Head of People Partnership London, United Kingdom

This is one of the most important roles in the PhysicsX people function. The Head of People Partnership is the primary architect of how we develop, support and retain our people - and a trusted voice to the executive team on all matters of organisational health, culture and performance.
This is not a traditional HR leadership role. This role sits at the intersection of people strategy and business strategy. You will be expected to operate with full autonomy, shape how PhysicsX thinks about its organisation - not just how the people team operates - and be accountable for the performance of a significant part of the business: its people and the leaders who lead them.
You will report directly to the Chief People Officer and work as a genuine partner to the CEO, COO and functional leadership team.
What you will own
Organisational strategy & design

Lead organisational design across PhysicsX - team structures, spans of control, role clarity and how the organisation evolves as we scale
Serve as the primary people strategy advisor to senior leaders
Shape PhysicsX's talent strategy and ways of working at the company level; maintain an enterprise-wide perspective that connects people, strategy and execution
Propose and drive people strategy initiatives end-to-end; a key voice in company-level decisions

Change management & organisational effectiveness

Lead the people dimension of organisational change - rapid headcount growth, cultural evolution, restructures and new ways of working
Design and execute change management strategies that bring employees and managers with us through significant transitions, not just inform them of outcomes
Identify organisational health risks early - team dynamics, leadership gaps, cultural drift - and act on them before they become business problems
Support leaders in building change-ready teams that can operate effectively through ambiguity
Own the PhysicsX performance management framework - its design, its application and its continuous improvement
Design and lead leadership development programmes that build the capability of managers and senior leaders across the company, not just within your immediate team
Create the conditions for a high-performing, inclusive organisation at scale - one that sustains high performance without sacrificing care
Drive consistent and rigorous promotion and levelling calibration processes across PhysicsX, exercising independent judgment and holding the bar

Compensation, levelling & workforce planning

Exercise independent judgment on levelling decisions, compensation equity and promotion calibrations - working closely with the CPO and Finance to ensure decisions are fair, consistent and market-informed
Own workforce planning for your business areas - headcount modelling, attrition forecasting, skills gap analysis and scenario planning - grounded in both business need and people reality
Partner with the Head of Talent and People Ops & Data on forward-looking capability planning, ensuring the business always has the people it needs to execute its strategy
Provide the executive team with a clear view of organisational capability - where we are strong, where we are exposed and what we need to do about it

Employee relations & culture

Own the most complex, sensitive and consequential employee relations matters at PhysicsX - exercising independent judgment at all times
Shape culture by example and by holding the standard; trusted by the executive team as the authoritative voice on people and performance
Surface patterns, risks and opportunities from across the organisation to the executive team before they become problems

Diversity, equity & inclusion

Own the DEI agenda within your business areas - not as a separate programme but embedded in how we hire, develop, promote and retain people at PhysicsX
Ensure levelling calibrations, performance assessments and promotion decisions are applied equitably and that bias is actively named and addressed
Partner with the Head of Talent to embed inclusion into hiring processes from the outset
Use people data to track diversity outcomes over time and hold the business accountable for progress
Build and use a data-driven view of your business population - engagement signals, attrition risk, performance distribution, pay equity - and act on what you see
Bring people data into leadership conversations as a matter of course, not as an occasional supplement to intuition
Partner with People Ops & Data to ensure the metrics that matter for your business areas are tracked, visible and informing decisions

People function leadership

Lead the People Partnership function with full ownership of outcomes
Manage and develop a lean, high-performing team: a HRBP (US-based)
Partner closely with the Heads of Talent, People Ops & Data, and Workplace & Employee Experience - actively using the intentional tension between functions to keep the employee experience honest and joined up, We collect diversity and inclusion data solely for the purpose of monitoring the effectiveness of our equal opportunities policies and ensuring compliance with UK employment and equality legislation. This information is confidential, used only in aggregate form, and will not influence the outcome of your application.
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Significant experience as a senior HR or people leader in a high-growth technology company - ideally one where the talent bar is exceptionally high and the pace of change is relentless
A track record of operating as a genuine strategic partner to an executive team - not just delivering what is asked, but shaping the agenda
Deep expertise across the full people partnership remit: organisational design, performance management, employee relations, culture, leadership development, change management and workforce planning
Proven experience designing and leading change management at scale - restructures, rapid growth phases, cultural transformation
Strong commercial fluency - you understand how the business makes money, how it competes, and what that means for how we build and deploy our people
Experience exercising independent judgment on levelling, compensation equity and promotion calibration decisions
Demonstrable experience building data-driven people advisory practices - you use metrics, not just instincts
Experience leading and developing people leaders - you have built teams before, and the people you have managed have gone on to do significant things
Demonstrable experience navigating complex, sensitive employee matters with sound judgment, legal awareness and genuine care
Experience working across multiple geographies is strongly preferred; solid knowledge of UK employment law is essential; familiarity with US employment law is a strong advantage

PhysicsX is a deep-tech company with roots in numerical physics and Formula One, dedicated to accelerating hardware innovation at the speed of software.
We are building an AI-driven simulation software stack for engineering and manufacturing across advanced industries. By enabling high-fidelity, multi-physics simulation through AI inference across the entire engineering lifecycle, PhysicsX unlocks new levels of optimization and automation in design, manufacturing, and operations - empowering engineers to push the boundaries of possibility. Our customers include leading innovators in Aerospace & Defense, Materials, Energy, Semiconductors, and Automotive.