Welcome to this edition of our Global Update. To start, I could not be more proud of the team for bringing our global community together over the past three months with amazing partner organisations and leaders willing to create peer-to-peer sharing and innovation—in Amsterdam with Catawiki, London with Lloyds Bank, Jakarta with Unilever, Melbourne with We Are Unity, Hamburg with Wempe, Kuala Lumpur with Boston Scientific, and Bangalore with Synchrony. More than 500 People, Culture, and Transformation leaders joined these sessions as part of the ChapmanCG global community.
In this issue, you will find insights from Vargin Yeke on elite sports and the lessons we can apply to the corporate world, views by Mary Darke and Chris Taylor on the impact interim senior hiring can have on organisations, and an in-depth look at Ireland with analysis from Andrea Merrigan in our Spotlight Series.
If you are a business leader, board member or functional expert, this is one of the most exciting times for talent, organisational effectiveness, and AI.
Today and Into 2026
In this time of seismic change, we are seeing new roles emerge and others growing in importance, particularly in workforce transformation and skills. There is also increased activity around succession planning for CPO roles at both group and regional levels. Many companies are already preparing for 2026, with heavy change agendas that will make this a vibrant time for the function.
At the same time, HR and organisational functions are consolidating, often with fewer people due to automation and AI. This has created demand for heavyweight business partners and specialists, even as leaders debate the right balance. A recent McKinsey report, Scaling the 21st-century leadership factory, highlights how leadership development must evolve beyond specific expert roles. For some organisations, this is playing out at pace in Human Capital functions.
Shifting Needs Beyond HR – Where Next?
We live in a world of transformation, agility, and VUCA—volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Digitalisation, technology, and optimisation are no longer side projects; they’re the baseline.
My personal view is companies experimenting with titles like Chief Happiness Officer were well-intentioned, but happiness alone doesn’t do justice to the role. Effectiveness does. The future of HR is more aligned with something we have seen: Chief Human Effectiveness Officer—a role accountable not just for engagement, but for how people, skills, technology, and structures drive business performance. While this isn’t new, the pace of change is accelerating the need to categorise what the intention and remit is. Of course, there are roadblocks: span of control, overlaps with other functions, and the limits of technical HR expertise. Still, the direction of travel is clear.
Which Skills Will Matter Most?
Pay transparency legislation is forcing greater clarity in job architecture. Large companies can adapt, but many others are straining. Beyond compliance, organisations must be ready to explain why they pay what they pay and turn that into a story that resonates with employees and candidates.
AI has also raised expectations for faster adoption. But real progress means allowing space for trial and error. The best leaders aren’t those who never fail, but those who learn quickly and reinvent themselves. With so much shifting around them, measuring and developing leadership capability is more complex than ever.
Structural choices also loom large. For example: outsourcing and offshoring—is it only about cost, or is it about relying on models organisations already feel comfortable with? The challenge is to choose deliberately, aligning structure with strategy, not defaulting to what’s easiest.
The HR function has now evolved into a mix of talent scout, growth officer, and strategist—balancing technology and process with a deep understanding of people and the external landscape.
We have Seen This Evolution Firsthand
For many years, ChapmanCG has been known as an expert search firm for HR, but as the function has broadened, so have we.
Clients are no longer looking for support solely in HR leadership. Over the past 12 months, we’ve been asked to step into corporate officer hiring more broadly, particularly in contexts of high transformation and growth. We recently appointed our first NASDAQ-listed CFO in the US and are increasingly supporting searches beyond HR, including transformation, communications, and other critical leadership roles.
I will be the first to admit I never thought ChapmanCG would need to broaden. For a long time, our identity was firmly rooted in HR leadership. But our clients have pulled us forward. They’ve told us what they need, and the reality is clear: the boundaries of the “people function” have blurred into the very centre of organisational effectiveness.
Therefore, the question is where will your function sit in three years? Will you still be working in HR as we once knew it? Or will you be driving transformation, shaping growth, and redefining effectiveness across the business? I believe it will be the latter. And it promises to be an exciting time.
I hope you enjoy this Global Update, and next time you speak with one of the ChapmanCG team, please share your views with us.
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