How we do it
We are the competitive advantage: searching, consulting and assessing every client and candidate individually.
There is no broadstroke analysis of the market. We use targeted searches, have an in-depth understanding of specialist and generalists, and access to a diverse network of personal contacts developed over 20 years of hands-on experience.
Who we work with
We work with FTSE 100 organisations, private equity-backed enterprises and new challenger brand businesses across the commercial sector.
Delivering C-Suite, Leadership and Mid-Management hires, we resource, assess and select talent across the employee lifecycle using our unparalleled HR network cultivated from 20 years in the field.
Latest Opportunities
View allDirector of People Operations
- Type: Permanent
- Location: UKHybrid (Bristol 2 days pw/plus remote working)
Our client is a leading PE-backed consumer services group operating at significant scale across the UK and Ireland. With a distributed workforce of over 16,000 colleagues across more than 1,000 locations, this is a role of genuine consequence, sitting on the Senior Leadership Team, reporting to the CPO, and acting as the strategic lead for all people operations across the region.
The function spans the full people operations and shared services remit: HR systems and data, employee relations, payroll, process transformation, contingent and supply workforce compliance, and programme delivery, led through a team of c.40. The agenda reflects the pace of the business: AI and digital transformation, accelerating M&A integration, and building an analytics capability that genuinely informs decisions rather than simply reports on them, all in service of delivering the best possible experience for every colleague, at the best commercial value for the organisation.
The role carries genuine statutory and governance weight. The successful candidate will hold ultimate accountability for employment law compliance across two jurisdictions, with responsibility for ensuring a complex ER caseload is managed with rigour and consistency at the appropriate level. Beyond this, the role demands strategic command of people governance and risk across the full employment lifecycle, setting the standards and frameworks that ensure the organisation meets its obligations to regulatory bodies and upholds the professional standards required of a workforce operating in a regulated environment.
The successful candidate will demonstrate a track record of success as a senior leader within a large, complex, consumer-led, multi-site organisation, ideally PE-backed or high-growth, where infrastructure was being built rather than inherited. Leading HR transformation and M&A integration, with the commercial acumen and executive presence to influence at the highest level and, critically, a proven ability to deploy AI in a people operations context; to have built the case, seen it land, and measured what it delivered. This is a role for a conceptual thinker who can also execute. Healthcare, retail, or FMCG backgrounds are particularly relevant.
Read onHead of HR
- Type: Permanent
- Location: UKLondon 3 days / 2 days remote
Our client is a privately owned, founder-led financial services business headquartered in London seeking to hire a HR leader to join their Senior Management Team. Having scaled to over 100 employees through organic growth and strategic acquisition — with significant further growth targeted — the business has reached an inflection point where people infrastructure, leadership capability, and organisational culture have become defining strategic priorities. The environment is entrepreneurial, commercially focused, and flat in structure, with a young and ambitious workforce and a leadership team deeply invested in building something of lasting quality.
Reporting directly to the Managing Director, this is a standalone senior generalist role with genuine strategic influence. This role offers the full HR Generalist agenda with priorities that include; reviewing HR policy and process infrastructure, increasing organisational capability and leadership development, embedding competency frameworks and performance management culture, and continuous review of compensation and benefits. The successful candidate will be both architect and builder — moving fluidly between shaping strategy and executing it, with full ownership of outcomes.
The ideal candidate will be a seasoned HR generalist from professional services, financial services, management consultancy or similar, with a track record across the full spectrum of HR — from Board-level advisory to hands-on policy, process, and people management. Resilience, credibility, and confidence navigating complex stakeholder relationships, including entrepreneurial founders, are essential. Experience in a regulated or acquisitive, scaling environment would be a distinct advantage. For an HR professional who combines strategic capability with a practical, delivery-focused mindset and thrives on genuine ownership, this is an exceptional opportunity.
Read onHead of People
- Type: Permanent
- Location: UKCentral London
Two locations. Two distinct communities. One extraordinary brief. This is a genuine chance to step into a people leadership role at the heart of one of the UK’s most compelling luxury businesses – shaping culture, building engagement and helping define what exceptional looks and feels like for the people who bring it to life every day.
This is a dedicated people leadership role spanning two central London locations, each with its own distinct culture and community, and each at a different point in its journey. Together they represent an extraordinary brief: to own the people function across two exceptional and evolving environments.
This is not an inherited, settled role. It is a genuinely formative one. A baseline engagement survey has just been completed and the results provide a clear platform to build from. The Group People Director has a strong strategic vision and is looking for someone who will both deliver on that vision and contribute meaningfully to its continued design.
You will lead the people function across both locations with a combined headcount of approximately 230 employees. You will execute the group people strategy on the ground, ensuring both locations experience it as a lived reality rather than a document, and develop two direct reports, shifting both from reactive case management into proactive, commercially minded business partnering. Building engagement and culture from a clear starting point will be central to the role, using the survey data already gathered to design and deliver meaningful work. The right candidate will also contribute to the design of the people strategy itself, bringing insight from the London environment back into the group. There is a potential role too in packaging the culture of both locations as the organisation expands internationally into new markets.
Read on
The team and I have worked with Jo now on a number of occasions for various recruitment assignments. I have always found Jo to be consultative and considered in her approach but above all honest and straight forward! She has a great understanding of her market place and is always at the end of the line to offer insight and market knowledge. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Vana and look forward to our continued relationship.
Resourcing Partner, Nationwide Building Society