Vice President, People

NU Advisory Partners; United States; On-site; USD 200,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

NU Advisory Partners is retained to lead the search for a Vice President, People for a venture-backed enterprise software company. This executive role sits on the leadership team to strengthen people, performance, and culture through a major business transition while building a leaner, more resourceful organization.

The ideal candidate is a builder who can act as strategic partner to the executive team and hands-on with the details, shaping compensation, org design, and people operations to

Qualifications

• 8+ years leading People/HR at scale in venture-backed or high-growth companies.
• Experience running a People function end-to-end, including org design, compensation, and performance.
• Track record of partnering with C-suite and driving culture and performance during transitions.
• Strong communication skills and ability to translate decisions into actionable outcomes.
• Experience with AI adoption in People functions a plus.
• Experience taking a People function from startup to scale.

Responsibilities

• Set talent strategy across technical and GTM functions and craft the value proposition.
• Refine recruiting process for speed and quality, ensuring strong candidate impressions.
• Maintain consistent compensation, equity, and leveling across distributed teams as scale.
• Leverage AI and a generalist team to cover learning, analytics, and recruiting ops.
• Coach leaders through org design and performance decisions during scaling.
• Advance performance management aligned to company goals.
• Collaborate with Finance and GTM leaders on headcount and incentives during investment shifts.
• Guide the People function's AI adoption to raise organization output.

Skills

People leadership

HR leadership

Executive compensation

Org design

People analytics

High-growth experience

Strategic partnership

Communication

Change management

Job description

NU Advisory Partners has been retained to lead the search for a Vice President, People for a venture-backed enterprise software company. This is a seat on the executive team, with a mandate to strengthen the organization's people, performance, and culture through a significant business transition while building a leaner, more resourceful organization. The ideal candidate is a builder who can operate as both a strategic partner to the executive team and a hands-on leader close to the details of the business.

About NU Advisory Partners

NU Advisory Partners is an AI-native executive search and advisory firm specializing in senior executive, operating, and board roles, with deep expertise in private capital-backed environments.

We're breaking the mold in an industry that hasn't changed in decades, pairing a top-tier team with tech, data, and AI to make search smarter, faster, and built for how businesses move today. The result? A better experience for clients, candidates, and ourselves. With 2,000+ searches and deep industry expertise, we deliver high-touch service and leadership talent that drives long-term value.

Key Responsibilities

• Set the strategy for attracting and hiring talent across technical and go-to-market functions, sharpening the story for why top candidates should choose this company over other fast-moving options in the market
• Continually refine the hiring process for speed and quality, making sure every candidate, hired or not, comes away with a strong impression of the company
• Keep compensation, equity, leveling, and compliance consistent and equitable across a distributed team as the business scales
• Lean on AI and a strong generalist team to cover functions like learning and development, people analytics, and recruiting operations, rather than building out a roster of narrow specialists
• Coach functional leaders through org design and performance decisions, including the harder calls that come with scaling and evolving teams
• Build on performance management work already underway, sharpening how employee expectations are set and tying them clearly to company goals
• Bring a disciplined, right-sized approach to headcount and resourcing as the organization evolves, favoring a leaner and more resourceful model over traditional staffing defaults
• Partner closely with Finance and go-to-market leadership on headcount and incentive decisions as investment shifts across functions
• Push AI adoption inside the People function itself, from recruiting to performance management, while helping the rest of the organization use AI to raise output and productivity
• Protect a collaborative, high-ownership culture through a period of real change, balancing a push for performance with what makes the organization a place people want to build their careers

Qualifications & Experience

• 8+ years of People/HR leadership experience, with a strong understanding of how each core People function operates at scale, ideally having run a people function in full
• Experience operating inside a high-growth, venture-backed company, with a clear sense of what breaks at that stage and when to build process versus hold off
• A track record leading leaders, not just individual contributors, with the ability to build a bench underneath
• A bias for action, preferring to ship an 80%-right process now over spending months designing the perfect one
• Comfortable operating as both a strategic partner to the executive team and hands-on with the details, including direct exposure to executive compensation
• Sharp judgment on compensation, org design, and performance management, grounded in what's fair and sustainable rather than what's easy
• Strong, direct written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to help employees understand the reasoning behind decisions
• A view of people metrics that extends beyond engagement to productivity, output per headcount, and how AI adoption is reshaping what strong performance looks like
• Experience partnering with a CFO or COO at the intersection of finance and people, including headcount planning and org modeling, is a plus
• A track record building or meaningfully scaling a People function from scratch is a plus