Lucy Ralph

Visionary, commercial & authentic as a Head of People, with 15+ years of HR leadership experience across competitive B2B, SaaS, data, FinTech, consulting, private equity, SMEs & international corporate sectors.

Partners with executives & C-suite teams to create and drive the ‘people agenda’. Champions inclusive, positive cultures to attract & retain talent. Develops people strategies aligned to evolving business needs.

Experienced in leveraging capabilities across Employee Wellbeing, Organisational Design, Employee Relations (ER), L&D, HRIS, Salary Benchmarking, and use of HR metrics to enable decision making.

Strong coaching skills, stakeholder management, communications, and interpersonal skills, delivering    HR best practice to meet evolving business needs, and enabling the business to achieve optimum results.

Pragmatic, data informed, problem solving, and an agent for change, passionate about driving positive working cultures and environments, excited to work in dynamic and continually improving environments.

Positions the people function to deliver value & strengthen strategic alignment with the wider business. 

GAR Consulting

Director                                                                                                          Apr 2023 to Present

Complete ownership for Human Resources (HR) and the people agenda for clients of the business. Specialism in full lifecycle HR review and provision of consulting expertise.

Business restructuring planning and execution, driving cost-reduction focused and synergy-led restructuring processes for the business. Spearheaded delivery of cost reductions ranging from £750k to £5m per year.

Engages as a Consultant within a ‘boutique’ consultancy, working primarily with SMEs, start-ups and scale-up ventures, focusing on HR and business operational improvement projects, including restructures, culture creation and HR auditing. Supports diverse clients including Funding Xchange, IT World & Bright Software.

Provision of management support & HR training on process and execution, supporting restructuring activity.

Undertook an audit of existing strategy and operations, with an emphasis on talent attraction, recruitment, onboarding, retention, development, offboarding and advocate leavers.

Took the lead in operational efficiency identification and execution spanning HR and Operations Teams, realising a significant bandwidth creation for the team, and hiring / recruitment cost avoidance of £300k+.

Successfully mentored and coached HR Leaders and Effective Leadership Teams, as well as engaging as    a PE-backed Chief People Officer.

Key contributions and successes:

• Led priority planning for recommendations / execution activity for a 2 year programme of change
• Provided M&A process consulting expertise, including advising on operational separation & TUPE
• Consulted with clients in the execution of FinTech carve-out, including maturing core HR processes
• Delivered a company restructuring from a people & process prospective, realising £5m p.a. benefits 
• Launched a new company performance management process and improved company competencies 

Norstella

Chief Administration Officer                                                                       Feb 2022 to Apr 2023

Business leadership and administration, engaging in a dual role as Chief Administrative Officer / Chief HR Officer within a recently merged reorganisation, engaging as part of the Group Executive Leadership Team.

Day-to-day operational leadership across a business unit with 300 employees and a further 300 offshore resources, business unit budgetary management and optimisation of around $50m. Monitored KPI metrics.

Spearheaded group communications & engagement for the post-merger / M&A integration workstreams.

Key contributions and successes:

• Championed a global M&A harmonisation and integrations plan for 4 newly-merged business units
• Established and oversaw EDI committees and initiatives across the recently-merged organisation
• Hosted regular company townhall sessions, articulating change initiatives to maintain staff morale
• Drove cost reduction of business unit people operating costs by over £5m, exceeding expectations

Evaluate Ltd

Chief HR Officer                                                                                            May 2018 to Apr 2023

Strategic partner to CEO and Senior Leadership Team (SLT) during three rounds of Private Equity (P/E) investment. Instrumental in supporting rapid business growth from $21m - $75m t/o from 2016 – 2022.

Executive leadership, driving the HR and people agenda during the transition from ‘Founder-led’ to P/E Investment cycles & subsequent M&A, with growth from just 50 employees to around 300 talented people.  

Defined, articulated and executed a commercially-aligned HR strategy, promoting a high-performance culture, organisational development, learning & development (L&D), EDI, and employee engagement (EE).

Collaboratively engaged with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) during change management & transition.

Effectively and persuasively advocated for employee needs, whilst delivering and demonstrating true value.

Leadership, management and motivation of a ‘best in class’ HR team and function, comprising of 7 people.

Supported both corporate growth and cost management, leading a team of 5 support staff spanning office management, communications, travel, events and CSR.  Mentoring and coaching, supporting talented staff.

Ensured up-to-date HR policies & procedures were clearly articulated to staff in the UK, USA & Asia Pacific.

Successfully supported the CTO in upskilling the tech team to an offshore solution, impacting 50+ staff.

Instrumental in M&A activities, including the TUPE transfers of a key UK acquisition and a UK integration.

Key contributions and successes:

• Established HR team expertise and improved capabilities across the UK, USA and APAC region
• Championed a high-performance culture, with high-levels of employee retention and engagement
• Designed, articulated and delivered leadership restructuring, as well as successful M&A integration
• Introduced highly-innovative and comprehensive total compensation, rewards and benefits plans
• Rewards and benefits model has subsequently been adopted by other companies in the PE portfolio  
• Developed and led centralised Corporate Services functions to drive efficiencies and global policies 
• Delivered an ESG audit, yielding year-on-year improvements to become portfolio leaders in ESG 
• Provided ‘hands on’ support and involvement in PE round, overseeing shareholder communications 
• Drove an L&D culture, and embedded learning to align with customer / product focussed innovation
• Established and promoted career pathways and company competencies, supporting growth plans
• Led succession planning activities, including identifying talented individuals for career progression
• Delivered Wellbeing initiatives, including monthly events and mental first aider training opportunities

Evaluate Ltd

Head of HR & Corporate Services                                                              Sep 2014 to May 2018

Responsible for all elements of Human Resources (HR) and Corporate Services, tasked with establishing a new support function aimed at enabling continued business growth. Reported directly to the Chief Executive.

Took ownership for the people agenda within the business, positively impacting between 80-200 employees.

Leadership, management and motivation of a multi-functional team of staff, including mentoring & coaching.

End-to-end project lifecycle management & delivery, encompassing planning, scope, budget, risk & issues.

Key contributions and successes:

• Migrated payroll from a Finance-driven FTE role to and outsourced provider, realising key benefits
• Organised and hosted 4 global company meetings across Scotland, Italy, France and Portugal
• Introduced monthly global team events & communication initiatives, boosting employee engagement
• Set-up an Employee Voices Group and Employee NPS Tacking, with improvements in each round
• Instrumental in delivery of a series of office expansions and moves, including the UK, USA & Japan
• Played a key role in the implementation of the first employee HRIS, improving HR decision making
• Supported the first-ever PE investment cycle in 2015/16, including communications & admin issues
• Recognised for success as Head of HR, winning Great Places to Work & Top-50 Workplace Awards

Cambridge University – Judge Business School         People and Organisational Effectiveness, 2024

Euromoney Learning                                                   Chief Operating Officer Course, 2023

CIPD Qualifications                                                     CIPD Certificate in HR Management, 2017

Pragmatic Marketing                                                   Stage 2 Qualified, 2017

Association for Project Management                          APMP Practitioner Qualification, 2015

Cambridge University                                                  International Diploma in Business Management, 2008

University of Central Lancashire                                 MA in International Business, 2004

University of Central Lancashire                                 BA (Hons) in Business and Marketing, 2003