What makes a great CHRO?
CHRO and CPO are among of the fasted growing positions at C-Suite level, but the novelty of these positions across many organisations leaves swathes of people professionals endeavouring to reach the executive table without a well-defined track to reach it.
Looking at research data and the stories of those who have become HR leaders, below we dissect what skills, experience, attitude, and values can help aspiring CHROs and CPOs ensure they have what it takes to be able to excel in these roles and provide some pointers as to how to get there.
What makes a great CHRO?
Converging and Common Paths
Education
Data indicates that CHROs come from a wide range of educational backgrounds. 2025 research shows that top 10 most common degree subjects only account for 52% of all degrees held by CHROs.
Due to the multifaceted nature of the people professional, spanning from operations, data analysis, employer branding, talent retention and more, there is no one academic pursuit or background that can be prescribed as a must-have for HR leaders.
For example, Dr Markos Koumaditis has a PhD in Modern European History from King’s College London and has studied in his native Greece, as well as Italy. In his late 20s he was a lecturer, followed by his first foray into HR, which he describes as a ‘happy accident’. Following a tremendous role as HR Director at the House of Commons, today he is the Director of Human Resources at the world’s number one university, Oxford.
Work Experience
The same research concluded that in terms of professional experience, one of the most impactful was talent acquisition and recruitment. Finding only 1 in 5 CHROs had this in their background, the research suggests recruitment experience aligns with skills that are crucial to success in the role, such as strategic workforce planning and data-driven decision making.
So, if you haven’t already, explore opportunities in your current role to get involved with your organisation’s recruitment process. Talent strategy, despite only making up one segment of the end-to-end employee journey, is in and of itself varied. From candidate experience efforts to budget management, CV screening to preboarding, there is plenty to try your hand at and learn from.
Cultural and Global Awareness
International experience has been found to be a major differentiator for CHROs. 68% of CHROs with international experience are C-suite members or board members, in contrast to 56% of those without international experience.
It’s important to note that this experience does vary geographically, with the US lagging behind (39% having worked outside their home country), compared to EMEA and APAC (68%).
It may be unrealistic for many HR professionals to uproot their lives and gain work experience in another culture. However, working for a global company, as part of a geographically dispersed team, or even being able to show an in-depth understanding and interest of other cultures can set you apart.
For example, Sarah A. Lanier, who grew up in the Middle East and served in Europe for two decades as a consultant wrote extensively about her observations of direct versus in-direct cultures, describing how she had found different communication styles across different cultures can cause friction when they come together without an understanding of each other. Knowledge in areas like this can help aspiring CHROs display an interest in understanding people and ensuring healthy working relationships, cross-cultural or not.
Learn more: HR’s Guide to the Executive Table
It’s not just about HR
Integration with the wider organisation is crucial. It’s not uncommon for people professionals to find themselves siloed from the rest of the business. This is not only detrimental to HR’s work as visibility across the business is necessary for a well-informed, evidence-based people strategy, but it also lends to the outdated stereotype of HR as a back-office process.
To address this, HR leaders must employ two best practices.
1. Integrate, Don’t Isolate
HR professionals must get a strong understanding of how their work plays a role in wider organisational growth and success.
Build strong working relationships with the leaders and key teams in other departments to gain an understanding of how they are contributing to the organisation’s goals and how that links to the work of HR. Are some teams prone to burnout or under-resourced, while other teams see high attrition due to lack of development? How long does it take new employees to ‘ramp up’, and what is the cost of this to the organisation? Does client retention and satisfaction show any links with key people metrics, such as wellbeing, tenure, compensation, or who their manager is?
The greater HR’s understanding of the organisation is, the better their work can be.
Bin Wolfe, EY’s managing partner for talent in Asia Pacific, supported this view when speaking to the CIPD about business acumen as a non-negotiable skill for a great HR Director:
“One of the most important things is to be a businessperson first and an HR person after that. You need to understand where the business needs to go and then translate that into human capital and develop a strategy.”
2. Digestible, Dissectible Data
Linking HR processes and initiatives with tangible results will be necessary not only for your HR department to have a clear direction for their projects, but also to demonstrate to leadership HR’s role in overall organisational success. This will enable the entire people team to increase their credibility and build in-house analytical skills.
For trustworthy, detailed reporting, HR teams need the right technology. Key features you should look for in a robust HR reporting and analytics solution that’s going to be an asset to your team include:
- Customisable dashboards for leadership and executives
- Ability to integrate of 3rd part data sources, like gender pay gap benchmarking from HMRC
- Option to segment data by department, team, manager, age, location, job level, employee tenure, and more
- Reports can be user-specific and linked to user profiles, so your staff only see the information relevant to their job role
- Supports financial and HR concepts, such as calendar and fiscal years
Learn more about the capabilities of the xcd people platform’s reporting and analytics module.
While there are some common threads to guide HR leaders towards what makes a great CHRO, the fact the position still holds some novelty across a number of organisations presents an opportunity to make it your own. The people profession is diverse and multi-layered. Aspiring CHROs or those who are new to the role should seek to upskill in areas of wider business knowledge, talent strategy, and cross-cultural understanding, without forgetting there is still tremendous value in their existing skills that have got them so far.
