Why First-Time Chief People Officers Are Becoming Mission-Critical Business Leaders
February 10, 2026 – Amid ongoing economic, social, geopolitical, and technological disruption, placing the right leaders in the right roles—and ensuring they lead in the right way—has become critical. Yet the greatest obstacle to achieving organizational ambitions remains a lack of leadership talent equipped to navigate unprecedented complexity and change. Chief people officers are uniquely placed to overcome this obstacle by identifying and developing leadership to secure the sustainable success of their businesses, building cultures that attract and retain the best talent, and shaping the wider workplace, according to a new report from Heidrick & Struggles.
Over the past two years, Heidrick has seen a distinct shift in what CEOs, investors and boards need from their CPO. They want a commercially minded executive committee member who can strategically drive business outcomes through the workforce and as the leader of their function. In this time, Heidrick has also witnessed an acceleration in CPOs’ involvement in and influence on business decisions at board level, partnering with the chair and CEO on non-executive director hiring, CEO succession and wider board effectiveness.
Stepping up as a first-time CPO demands courage, business acumen, a sophisticated level of influence, and the ability to navigate nuanced relationships with credibility. From Heidrick’s latest CPO conversations, they have distilled seven foundations for success in a first-time role.
1. Reinvent your leadership brand while protecting your authenticity.
The CPO role, like all top jobs, can be exposing and lonely, so you need a trusted support network. The Heidrick report explained. It found that an external mentor or coach will allow you to express concerns and frustrations that have to be sealed behind your professional game face, while other new CPOs can provide invaluable understanding and empathy. “If you build good relationships – creating a ‘personal board’ of internal and external contacts – you can access experience and advice quickly,” said one interviewee. “Being part of a first-time CPO community has made a huge difference to my success.”
A degree of reinvention may also be needed. The study noted that the CPO has to win the trust and respect of the executive committee (exco) early in their tenure, something that can be particularly challenging for internal promotees. “Other members of the exco may have a pre-formed opinion of you and may not regard you as an equal,” warned a current CPO. “I initially underestimated the level of sophisticated influencing I would need. You have to reposition your leadership brand and rebuild your understanding of the business through a new, broader lens. Keep what has served you well, recognize what to let go of, and be clear what you stand for.”
Heidrick also noted that refining your personal leadership while remaining authentic to your values is central to making your mark as CPO. “The more experienced you become, the more important it is to be yourself, to have the courage of your convictions and to show who you are,” saif another experienced incumbent. “At the same time, although it’s hard in a new role, showing your personality and vulnerability will add to your credibility.”
Related: How the Chief People Officer is Reinventing HR
As you work on your leadership brand, Heidrick said that you also need to protect the wellbeing of the person behind it, avoiding burnout and building resilience. “Everyone underestimates the sheer volume of the unfamiliar and the complexity involved in the role,” stated one interviewee. “If you don’t manage your energy and downtime, there is a risk both to your health and also to you delivering business value as a C-suite executive.”
2. Be a commercial business leader first, an HR leader second.
Heidrick’s interviews reflect the end of human resources as a support function. “The CPO now shapes the strategic people and culture agenda as a key member of the exco, responsible alongside their C-suite peers for delivering business outcomes; develops the leadership capability needed for the future; leads a best-in-class people function to deliver commercial impact; acts as trusted advisor and coach to the CEO, chair, board members and exco team; and challenges the business to be purpose driven, upholding high standards of ethics and governance,” the firm said.
The AI-Ready Chief People Officer
As organizations push artificial intelligence deeper into day-to-day operations, leadership accountability is shifting sharply toward the top of the people function. New research from Egon Zehnder highlights how the chief people officer is becoming a central architect of workforce transformation, tasked with aligning technology adoption with trust, culture, and ethical stewardship. Let’s take a closer look!
CEOs now expect as a baseline that the CPO can read a P&L, and has a strong working understanding of how people-related decisions impact it – not least because people costs comprise a high percentage of the operating cost, and CEOs need that investment to drive business outcomes. “CPOs have to be able to link their people strategy to financial outcomes, starting every strategic HR initiative by asking: what’s the P&L line this touches, and how will we measure ROI?” said one interviewee. “CEOs can be skeptical of certain strategic people interventions, and you have to be courageous in holding your line on the positive commercial impacts for the business.”
Heidrick also explained that new CPOs have to get to grips with the mechanics of the organization at speed, including where real value is created, and how it lines up alongside current and future competitors, so you can meet exco colleagues at a commercial level. “It’s important to have the numbers at your fingertips and to talk the language of the business, so you can both contribute and challenge,” said a current CPO.
This knowledge is fundamental to developing a commercial people strategy. “People are the single biggest cost of any business, so identifying the top three metrics where you can generate the highest value is essential,” pointed out another CPO. “I realized that increasing just one productivity measure generates millions, so my goal is always to drive one change that creates enough savings to fund our biggest people investments.”
3. Build a trusted, functional relationship with the CEO.
Speaking with CEOs today, Heidrick said that it is clear that global structural forces are shaping a new world order, and leaders operating within it have less control and have to be more reactive. In these deeply challenging times, these CEOs need their CPOs to partner them through complex decision-making processes.
The CEO is every CPO’s most important working relationship, one that should be based on independence, mutual respect, and a balance of support and challenge. “You are in a unique position to share with the CEO what is actually going on in the business. You can give them the unvarnished facts. I see myself as a sparring partner in the same way the CFO is. This takes courage and skill,” pointed out a current CPO.
4. Orchestrate board, remco and investor interactions.
To deliver business strategy, the CPO has to simultaneously manage a multitude of stakeholder relationships, including with the board, chair, remuneration committee and investors, according to the Heidrick report. The shared wisdom from many experienced CPOs is that you need to develop into a sophisticated stakeholder manager. “You have to build credibility in the eyes of all these stakeholders, while also being perceived to manage their confidentiality and recommendations in an objective and helpful way,” said one.
Over the past couple of years, Heidrick has seen an accelerated increase in CPOs becoming more involved and influencing business decisions at board level; both in hiring decisions and board effectiveness. “Ensuring the right board is in place now and in the future is also high on the agenda,” the report said. “CPOs have a key role in board succession, supporting the chair to define board competencies and forecast the skillsets needed for the future. Consequently, the CPO/ chair relationship is becoming closer, more pivotal and more business-outcome driven.”
Acting as a bridge between the chair and CEO is a particularly sophisticated job, requiring a nuanced understanding of the individuals involved and the nature and maturity of their relationship. “Your role as intermediary will be affected by whether their relationship is a positive one, a work in progress or problematic,” warned one CPO.
5. Set a competitive people strategy.
“Today’s business leaders have to balance competing needs across the whole enterprise value chain, delivering a win-win proposition for customers, employees, suppliers and shareholders, while also creating industry-changing propositions,” the Heidrick report shared. “The CPO therefore has to set a people strategy that will find, shape and support the right leaders, talent and culture.”
Related: Chief People Officer 2030: Developing a Toolkit for the Future of Leadership
“You have to understand what the business needs to achieve and how people need to perform to enable that,” explained a current incumbent. “Start with a diagnosis of the organization: how it makes money, its financial history and existing situation, what types of skills it needs, what ways of working, what kind of capabilities, how the hierarchy is designed.”
Formulating your people strategy is a complex process that begins at grassroots. “The first thing I do is a deep dive into every department, how they operate, what they do,” explained another interviewee. “You can’t just look at the top. You’ve got to go into those functions and understand what their pieces are, how they operate. In the early days, you’ve got the opportunity to ask all those questions without fear.”
6. Assemble the right HR team at pace.
No CPO can function without the right HR department behind them. “Your team is the critical enabler of you being an enterprise exco member,” stated a current CPO. “You want the best talent in your team so you have the space to lead.” Getting overwhelmed and underdelivering on promises will quickly undermine your credibility – but you can’t commit to delivering on your strategy until you have the right personnel in place, the Heidrick report noted.
An early assessment – ideally precommencement – of existing capabilities is vital to being able to move forward at the necessary speed. “Before joining a company, I workshop and have one-to-ones with my new team to get a good sense of what I’m walking into,” said one of Heidrick’s interviewees. “I’ll have a hypothesis on what the business needs them to achieve; whether the structure is right; and what the capability of the organization and HR function is.”
Another highly successful CPO always makes a point of pre-assembling a significant part of their own team before they take up a new role, hiring to complement legacy talent. This means they can hit the ground running and have the bandwidth to cope with the “drinking from a firehose” experience that can derail new CPOs.
7. Enable the business for the age of AI.
Fundamental to the people strategy is understanding how artificial intelligence is going to impact the workforce, according to the Heidrick report. It explained that AI places business at a crossroads, and the CPO is the exco member who ensures the business has the talent and working practices in place to enable AI to meet business priorities. “The question the CPO needs to be asking themselves is: how can the application of AI enable us to achieve our business’s strategic priorities more effectively and quicker; and what does that mean for our people?” said a current incumbent.
Every CPO has to upskill themselves to become AI literate as quickly as possible, in order to formulate and run user cases for AI within the business, and so determine how the workforce needs to transform to become AI-enabled. Meanwhile, Heidrick explained that your HR strategy should include optimizing how AI is used within the HR function itself. “CPOs will have a pivotal role in AI transformation across the organization, enabling their teams and organizations to adopt and optimize the technology, meshing AI with people’s purpose, expectations, experience, expertise and leadership capabilities, and even managing fears within the workforce as the technology landscape changes working skills and experience requirements,” explained a current CPO.
To read the full report, click here!
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
