay and we grow. When it's mediocre, we lose placements.

Today that work is spread across managers and held together by the CEO and President. This role brings it together under one owner. What got us here won't get us there.

Why take this seat

• A true C-suite role with a direct line to the founder.
• Full ownership of a people function that is the product, not a support desk.
• The chance to build it your way, on modern tools and AI from day one.

Duties & Responsibilities

What you'll own

• Org design and change. Structure, reporting lines, spans of control and decision rights for a company outgrowing its first design, and moving people through the changes that come with it.
• Talent quality. Raise the bar on who we hire, who we keep and who we promote.
• Managers. A middle-management layer that holds people accountable: training, 1:1 standards, and coaching that has a clock on it.
• Recruiting. Full accountability for internal hiring and for the quality of the candidates we place, through a Recruiting Director you'll hire and lead.
• The people we place. The system that keeps good professionals placed when their day-to-day manager works for a client: surveys that lead to action, early warning, evaluations, stay and exit conversations, and separations. Client Success owns the relationship and the save; you own the system and hold everyone to it. Retention is a revenue number, and you'll treat it like one.
• Performance. Reviews that run on time, ratings that mean something, and improvement plans that close.
• Pay and rewards. Job levels, pay bands, and incentive plans tied to the business.
• People data. One dashboard leadership reads every week.
• HR tech and AI. HRIS, ATS, time tracking, and the automation that keeps the function lean.
• The HR team. A small in-house team plus senior fractional specialists in org design, pay and performance. You turn their work into systems that run every week.

How you'll work with operations

The Director of Operations owns how the work runs. You own who does the work and the standards they're held to. Operations leaders manage their teams and their numbers day to day. You set the standards, own the data, and escalade when something stalls.

How we work

We're fully remote and run on software. Meetings are recorded. Work is tracked with time-tracking software that includes activity monitoring and screenshots. Every team uses AI daily, and new hires learn it in their first week. You'll own, enforce and defend our monitoring, not just tolerate it. If that conflicts with your HR philosophy, this isn't your company.

Good to know

• Most of the people you're responsible for work inside client law firms. Performance, conflict and retention play out across two organizations at once.
• People decisions move faster here than most HR leaders are used to.
• Recruiting is behind where it needs to be. You're hired to build the pipeline, not maintain one.

Your first 90 days

• Audit the function and give us a ranked plan: what works, what's broken, what to fix first.
• Agree decision rights with the CEO: what you decide alone and what needs sign-off.
• Launch the first fixes yourself, not just recommend them.

After 12 months

• Every role has a clear scope, KPIs, and a manager who manages to them.
• Review cycles run on time.
• Fewer people leave in their first 90 days, internal and placed.
• Leadership hears about people issues from you first, with a recommendation attached.

Desired Experience & Qualification

Read this before applying

• You can work full-time on US Pacific hours. Not negotiable.
• You're remote-ready: you've worked and led fully remote for years, and you have a professional home office with fast internet, a backup connection and backup power.
• You're highly tech-fluent. You set up and run HR systems yourself, and you use AI every day for real work.
• Your written and spoken English is exceptional. We test both.
• You've led an HR function, not just worked inside one, and you've been accountable for hiring outcomes.
• You'll complete our remote readiness assessment before your first interview.
• This is a full-time role. Not fractional, not freelance.

You've done this before

• 10+ years in HR, including at least 3 leading the function and reporting to a CEO or managing director.
• You've led the people function for 200+ people, remotely, across several countries and time zones.
• You built an HR or recruiting function from scratch at least once, then ran it.
• You've taken a company through a restructure and brought its managers with you.
• You've owned recruiting outcomes at volume.
• You've run performance management end to end, including improvement plans and exits.
• You manage by the numbers: time to fill, retention, early-tenure survival, engagement.
• You've automated real HR work with AI (screening, reporting, drafting, analysis), and you'll show us.
• You can connect any people decision to revenue, retention or cost.
• You have a degree in HR, business, psychology or a related field.
• Strong plus: you've run HR for people who work inside client organizations (staffing, BPO, outsourcing or managed services).

This isn't for you if

• You see HR as compliance and paperwork rather than a growth engine.
• You've run HR but never owned hiring outcomes.
• You would rather design frameworks than make them stick.
• You need consensus or several warnings before acting on a clear people decision.
• You want a large team to delegate to from day one.
• You're uncomfortable running a function on software, data and AI.

Package & Remuneration

Benefits

• Annual performance bonus, plus anniversary loyalty bonuses of up to 4 months' salary
• Company-sponsored health insurance
• Up to 30 days of paid time off a year, growing with tenure (includes 7 U.S. holidays and 5 paid sick days), plus your birthday off
• Bereavement leave and additional unpaid personal leave
• Flexible work schedule
• Home office stipend, computer replacement stipend, and a monthly internet allowance that grows with tenure
• Professional development and training programs, plus education support for high performers