Here is a paradox that anyone in the people profession will recognise: the Chief People Officer role has never had more visibility, more board access, or more pages in the strategy deck. And yet, when it comes to formal authority, compensation parity, and longevity in post, the numbers tell a rather different story.
Seventy percent of companies report that their head of people now engages with the board more than they did three years ago. Good. But only 12% of those leaders rank among the top five highest-paid executives at their firm. And the annual turnover rate among Fortune 200 Chief People Officers hit 15.5% last year — rising 36% year on year. We are being invited into the room more often. We are also leaving it faster.
There are many ways to interpret these numbers. The one I find most useful is this: visibility is not the same thing as credibility. Being invited to the strategy conversation is not the same as shaping it. And the difference between the two is something the people function needs to own — myself very much included.
Where credibility comes from
I’ve spent enough time in and around leadership teams to notice a pattern. The Chief People Officers who earn lasting influence tend to share three characteristics — and none of them involve being louder, or asking for a bigger seat, or giving presentations about the future of work. (I’ve given that presentation. We all have.)
They speak the language of the business, not the language of the function. A CPO who can link attrition to revenue impact, quantify the cost of a six-month vacancy, or explain how a restructure will affect the cost-to-income ratio — that person gets listened to. A CPO who talks about engagement scores in isolation does not. The bar is the same one the Finance Director and the Chief Risk Officer have to clear.
6 in 10 CHROs see themselves as equal to other members of the leadership team. The question worth asking is whether their colleagues agree — and if not, what would change their mind. The answer is almost always: show me the numbers. — HR Dive / Circles, 2025
They build alliances before they need them. The CPO’s most important relationships are sideways — with the CFO, who needs to understand why people investments have a payback period; the CTO, who is deploying AI and needs someone to redesign the roles around it; the CRO, who increasingly cares about culture and conduct. These are partnerships, not service relationships. The CPOs who build them before a crisis forces the introduction are the ones who endure.
They are honest about what the function doesn’t yet do well. Many people functions are themselves under-digitised, under-measured, and over-reliant on intuition where data should be. A CPO who can say, “Here’s what we’re good at, here’s where we’re behind, and here’s how we’re closing the gap” earns more trust than one who presents the function as already transformed. Boards have heard enough optimism. They’re hungry for candour.
Strategic credibility isn’t granted. It’s earned — one well-timed insight, one commercial conversation, one honest admission at a time.
The turnover question
The rising turnover among senior people leaders deserves honest examination. Some reflects healthy movement. But some reflects a mismatch between what the role promises and what the organisation allows the person to do — CPOs hired to drive transformation who find themselves managing compliance, given a strategy title but no budget, no data infrastructure, and no seat where the real decisions are made.
This matters for hiring decisions on both sides. Boards appointing a Chief People Officer should be clear about what they’re actually buying: a strategic partner who will challenge thinking and require investment, or a functional head who will keep the engine running. Both are legitimate. But confusing the two is how you end up with high turnover and mutual disappointment.
What this means for financial services
In banking, the credibility question has an additional layer. The sector prizes quantification, and people can feel intangible on a balance sheet. But the evidence is now overwhelming that culture determines conduct risk, talent quality determines AI returns, and employee experience determines customer experience. The CPO who can translate these connections into numbers a CFO can track will be indispensable. The one who can’t will remain a respected guest in a conversation run by someone else.
I don’t think the credibility gap is someone else’s problem. I think it’s ours to close — and that closing it is some of the most interesting work a people leader can do. It requires us to be better with data, braver about our own shortcomings, and clearer about the commercial value we create. It also requires, if I’m honest, a willingness to stop talking about “getting a seat at the table” and start demonstrating why the table doesn’t work without us. The good news is that the evidence for that case has never been stronger. The rest is up to us.
Domi Alzapiedi is a Chief People Officer in banking, focused on the intersection of people strategy, organisational design, and commercial performance. She writes about the questions that keep leadership teams honest.