Director of People, Advisory Function

About the Firm 

CrossBoundary Group is a mission-driven investment and advisory firm that unlocks the power of capital for sustainable growth and strong returns in underserved markets. CrossBoundary Advisory provides transaction and investment advisory services, having developed a specialized expertise in unleashing investment across all sectors in these markets. CrossBoundary Advisory has advised on over US$8bn worth of transactions across 75 countries globally, serving our clients from 20 offices spread across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Our advisory clients include governments, development finance institutions, private equity firms, Fortune 100 companies, and research institutions.   

Our investment platforms, CrossBoundary Energy, CrossBoundary Energy Access, and CrossBoundary Educational Infrastructure, directly finance projects to bring cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable electricity, as well as education infrastructure, to developing countries. Anchoring the Group’s work in the renewable energy sector, CrossBoundary Energy is currently active in more than 10 African countries and has a portfolio of over US$100 million of renewable energy projects for commercial and industrial clients across the continent. CrossBoundary Energy Access uses blended finance and an innovative project financing structure to unlock capital for mini-grids with a mission to bring electricity for the first time to more than 170,000 people.   

Learn more at www.crossboundary.com    

Job Description

CrossBoundary Advisory is hiring a Director of People for its Advisory business. The role is broad by design: talent strategy, recruiting, performance, culture, organisational development, with real proximity to senior leadership and genuine room to shape how the people function operates. It suits someone who thinks carefully about systems and people, can move between strategic work and the detail without losing pace, and who finds that kind of challenge genuinely exciting.

Who you are 

• A strategic partner to business leaders with a strong voice and technical expertise to influence how the People function impacts firm-level goals 
• An executor who can work backwards from a business need, translating it into a clearly defined goal and working with colleagues across all levels to turn plans into reality 
• An agile player as comfortable with ambiguous ideas as they are with rolling up their sleeves to execute on tasks where necessary 
• An operational system builder who is comfortable in the ‘messy middle’ between perfect systems and imperfect human users and can deliver efficient, simple, user-friendly processes with minimal bureaucracy  
• A custodian of our culture and values

Responsibilities you’ll own 

1. Strategy and goals for People domain 

• Serve as the strategic People partner to the executive team of CrossBoundary Advisory, with a deep, real-time understanding of the business, its strategic goals, and evolving priorities 
• Shape and implement clear, impactful goals (OKRs) for the People domain that directly support Advisory’s strategic objectives. 
• Bring People expertise and perspective to leadership discussions, influencing decisions to ensure we achieve our ambitions for performance, culture, and values. 

2. Design recruiting systems and provide direct support for senior hires 

• Shape the recruiting strategy for Advisory, ensuring we attract exceptional talent aligned with our mission, values, and performance standards 
• Refine, redesign, or create systems to identify the highest caliber talent to join the Advisory team and enhance our employer brand, including 
• Global internship program 
• Strengthen our approach and operations to build a high quality talent pipeline  
• Refine our screening process to ensure we safeguard and enhance our talent density, reducing the internal load and delays for placing hires 
• Directly support with or own recruiting processes for senior talent, high priority, or complex roles 

3. Be responsible for the systems, processes and supervision of staffing operations 

• Iterate on staffing process as necessary 
• Supervise a junior resource to reliably execute on this 
• Maintain a view on the outcomes of the staffing function on efficiency 

4. Talent Development and Performance 

• Onboarding. Work with the Group People team to design and deliver Advisory-specific onboarding journeys that set our new joiners up for success from day one, including: 
  • Continuously improving onboarding workflows to reduce friction in systems access and operational setup 
  • Creating and delivering onboarding content (e.g., reading lists, book clubs, ways-of-working sessions) that helps new team members quickly integrate and contribute 
• Performance Management. Work with business leaders and the Performance team to constantly refine our performance review process, including: 

  • Identify and manage changes to our performance management approach 

  • Facilitate our calibration process and maintain an accurate pulse on our talent density, health, and individual strengths 

  • Reinforce how team members understand and apply our competency frameworks and refine them as necessary, in partnership with Advisory leaders and the Performance team 
  • Build and implement approaches to ensure performance feedback is delivered at a high quality and at the right times, including after every project/engagement ​​​​​​
• Talent Development. Partner with the Group Performance team to deliver content and training that amplifies performance 
  • Analyst training 
  • Individualized learning journeys 
  • Mentorship program 
  • Bespoke content for Advisory, both ad hoc and standardized/scaled 
  • Project managing CB Curriculum delivery across CBA

• Culture and engagement 
• Pulse check. Run and refine our pulse check approach, regularly gauging morale, soliciting feedback, and identifying and driving change initiatives to keep our culture thriving 
• Trusted advisor. Become the trusted advisor for team members needing support for individual issues. 
• Leadership support for culture. Detect culture risks and opportunities and support leaders to strengthen culture within teams 
• Data. Monitor data from exit interviews and retention numbers to detect and address risks for losing talent 
• Culture institutionalization. Interpret CBA’s culture and values and translate them into practical policies, processes, and ways of working 
• Sensitive HR issues. Support with highly complex and sensitive people matters (performance issues, disciplinary issues, conflict) 
• Internal communications. Partner with Advisory leadership to manage any high-stakes team communications and change management 

• Team structure. Provide thought partnership to leaders seeking input on team structure  
• Role and career architecture.  
  • Promotion process. Partner with Advisory leadership to maintain high standards for promotion readiness and ensure consistency in promotion decisions. 
  • Transition support. Design and implement a scalable approach to supporting team members during key transition moments (e.g., individual contributor to people manager, execution-oriented to strategy-focused) 
  • Support managing partners with senior-level progressions  
• Compensation strategy. Support/partner with Advisory and Group leaders to 
  •  Shape compensation philosophies and incentive frameworks 
  • Ensure compensation outcomes align with promotion decisions, performance differentiation, and retention priorities 

Your Background

• At least 8 years of leading people functions at a senior level
• Background in professional services or consulting strongly preferred
• Proven ability to advise and influence at the executive level
• Has built and refined people systems in lean, high-growth environments
• Comfortable holding strategic leadership and hands-on execution simultaneously
• Has led or developed others, and is invested in doing so
• Nontraditional backgrounds are encouraged to apply

Locations  

You are based either in Nairobi, Johannesburg, or London  

Equal Opportunity Employer 

CrossBoundary is an equal opportunity employer. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request to our [email protected]