A natural match if you have experience leading HR teams in fast-evolving tech environments and managing people strategies for product and consulting businesses.
Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.
Original posting from Reaktor via Ashby
WE'RE HIRING A HEAD OF BUSINESS HR TO HELP DEVELOP AND BUILD THE PEOPLE PRACTICES THAT SUPPORT REAKTOR'S NEXT PHASE: A GROWING SOFTWARE PRODUCT BUSINESS ALONGSIDE OUR CORE TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS WORK.
Reaktor is turning a consulting-led technology company into a diversified technology group, with a software product business growing alongside the technology solutions core that has carried us for 25 years. That shift will succeed or stall on people decisions: which leaders we back, how we organise, how we pay, and how talent moves between businesses that make money in different ways. You lead those decisions where they happen, in the business.
We're around 700 people, organised into business portfolios, each with a People Partner. We're raising what that role means: partners who shape how their portfolio grows, organises, and leads, with our operations team handling the operational work. You lead the partners, partner directly with senior business leaders, and build the people model for Reaktor's growing product business.
The role has three parts.
- Lead the partners. You lead, coach, and develop the People Partner team and define what great partnering looks like at Reaktor: partners who come to a business review with a view on capability, cost, and risk, measured by the decisions they shape and the people metrics that move the business.
- Build the people model for product. You lead on writing the playbook for how Reaktor builds, pays, and grows product teams, and partner with our product leadership directly while it takes shape, alongside the People Partner who covers our wider defence and security portfolio.
- Raise the leadership bar. You help us hire, develop and keep leaders who set the standard, and make sure leadership quality shows up in our talent decisions.
Our strategy and where product fits
Our strategy has three parts that reinforce each other. Technology solutions, our consulting business across eight industries from aerospace to healthcare, is our largest business and has a long record of stable profitability. The software product business starts with a defence and security product family sold to NATO members and partners, followed by products that grow out of client work in our other industries, and over time shifts our revenue toward recurring, higher-margin licences. The Reaktor Ecosystem, the founder-led companies we co-found and invest in, extends what we can bring to clients.
Each part runs on different economics, so each needs something different from its people model. Consulting runs on expertise, utilisation and client relationships. Product runs on licence revenue and product milestones. The job is to serve both from one company, with career paths that let people move between consulting and product without losing standing. You write that model and apply it first to our defence and security product.
Where this role sits
You report to the Chief People Officer and sit on the P&C Lead team. P&C deliberately separates partnering from programme design and operations, and that split shapes this role.
- Specialist teams, including Talent Acquisition, Talent Development and Compensation, design the company-wide programmes. You bring the business's needs into them and make sure they land.
- People Operations (which we call HUG) owns process, data and operational service delivery, and relies on your partners for clean decisions on organisation and roles.
Every business portfolio is served by a People Partner and a TA partner. You own how partnership works in the business.
What you'll own
- The People Partner team. You’ll lead and develop a team of four People Partners, set a shared bar for what great partnering looks like at Reaktor, and hold that bar across every portfolio.
- The product people playbook. Roles, organisation, incentives with Compensation and career paths with Talent Development, applied first to our defence and security product.
- Portfolio people plans. A people plan for every portfolio, tied to its business plan: capability, workforce shape, leadership bench and the risks that matter.
- Organisation design and workforce planning. Sound advice on structure, spans and layers, roles and talent mix, with decisions cleanly recorded and implemented.
- Talent, succession and leadership quality. Talent reviews and succession plans for critical roles, and a higher bar for how people lead.
- Employment relations. Partners handle senior-stakeholder cases, and HUG resolves the rest.
- Organisational change and M&A. Partnering the business through any major change processes, with partners acting as leads for their portfolio.
- People insight. AI-generated people packs give partners and leaders a clear read on the people landscape within their teams, so partner time goes to judgement.
How you'll work
- You think commercially. You understand how product and consulting businesses make money, from recurring revenue to utilisation, and frame people decisions in those terms.
- You're straight with leaders. You give senior people the honest read, including the one they didn't want, and bring options with it.
- You lead with judgement. You know the rules well enough to see when a situation needs something better than the policy.
- You’re hands-on. You lead and develop the people partner team while personally partnering with our product leadership.
What success looks like after a year
- Every business portfolio has a people plan tied to its business plan.
- Business leaders bring their People Partner into decisions before they're made.
- The product people playbook is written, agreed, and in use in our DefSec product business.
- Critical roles have succession cover, and talent reviews lead to decisions that get acted on.
- Regretted attrition is baselined, understood by portfolio, and moving the right way.
- The People Partner team is developing and trusted to work without you in the room.
What you'll bring
- Around 12 or more years in HR, with significant experience as a senior HR business partner and leading a team of partners.
- A product background. We're looking for someone who has led HR in a software or technology product company through growth, and understands how product organisations are built, paid and led.
- Enough grasp of consulting economics to partner both sides of the business, or the appetite to learn them quickly.
- Because you'll work with our defence and security product business, security clearance from the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo). With your consent, we start the process with the final candidate before the offer is confirmed.
- Strong experience in organisation design and workforce planning, including through growth, restructuring, or acquisition.
- Knowledge of Finnish employment law and co-determination, and experience handling complex ER cases. International employment experience is a plus.
- Credibility with senior, opinionated experts, and comfort bringing data and AI tools to people decisions.
- Fluent working English, with Finnish a strong advantage.
How we work
Reaktor has been building digital products since 2000, from Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Seinäjoki, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Tokyo and New York. Our clients range from Delta Air Lines and Epic Games to Adidas and the Finnish Defence Forces. Hierarchy is light, decisions get made by the people closest to the work, and you're expected to use that freedom.
Location
- Our Helsinki office, at least 3 days per week. The rest is flexible.
Applying
Send us a line. You don't need a CV if you don't have one ready, so a LinkedIn profile, a website or a portfolio works fine. We want Reaktor to be a place that values people for the whole of who they are, and we encourage applications from every background. If you meet most of what's above and not all of it, apply anyway. Please apply by Monday 26 October.
Source: Reaktor careers (Ashby)