VP of Talent and People

ESB Technologies; New Jersey; Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, vision insurance

Paid time off

Equity participation potential

Job summary

ESB Technologies is partnering with a national art education franchise to appoint a VP of Talent & People. This high-stakes role reports to the CEO and will own workforce planning, talent architecture, and the people strategy across a growing network.

You will design recruitment playbooks, oversee development programs, and modernize People operations for multi-state locations, while guiding franchisees on hiring and compliance. Hybrid work in NJ and travel to schools are expected.

Qualifications

• Experience leading people in multi-unit or high-growth brands.
• Builder of systems, playbooks, and programs.
• Strategic and hands-on with both direction-setting and process improvement.
• Extroverted, people-oriented, and data-driven.

Responsibilities

• Design end-to-end recruitment playbooks for franchise schools and ATS tooling.
• Advise franchise owners on hiring practices and tools; build the system.
• Develop and evolve the recruitment playbooks for franchise owners to run themselves.
• Create pathways turning part-time teachers into full-time leaders across the network.
• Build leadership development for school directors and managers.
• Lead and grow the People team, with two direct reports and future hires.
• Modernize operations, automate processes, and close ADP gaps.
• Oversee multi-state compliance, employee relations, and performance management.
• Collaborate with the CEO to shape workforce strategy before scale.

Skills

People leadership

Strategic thinking

Analytical mindset

ADP Workforce Now experience

Tools

ADP Workforce Now

Job description

We are hiring a VP of Talent & People for our client.

About the client

A national art education franchise with 15+ schools, six new locations signed this year, and a pipeline built for a much larger network is hiring its most senior people leader.

About This Role

This is a people-strategy seat, reporting directly to the CEO, at the moment it matters most: right before scale. The fundamentals are covered, a two-person team runs payroll, onboarding, and HR administration, and will report to you. What the company doesn't have is the executive who designs everything above that: workforce planning that stays ahead of expansion instead of chasing it, the talent architecture a franchise network needs to grow without breaking, and the People function that future HR and recruiting hires will be built into.

You’ll be a thought partner to the CEO and founder, and the owner of how this company hires, develops, and keeps people at every level, in every market it enters.

What You'll Own:

Talent Strategy for a Scaling Network

• Design end-to-end recruitment playbooks for franchise schools: sourcing channels, job posting templates, structured screeners, interview guides, and audition-style teaching demos
• Advise franchise owners on hiring practices and tools (ATS platforms, assessments such as Predictive Index) - you build the system; they make the hires
• Continuously improve the playbook based on what's working across the network
• Build end-to-end recruitment playbooks franchise owners run themselves: sourcing, structured screeners, interview guides, audition-style teaching demos, and assessment tools (e.g., Predictive Index)
• Advise and enable franchisees on hiring - designing the system and guidelines while they make their own employment decisions
• Evolve the playbook into a signature strength of the franchise offering

Talent Development & Internal Mobility

• Create the pathway that turns high-potential part-time teachers (~250 part-timers network-wide, many promotable) into full-time leaders
• Build leadership development for school-level directors and managers
• Source, adapt, and deploy training curriculum across the network

People Operations & Team Leadership

• Lead and grow the People team - starting with two direct reports, expanding as the company scales, with future HR and recruiting hires reporting to you
• Modernize operations: automate manual processes, close ADP gaps, and build people systems that scale
• Oversee multi-state compliance, employee relations, and performance management

How We’ll Measure Success (Year One)

• Improved retention across our school teams
• Faster time-to-hire at corporate and across the franchise network
• More part-time team members promoted into full-time roles
• A talent infrastructure the company can scale on - playbooks, pathways, and processes that run without you in the room

Who You Are

• A proven people leader from a multi-unit, multi-location, or high-growth brand - you've lived the stage we’re entering
• A builder at heart: systems, playbooks, and programs you created are still running today
• Strategic and hands-on in equal measure - comfortable setting direction Monday and fixing an onboarding workflow Tuesday
• Extroverted and genuinely people-oriented, and rigorously analytical - you bring objective methods to a creative, artist-heavy workforce
• Energized by ambiguity, ownership, and building a function from a strong foundation rather than inheriting a finished machine
• ADP Workforce Now experience strongly preferred
• Performance bonus eligibility
• Equity participation potential for the right long-term leader (years 2-3)
• Health, dental, and vision insurance; paid time off
• Hybrid schedule: 2 days per week in our Englewood and Montclair, NJ offices (with flexibility toward 1 day per week after onboarding for candidates based farther out), plus travel to school locations a few times per month

Direct partnership with the CEO and founder at a defining moment in the company's growth