People, Culture & Performance Lead

Location Westlands, Nairobi.

Employment Type Full-Time

A dynamic, innovation-driven, and fast-growing organization is seeking to recruit an experienced, strategic, and forward-thinking People, Culture & Performance Lead to provide leadership in shaping and driving the organization’s people strategy, culture agenda, and performance architecture in alignment with organizational priorities, growth ambitions, and operational excellence.

This is a senior leadership role responsible for strengthening organizational effectiveness, building high-performing teams, enhancing staff engagement and accountability, modernizing people systems, and supporting sustainable organizational growth through progressive and people-centered leadership.

The successful candidate will play a critical role in creating a modern, agile, digitally enabled, and purpose-driven workplace by strengthening culture, improving workforce capability, introducing innovative HR systems and practices, and supporting leadership and teams to operate effectively in a fast-paced and evolving environment.

This opportunity is ideal for a credible, emotionally intelligent, digitally fluent, and futurefocused professional who can influence senior stakeholders, coach managers, and work effectively with youthful, ambitious, and high-performing teams while balancing structure, agility, empowerment, accountability, and results.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The People, Culture & Performance Lead will provide both strategic leadership and hands-on

oversight across the full employee lifecycle, including:

• Organizational development and workforce planning
• Talent acquisition and onboarding
• Staff engagement and culture strengthening
• Performance management and accountability systems
• Learning, leadership development, and coaching
• HR operations, compliance, and policy management
• Internal communication and staff experience
• Digital HR transformation and AI-enabled workplace innovation

The role requires a strong combination of strategic thinking, execution capability, leadership maturity, people management expertise, innovation mindset, and operational discipline.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

A. Strategic People Leadership & Organizational Development

The successful candidate will:

• Lead the development and implementation of the organization’s People, Culture & Performance Strategy aligned to business priorities and growth objectives.
• Provide strategic leadership and advisory support to management on workforce planning, organizational design, staff capability, succession planning, culture strengthening, and organizational effectiveness.
• Support leadership during periods of organizational growth, transformation, restructuring, and change management.
• Strengthen collaboration, accountability, communication, and alignment across teams and departments.
• Identify and introduce modern workplace practices and people management approaches relevant to fast-growing, innovation-led, and digitally enabled organizations.
• Contribute towards building a scalable and sustainable organizational structure capable of supporting long-term growth.

B. Culture, Staff Experience & Engagement

The role will lead efforts to:

• Shape and strengthen a high-performance, values-driven, collaborative, and purpose centered organizational culture.
• Design and implement staff engagement initiatives that strengthen teamwork, inclusivity, wellbeing, innovation, communication, and employee experience.
• Support leadership in embedding organizational values and culture into systems, processes, leadership practices, and decision-making.
• Conduct staff engagement, climate, satisfaction, and culture assessments and recommend practical improvement actions.
• Develop systems that strengthen staff recognition, communication, collaboration, and overall workforce effectiveness.
• Promote a respectful, safe, inclusive, and professional work environment.

C. Performance Management & Accountability

The People, Culture & Performance Lead will:

• Design and oversee a modern performance management and accountability framework that supports measurable results, ownership, and continuous improvement.
• Support managers and teams in setting clear goals, KPIs, deliverables, and performance expectations.
• Lead performance review processes, coaching conversations, and performance improvement initiatives.
• Develop tools, dashboards, systems, and reporting mechanisms to strengthen workforce performance monitoring and productivity tracking.
• Strengthen a culture of execution discipline, accountability, feedback, and results orientation across the organization.
• Build management capability in performance leadership and people management.

D. Talent Management, Learning & Workforce Development

The role will oversee:

• Talent acquisition, onboarding, workforce planning, and staff retention initiatives.
• Development of scalable systems for identifying, developing, engaging, and retaining high-potential talent.
• Learning and development initiatives that strengthen staff capability, leadership growth, and professional development.
• Coaching and mentorship support for youthful and ambitious teams.
• Succession planning and workforce capability development.
• Promotion of continuous learning, innovation, adaptability, and professional excellence across teams.

E. Digital HR, Innovation & AI Integration

The successful candidate will:

• Lead the introduction and optimization of modern HR systems, digital workplace tools, and staff-facing platforms that improve efficiency, compliance, reporting, collaboration, and employee experience.
• Champion innovation and continuous improvement across people systems and organizational processes.
• Explore and support practical adoption of AI-enabled workplace and people management solutions.
• Use workforce analytics, people data, dashboards, and reporting tools to support evidence-based decision-making and proactive workforce planning.
• Support automation and digital transformation initiatives related to people management and organizational effectiveness.
• Promote digital fluency, innovation awareness, and adoption of emerging workplace technologies across teams.

F. HR Operations, Policies & Compliance

The role will provide oversight across HR operations by:

• Ensuring efficient, accurate, confidential, and compliant management of HR operations, staff records, contracts, and documentation.
• Developing, reviewing, and implementing HR policies, procedures, handbooks, and frameworks aligned to Kenyan labour laws and organizational needs.
• Ensuring compliance with employment legislation, workplace standards, safeguarding requirements, ethical expectations, and internal policies.
• Advising leadership on HR risk management, staff relations, disciplinary processes, grievance handling, and fair policy application.
• Supporting HR audits, reporting processes, and operational improvements that strengthen governance and compliance.
• Maintaining high standards of professionalism, integrity, confidentiality, and ethical practice.

G. Internal Communication & Collaboration

The successful candidate will:

• Strengthen communication, transparency, and collaboration across teams and leadership levels.
• Support development of effective internal communication systems and staff engagement platforms.
• Promote organizational alignment, information flow, and cross-functional teamwork.
• Support leadership with internal communication, staff engagement, and change management initiatives.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Qualifications

Applicants should possess:

• A Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resource Management, Organizational Development, Business Administration, or a related field.
• A Master’s Degree in HR, Organizational Development, Leadership, or a related field will be an added advantage.
• Relevant professional HR certification such as CHRP-K / IHRM or equivalent recognized qualification.
• Strong knowledge of Kenyan labour laws, HR governance requirements, and current HR best practice.

Experience

Applicants should demonstrate:

• Minimum 5 - 7 years of progressive experience in HR, organizational development, people and culture, talent management, workforce planning, or related leadership roles, including substantial management-level experience.
• Proven experience working within fast-paced, digital, consulting, innovation-led, startup, scale-up, or high growth environments.
• Strong experience in organizational culture, performance management, staff engagement, leadership advisory, workforce development, and learning and development.
• Demonstrated experience introducing or improving HR systems, digital workflows, workforce analytics, automation tools, or organizational change initiatives.
• Experience advising leadership on employee relations, policy implementation, compliance risk management, and disciplinary processes will be an added advantage.

COMPETENCIES & ATTRIBUTES

The ideal candidate should demonstrate:

Leadership & Culture

• Strong leadership and people management capability
• High emotional intelligence and interpersonal maturity
• Strong coaching, mentorship, and relationship-building capability
• Ability to influence, guide, and support leadership teams
• Ability to work effectively with youthful, ambitious, and high-performing teams
• Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills

Performance & Organizational Effectiveness

• Strong organizational development and change management capability
• Strong performance management and accountability leadership
• Strategic thinking combined with execution discipline
• Problem-solving, decision-making, and analytical capability
• Results orientation and continuous improvement mindset

Innovation & Digital Capability

• Strong innovation and systems improvement mindset
• Interest and curiosity in AI and emerging workplace technologies
• Digital fluency and comfort with modern workplace systems and tools
• Data-driven and evidence-based decision-making capability

HOW SUCCESS WILL BE MEASURED

Performance in this role will be assessed based on:

• Strengthened organizational culture and staff engagement
• Improved performance management and accountability systems
• Successful introduction of innovative digital and AI-enabled HR solutions
• Improved workforce capability, leadership growth, and talent retention
• Strong HR operations, compliance, governance, and reporting systems
• Enhanced collaboration, communication, and organizational effectiveness
• Contribution towards organizational growth and transformation priorities

OUR COMMITMENT

Our organization is committed to equal opportunity, diversity, inclusion, safeguarding, and maintaining a respectful, safe, and professional working environment for all employees, consultants, partners, and stakeholders.

The successful candidate will be expected to uphold and operate in accordance with all organizational safeguarding, workplace conduct, anti-harassment, health and safety, and related people policies at all times.

HOW TO APPLY

Interested and qualified candidates are invited to submit:

• A detailed and up-to-date CV
• A cover letter outlining their suitability for the role
• Contact details of at least three professional referees

Applications should be submitted with the subject line: “Application - People, Culture & Performance Lead”

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.