Anthony James-Winner

Strategic HR Business Partner (Assoc. CIPD Level 5) with 17 years in the insurance sector, including 13 in HR and 4+ in strategic HR roles. Experienced in driving people strategies that enable business transformation, with a strong track record in change management, organisation design, talent development, and leadership capability building. Trusted advisor and coach to senior leaders, known for aligning people priorities with commercial goals to deliver measurable impact and improved business performance. Resilient, commercially astute, and passionate about building inclusive, high-performance cultures.

Career History

Strategic People Partner | Direct Line owned by Aviva | April 2025 – present

Strategic People Partnering with senior leaders across high-growth business areas and head office functions to shape and deliver people strategies that drive business performance. Focused on organisation design, talent development, and strategic workforce planning to ensure the right structures, capabilities, and leadership are in place to support long-term growth and agility.

Key responsibilities:

• Develop and execute strategic people plans aligned with Group and functional objectives, ensuring delivery of measurable outcomes that support business performance.
• Deliver talent and succession strategies to build leadership pipelines and strengthen critical capabilities
• Drive organisation design initiatives, including diagnosing current structures, designing target operating models by applying OD methodologies to optimise roles, capabilities and ways of working
• Act as a trusted advisor and coach on change, performance, leadership development, influencing decisions at senior level

Key achievements:

• Successfully delivered a talent review and calibration process for leaders, applying a long-term lens on performance and future potential. Offered strategic challenge to placement decisions to ensure rigour, identified top talent, and partnered with senior leaders to implement targeted development plans and build a robust succession pipeline
• Built and implemented a strategic people plan for a key growth area, aligning closely with business objectives and the broader people strategy. Focussed on culture, capability and capacity I also defined clear success measures and influenced senior leaders to take ownership for delivery, embedding accountability and driving meaningful outcomes.
• Led organisation design transformation as People Partner, partnering with business leaders to diagnose, design, and implement a new Target Operating Model, delivering the following outcomes:
  • Clearer accountabilities across teams and hierarchy
  • Enhanced customer outcomes
  • Improved colleague engagement
  • Greater operational efficiency and capacity for growth

People Change Partner | Direct Line Group | June 2021 – April 2025

Partnered with senior stakeholders to diagnose, design, and deliver strategic people change initiatives aligned with organisational and people strategy. Led projects across multiple HR disciplines including Reward, Organisation Design, Talent, Employee Relations, Early Careers, and redundancy. Applied evidence-based practice and data-driven decision-making, using Agile and Waterfall methodologies to manage change effectively.

Key Responsibilities:

• Diagnosed and designed people change programmes using OD principles to optimise structures, roles, and capabilities.
• Delivered cross-functional HR projects supporting transformation and operational efficiency.
• Applied change methodologies (Agile/Waterfall) to ensure effective planning, stakeholder engagement, and delivery.
• Used data and evidence-based insights to inform decisions and measure impact across HR initiatives.

Key Achievements:

• Delivered multiple cost-reduction programmes aligned with strategic goals, achieving over £5M in operational expenditure savings.
• Led a comprehensive review of a promotion panels, using data to evaluate efficiency, colleague engagement, and career transparency. Successfully influenced senior leaders to adopt the recommendation to phase out promotion panels, aligning areas with broader organisational reward and recognition strategies—resulting in improved workforce planning, improved cost management, and strategic alignment.
• Led complex consultation processes, balancing commercial imperatives with employee experience and legal compliance.
• Designed and implemented a digital talent review and calibration solution in collaboration with HRIS, leveraging Workday to streamline processes and improve efficiency.

Senior Recruitment Consultant | Direct Line Group | August 2014 – June 2021

Key accountabilities:

• Ensure 100% fill rate in volume business areas 
• Upskill and develop recruiters
• Lead early careers recruitment, focusing on diversity and inclusion
• Collaborate with Recruitment Marketing on attraction plans 
• Manage senior stakeholders for high-profile graduate recruitment
• Collect data and provide robust MI on recruitment activity 
• Monitor budgets and spend
• Recruit for Senior Specialist vacancies
• Implement change activities for continuous improvement

Key achievements in role:

• Cape Town Reboot: Provided recruitment expertise to address Customer Operations challenges in Cape Town 
• Video Interviewing: Led the transition from telephone to video interviews in volume recruitment 
• Gamification in Apprenticeship Attraction: Collaborated on delivering a gamified experience for apprenticeship programmes, reaching over 500,000 individuals.

HR Generalist | Direct Line Group | February 2012 – August 2014

• Address employee lifecycle queries (pay, benefits, etc.) 
• Assist people managers with HR policies and processes 
• Support SLT / ExCo members with HR needs 
• Collaborate with HR stakeholders on cyclical activities (benefits window, payroll cutoff, pay review, etc.)

Senior Claims Handler | Direct Line Group | June 2008 - February 2012

• End to end claims process
• Audit of colleague’s payments
• Dealt with complex claim referrals
• Authorisation level of £7k
• Dealt with escalated complaints

Banking Adviser | Yorkshire Bank | February 2004 – May 2008

CIPD Level 5 qualification