The Role: The Vice President of People will report to the Chief Executive Officer and be responsible for all aspects of the people function. The Vice President of People will be a part of the Leadership team and as such will report to the Board on related compensation and people initiatives. As an early stage, scientific and technically driven therapeutics venture, the company currently has a small, close-knit management team with a passion to scale up technology, R&D, and engineering to bring new therapeutic antibodies and medicines to market. This role has five peers including Founder & Chief Scientific Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief Business Officer, VP Legal, and Sr. Director of Finance. The Vice President of People will mentor and lead a small team including the Director, Talent & Culture and a Human Resources consultant.
The primary deliverables of the Vice President of People is to provide thought leadership to the management team, define the short-and-long term strategic people plans, and implement the processes which drive DEIB and strong culture that align with BigHat’s mission. Once defined this role will be responsible for driving and maintaining a highly efficient human resources infrastructure and supporting people, processes, and systems.
- With the guidance of Board and the management team, develop the short-and-long range strategic people plan and corresponding budgets.
- The Vice President of People will be responsible for all aspects of the people function including coaching the management team, workforce planning and strategy, total rewards, organizational design, HRIS, talent acquisition, and talent management including performance management, employee engagement, culture, learning and development, and DEIB.
- Function as a coach and strategic business partner to the leadership team as well as front-line leaders providing scenario planning and advising the team on HR best practices.
- Develop an efficient organizational design to help the company grow and scale efficiently and prepare for future growth.
- Lead and mentor the existing Head of Talent and HR Consultants with a focus on lending support and guidance as the People function scales.
- Oversee the refinement of career paths and levels with a strong total rewards philosophy executing compensation and benefits that are motivating, equitable, and reward a high-performing culture.
- Prepare and report to the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors on all compensation and benefits issues.
- Build and oversee employee experience and life cycles to make BigHat an amazing place to work and ensure retention of key talent.
- Represent Big Hat’s employer brand with new and potential employees in the market.
- Ensure compliance with all human resources, government, employee regulations and policies.
- Drive and manage performance reviews and deliver employee bonus and recognition programs.
- Own all Human Resources systems, data, and analytics and work with cross- functional teams to advance the growth of systems and the HR technology roadmap.
- Establish a collaborative, cross-functional, open culture, and key processes for how teams’ functions effectively, manages through conflict, and makes decisions. Implement strategies for growth which positively develop a team of integrated employees effectively working together towards the common mission.
- Enhance the culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging and report on this to the CEO and Board of Directors.
- Provide guidance to cross-functional teams and provide cascaded communications on all people initiatives ensuring the appropriate resources to deliver messages.
The successful candidate will have 10+ years’ human resources experience in a fast- paced, high-growth environment managing complex business issues and cross- functional teams including scientific, engineering, clinical, and leadership populations. We prefer candidates with experience working in a venture backed fast growth environment who has experience working in a larger company as well and knows what good looks like. The company is poised to take advantage of recent successful partnerships, innovation, and advancements of their platform. The successful candidate must have demonstrated the business acumen to support a young leadership team and a seasoned Board of Directors to introduce new therapeutics in established markets successfully.
The optimal candidate will have a naturally high degree of energy and enthusiasm, with a collaborative leadership style and an ability to think outside the box as the business grows.
In particular, the Vice President of People, must be able to balance longer-term strategies with pragmatic tactical solutions. The right manager holds themself accountable, as the first step in holding the management team accountable for their objectives. While having spent time at both large and small companies, it is essential the candidate is passionate about the opportunity to play a major role in the growth and development of people initiatives in an early-stage company. The successful candidate will guide the company culture while Big Hat advances change within the industry.
Candidates should possess a broad knowledge of human resources and the issues associated with scaling an early-stage venture, as well as an understanding of working in a complex scientific or technology focused company environment. The candidates should have demonstrated a high degree of reliability, autonomy and integrity representing their prior companies in developing and guiding short and long-term people strategies. Broader experience across a variety of both small and large companies and industries of varying scale would be optimal. As these are new platforms and therapeutic capabilities with unusually high potential, it is critical that prospective candidates bring a broad market perspective coupled with strong credibility to scale the people function.
In brief, the optimal candidate will have:
- A bachelor’s degree in a related field (e.g. human resources, organizational development, organizational behavior, psychology, etc.) is required.
- A minimum of 10+ years’ experience and ownership of strategic business partnering, talent development, talent acquisition, organizational development, talent management, total rewards, HRIS, and people operations ideally focused on the biotech, technology, pharmaceutical, or healthcare market.
- Demonstrated success in developing 1-3-year strategic plans in the human resources function and presenting these in front of the leadership team and Board of Directors.
- Demonstrated experience growing a people function in a fast-growth start-up. Successful experience with a mix of experience working in a best-in-class larger organization and an early-stage start-up will be highly preferred.
- General understanding of the Life Sciences or technology industries preferred. Ability to synthesize complex data and communicate key facts appropriate to the audience.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills; ability to articulate a vision and motivate and influence stakeholders.
