VP, Chief of Staff to the Chief People Officer – Upwork

10% 1-Year Employee Growth Rate | 35% 2-Year Employee Growth Rate | LinkedIn | $168.8M Venture Funding

What Is Employee Growth Rate & Why Is It Important?

Upwork ($UPWK) is the world’s work marketplace. We serve everyone from one-person startups to over 30% of the Fortune 100 with a powerful, trust-driven platform that enables companies and talent to work together in new ways that unlock their potential.

Last year, more than $3.3 billion of work was done through Upwork by skilled professionals who are gaining more control by finding work they are passionate about and innovating their careers.

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We are hiring a Chief of Staff to the Chief People Officer to partner with her & her leadership team for the Human Resources and Talent Innovation team. You will drive the CPO / HR partnership with other executives and teams , build strong relationships with the Upwork executive team & cross-functionally, and lead a portfolio of horizontal & function-specific strategic initiatives (including incubation of key bets for possible graduation & scaling throughout the company).

You will be a strategic thought partner and provide a sounding board while sharing perspectives with the CPO, HR team, and Upwork executive team.  Over time, you will become a proxy as you make decisions and drive prioritization of time and effort through your relationship as a trusted advisor with her & the exec team.

Your Responsibilities:

• Extensive knowledge of progressive and innovative Human Resources organizations.
• Unquestionable ethics and integrity, a track record of impeccable judgment and doing the right thing even when nobody would know if you chose the easy alternative.
• Exceptional written, and oral communication skills that enable preparation of both numeric and narrative driven keynotes, BoD work, all hands, presentations, memos for a range of audiences.
• Track record of cross-functional leadership & comfort with partnering with Finance, Legal, Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering etc. to meet the organization’s needs.
• Outstanding financial acumen and understanding of short and long term implications of decisions to lead long range planning, budget creation and management, as well as ongoing resource allocation and projections.
• Consultative mindset to weigh the opportunities and costs of key investments throughout our HR team.
• Excellent program/project management skills with the ability to drive multiple complex strategic and operational initiatives simultaneously.
• Ability to think strategically from first principles while leading with a sense of urgency through ambiguities.
• Strong external network with which to benchmark, knowledge share, and glean actionable insights.
• Proven history of collaboration and positive cultural impact in a distributed team.
• Bias for action and a mentality that no job is too big or too small to be done the right way.

What it takes to catch our eye:

• Past experience in a similar role in HR orgs (bonus for having lead an HR function, or been the key strategy or finance partner to HR, and / or driven M&A)
• 7+ years of experience in management consulting, private equity, or equivalent experience in a HR or Business Operations role for a technology company.
• Experience in structuring and executing complex analyses to support strategy in a fast-paced, continually evolving environment.

Specific Responsibilities:

• Manage strategic planning and budgeting processes
• Work with leaders to develop OKRs, ensure alignment & support measurement
• Manage rhythm and cadences & optimize organizational processes, etc
• Maximize the time of the HR leadership team and the CPO
• Drive customer feedback loops & strengthen integration across the org

• Support continuous improvement in all people processes, tools, & cadences
• Support & champion continuous operational improvement and exploration.  Partner with the LT to build processes and structures that can scale with the company & organization’s growth
• Identify tools that improve efficiency & alignment org-wide
• Incubation of new initiatives as appropriate and then spinning them off to other teams, or winding them down entirely and integrating our findings to future efforts.
• Advocating for all HR priorities, from L&D to DIBs to TA to Career Pathing to our Hybrid Workforce, especially when their leaders are not in the room.
• Sparring with CPO — pushing her to be a stronger leader, flagging blind spots, and advocating for key priorities.

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Come change how the world works.

#LI-Remote

#LI-BH1

Tagged as: 501+ Employees, Hide US-Only Jobs, Venture Funded