The VP of People

A decade ago I didn’t pay much attention to the VP of HR position. Today, I view it as a key role if you are growing headcount at least 50% year over year and have more than 20 people in the company. And, title inflation not withstanding (see following), I prefer to call it “VP of People” since we are people after all, not “human resources” or “HRs”.

Over the past five years, I’ve had the privilege to work with a handful of amazing VPs of People. And, as several of our portfolio companies continue their incredible growth rates, I’ve been involved in recruiting a few new ones to these companies. I have three basic principles for each of them.

1. The VP of People must be part of the executive team and report to the CEO. Many companies that I’ve been involved in have viewed the VP of HR as “key recruiter and HR administrator.” This is not very useful. In particular, iin a startup that is growing, this perspective quickly and dramatically underpositions the VP of People as you’ll see in my next principle. If the CEO isn’t willing to have the VP of People on his executive team, I think it’s worth asking the question “Why not?” Aren’t people the most important resource you are adding to your company?

A decade ago I didn’t pay much attention to the VP of HR position. Today, I view it as a key role if you are growing headcount at least 50% year over year and have more than 20 people in the company. And, title inflation not withstanding (see following), I prefer to call it “VP of People” since we are people after all, not “human resources” or “HRs”.

Over the past five years, I’ve had the privilege to work with a handful of amazing VPs of People. And, as several of our portfolio companies continue their incredible growth rates, I’ve been involved in recruiting a few new ones to these companies. I have three basic principles for each of them.

1. The VP of People must be part of the executive team and report to the CEO. Many companies that I’ve been involved in have viewed the VP of HR as “key recruiter and HR administrator.” This is not very useful. In particular, iin a startup that is growing, this perspective quickly and dramatically underpositions the VP of People as you’ll see in my next principle. If the CEO isn’t willing to have the VP of People on his executive team, I think it’s worth asking the question “Why not?” Aren’t people the most important resource you are adding to your company?

2. The VP of People is the go-to person on the executive team for other executive team members. Every CEO I’ve ever worked with either pays too little attention or too much attention to the dynamics of the people on the executive team. This isn’t just the CEO to VP interactions; it’s the VP to VP interaction dynamics.

When VP issues blow up, CEOs often lose huge chunks of time to trying to figure out how to manage through or mitigate the issues. It’s the VP of People’s job to A) Help everyone work through the issues, and B) Summarize what’s going on to the CEO. There will be cases where the CEO needs to get involved, but by having another executive in the mix, it focuses energy on solving the problems, rather than stacking up, or avoiding, issues.

3. The VP of People is responsible for helping everyone on the executive team, including the CEO, level up. Since I believe that life is one big video game, leveling up in your job should be the goal of everyone, especially executives in a company. This used to be called “professional development” but, like “HR,” I think it misses the broader point as I’m not just talking about professional development, but emotional, intellectual, and personal development. There is no possible way a CEO can focus on this effectively across his team. The VP of People can do this assuming he is on the executive team and is a peer with the other executives.

If you are a CEO of a fast-growing company with more than 20 people, do you have a VP of People?