Director, Sr. Talent Development

Keystone; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Keystone, a premier economics, technology, and strategy consulting firm, is seeking a Talent Development Lead for its Performance Culture Center of Excellence. This hybrid role requires a strong track record in developing senior leaders, calibrating performance, and guiding succession planning.

You will partner with senior leaders and HR to drive development programs, leadership pipelines, and strategic talent initiatives.

Qualifications

• Passion for developing exceptional leaders and building a strong leadership bench.
• Consulting experience and the credibility to advise senior stakeholders.
• Excellent judgment handling highly confidential talent matters.
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.
• Analytical mindset translating talent, performance, and succession data into action.
• Highly organized with strong project management; multi-stakeholder coordination.

Responsibilities

• Drive performance evaluations and talent review processes for Keystone’s senior team, ensuring rigor, consistency, fairness, and differentiation.
• Maintain a pulse on senior talent, with understanding of leadership performance, development priorities, and readiness for expanded responsibility.
• Design and facilitate senior talent reviews and calibration discussions incorporating performance, leadership, and firm-building perspectives.
• Partner with HR on sensitive performance and transition matters, ensuring coordination and proper handoffs.
• Translate performance/competency information into actionable insights for promotions and succession decisions.
• Analyze senior talent data to identify trends, risks, and actions; support executive decision-making.

Skills

Talent development

Leadership coaching

Executive communication

Stakeholder management

Performance management

Data analysis

Project management

Strategic thinking

Job description

Keystone is a premier economics, technology, and strategy consulting firm built to help companies lead through transformation. As breakthrough innovations reshape industries, redefine competition and change our society, complex and highly competitive ecosystems emerge. Keystone advises technology leaders, Fortune 100 companies, their legal counsel, and governments on business, economic, litigation, and regulatory strategy in relation to these innovations and competitive eco-systems. We operate globally from offices in New York City, Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, London, Dubai, and Washington, D.C.

About The Role

The Performance Culture Center of Excellence (CoE) exists to cultivate a culture of high performance across Keystone — through a rigorous approach to assessing and developing talent, delivering clear feedback, and identifying career paths that reward performance and align individual contribution with firm goals. As we build out the CoE, we're adding to the team and looking for a Talent Development Lead to help stand up and run core programs for Keystone's senior population.

This is a hybrid role with a minimum in office requirement of 3 days per week.

We are not able to provide relocation support for this position. We value talent from all backgrounds; however, for this position, we are unable to sponsor employment visas. We welcome applications from individuals who are already authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship.

Key Responsibilities

Performance & Calibration

• Drive the execution of performance evaluation and talent review processes for Keystone’s senior team members, ensuring rigor, consistency, fairness, and appropriate differentiation across practices and offices.
• Maintain a continuous pulse on senior talent, with an ongoing understanding of each leader's performance, development priorities, career trajectory, and readiness for expanded responsibility or partnership.
• Design and facilitate senior talent reviews and calibration discussions, bringing together performance, team leadership, commercial contribution, and firm-building perspectives to support well-grounded decisions.
• Serve as a strategic partner to senior leaders in addressing performance challenges, role-fit questions, and readiness gaps, ensuring concerns are identified early, expectations are clear, and decisions align with the firm's performance philosophy and standards.
• Partner closely with HR on sensitive performance and transition matters, ensuring appropriate coordination, documentation, and handoffs.

Leadership Expectations & Competency Frameworks

• Maintain and continuously refine competency models, leadership expectations, scorecards, and promotion or hiring criteria for Principals, Partners, and other senior roles.
• Translate performance and competency information into actionable insights that inform promotion, role progression, leadership appointments, succession, and development decisions.

Leadership Development, Succession & Career Planning

• Guide individualized development planning, coaching, sponsorship, and stretch opportunities that accelerate leadership growth and prepare high performing talent for broader roles.
• Lead succession and leadership-pipeline planning, identifying critical roles, bench strength, future-partner candidates, readiness gaps, and targeted actions to strengthen the firm's leadership capacity.
• Support thoughtful career and role planning for senior talent, including evolving leadership mandates, internal mobility, and transitions when appropriate.

Senior Leader Enablement

• Equip Partners and other senior leaders to deliver candid, actionable, and development-oriented feedback to senior colleagues.
• Provide leaders with the tools, data, and guidance needed to assess performance and potential, sponsor future leaders, and make high-quality talent decisions.
• Identify common leadership capability gaps and recommend targeted development, coaching, or organizational interventions.

Reporting & Talent Insights

• Analyze senior talent performance, promotion, succession, retention, engagement, leadership pipeline, and development data to identify trends, risks, and recommended actions.
• Support executive decision-making through analyses, dashboards, and executive-ready reporting that provide visibility into bench strength, future-partner readiness, succession coverage, and organizational health.
• Partner closely with firm leadership, Practice Leaders, Learning & Development, HR, Talent Acquisition, and Staffing to deliver integrated senior talent solutions.
• Help drive continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to strengthen governance, simplify processes, improve the leader experience, and increase program effectiveness.

What You'll Bring

• Passion for developing exceptional leaders and building a strong, sustainable leadership bench.
• Significant consulting and relationship-management skill, with the credibility and presence to advise Partners and influence senior stakeholders without direct authority.
• Exceptional judgment and discretion when handling highly confidential, sensitive, and consequential talent matters.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to synthesize nuanced, sometimes conflicting inputs into clear recommendations.
• Analytical mindset with experience interpreting talent, performance, and succession data and translating insights into action.
• Highly organized with strong project management skills and the ability to manage multiple high-stakes processes and stakeholder groups simultaneously.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity, constructive tension, and complex decision environments while building new programs and operating models.
• Service-oriented mindset and the ability to build trusted relationships with senior leaders while maintaining independence and consistent standards.
• Continuous improvement orientation with a bias toward simplifying processes and scaling best practices.

In addition to annual salary, we provide an annual discretionary bonus, 401k contribution, and competitive benefits package. Actual Compensation within the range will depend upon the level the individual is hired into based on their skills, experience, and qualifications.

Annual Salary Range

$140,000—$200,000 USD

At Keystone we believe diversity matters. At every level of our firm, we seek to advance and promote diversity, foster an inclusive culture, and ensure our colleagues have a deep sense of respect and belonging. If you are interested in growing your career with colleagues from varied backgrounds and cultures, consider Keystone.