About the role

The Opportunity
This global technology business is entering an important stage in its growth & evolution.

Following rapid growth over the past three years, the focus is now less on adding headcount and more on building the operational foundations for improving leadership capability and organisational discipline required for the next stage of people performance.

The business is looking for a Chief People Officer who can operate well beyond a traditional People and Culture remit.
Reporting directly to the CEO and working closely with the founders and Executive Leadership Team, you will help move the organisation from founder-led to leader-led.  You have the support of a CEO who is fully behind this and needs a partner to build the business he knows they can be.
The mandate centres on three areas: strengthening the remote operating model, lifting leadership and organisational performance, and leading significant organisational change to grow the cultural elements that will lead to sustainable expansion and predictable performance.  As the business adapts to a technology market being reshaped by AI.

At its core, this role is about improving organisational performance through people, leadership and operating systems.

The Company
This is a global software business with strong open-source foundations and a mission centred on ethical technology, privacy and giving organisations greater control over their data.
It has grown from a small founder-led company into an approximately 80-person organisation, with a fully remote workforce across New Zealand and Europe.

That growth has outpaced some of the systems and leadership practices required at its current scale.
The next stage is about creating greater clarity, stronger leadership, faster decision-making and clearer accountability across countries and time zones.
AI is also changing the capabilities the business needs, how roles are designed and how work gets done. The leadership team sees this as an organisational challenge, not simply a technology one.
The opportunity is to help build the organisation required for that future while protecting the mission and entrepreneurial thinking that shaped the company.

The Role

Build how the company works
One of your first challenges will be strengthening the operating foundations of a truly remote global organisation.

You will:

• Establish clearer decision rights, leadership rhythms and accountability
• Embed practical remote and asynchronous ways of working
• Improve how teams communicate, document, prioritise and execute
• Remove organisational friction and increase speed
  
  

The aim is not more process. It is greater clarity and better execution.

Raise the leadership bar
The organisation needs a meaningful uplift in leadership capability and performance.

You will work directly with the CEO and leadership teams to:

• Strengthen management and leadership capability
• Set clearer expectations around performance and contribution
• Build greater ownership and accountability
• Improve how leaders communicate priorities, decisions and change across a fully remote organisation
• Coach and challenge senior leaders
• Address underperformance earlier and more effectively
  
  

The challenge is to retain the openness, purpose and entrepreneurial energy of the founder-led culture while shifting towards clearer performance expectations, greater accountability and a stronger growth mindset.

Reimagine the organisation for AI
AI is not being treated as another technology rollout.
The business is asking bigger questions about what work should remain human-led, what can be augmented and what should be automated.

You will help turn those questions into organisational decisions.

That includes:

• Redesigning roles, teams and workflows
• Identifying the capabilities the company will need next
• Leading reskilling and workforce planning
• Helping leaders navigate significant organisational change
• Connecting change to measurable improvements in performance and output
  
  

Lead the global People function
Alongside the wider organisational mandate, you will lead the practical People and employment requirements of a global business.
This includes employee relations, remuneration, recruitment, performance, organisational change, policies, systems and employment risk across multiple jurisdictions.
This is a hands-on executive role.

You may be shaping organisational design with the CEO in the morning and working directly through a complex performance matter later that day.

The Fit

You have built this before
You have experienced the point where a growing technology company needs to become more deliberate about how it operates.
You may be a Chief People Officer, VP People, People Director, organisational effectiveness or transformation leader, or come from a broader COO-style background.

The title matters less than what you have actually changed.

You will bring:

• Proven experience building a high-performance culture across remote or globally distributed teams
• Technology, SaaS, software or digital experience
• Experience building operating models and organisational systems in a growth environment
• A strong track record lifting leadership capability and accountability
• Organisational design, restructuring and significant change experience
• Multi-country People and employment experience
• The ability to move between executive design and hands-on delivery
  
  

Founder-led and scale-up experience will be highly relevant.

You are a change-maker
This role needs someone who wants to change things, not protect the status quo.

You are commercially minded and interested in organisational performance, not simply the mechanics of HR.
You are comfortable building what does not yet exist, operating through ambiguity, making difficult calls and taking ownership for the outcome.
You can challenge a CEO and senior leadership team while maintaining trust, and you use evidence to understand whether change is actually working.

Most importantly, you are an operator. You build, test, adjust and make things happen.

You can lead globally
You must be based in New Zealand and comfortable working flexibly across New Zealand and European time zones.
The role is fully remote, with Auckland preferred but not essential.

If you want the opportunity to reshape how a global remote technology company leads, performs and organises itself, this is a rare chance to do it from the executive table.

Please note, only candidates currently based in New Zealand with valid working rights will be considered.