We believe the CHRO is becoming one of the most important value-making roles in the executive team. It’s why we have partnered with Chief HR, Australia’s leading CHRO community, to help shape the future of the role and elevate the influence CHROs have on transformation and board-level impact.
This morning brought that partnership to life, as we hosted an important conversation with Chief HR CEO Janelle Leonard, NSW State Lead Gabrielle Stevens and Chief HR members on the CHRO’s influence at the Board.
The panel guests – Christine Bartlett, Caroline Waldron and Emma Hogan – brought a breadth of board and executive perspective spanning listed, private, government, not-for-profit and global organisations.
The discussion reinforced the critical role CHROs play in helping Boards connect people, culture, risk and transformation to enterprise value and governance confidence.
Speaking the language of value creation
Boards are looking for CHROs who can speak the language of value creation, not just people activity.
Culture, capability, succession, leadership quality and workforce risk are now core inputs into whether an organisation can deliver on its strategy.
For CHROs, this means being able to connect the people agenda directly to the commercial and strategic priorities of the enterprise.
Governance expectations are rising
As Mark Lewis from AICD highlighted, recent royal commissions have reinforced that governance failure is rarely driven by one factor alone.
The CHRO’s perspective is critical in helping directors’ triangulate data, surface emerging risks and make more informed decisions about the leadership conditions required for strong corporate governance.
The CHRO as a critical boardroom contributor
The strongest CHROs are embedded in the executive team, trusted by the CEO, commercially fluent and able to translate external benchmarking, internal culture signals and workforce realities into board-level insight.
That requires more than technical HR expertise. It requires a deep understanding of the organisation’s strategy, the capability required to execute it, and the risks that could prevent the business from delivering.
Trust, judgement and timing matter
Effective CHROs know what to surface, when to surface it and how to frame it so the board can distinguish signal from noise.
This becomes particularly important when navigating areas such as executive remuneration, succession, psychological safety, AI adoption or complex stakeholder dynamics.
Change is a strategic investment
When companies are undergoing rapid transformation, change management must be treated as a strategic investment, not a discretionary cost.
When organisations are navigating mergers, transactions or major transformation, boards have a critical role in shaping the why, aligning the message and helping leaders manage uncertainty before it erodes confidence, capability or momentum.
Seeing culture beyond the data
Culture needs to be measured through more than engagement scores and shifted through informal board interactions, visibility of high-potential talent and leadership development to help directors read organisational health beyond the data.
When paired with high-definition leadership development, those insights become more strategic, helping CHROs influence directors on the behaviours, capabilities and conditions that create enterprise value.
Bringing a value-making lens to the boardroom
For us at Maximus, this is where the value-making lens becomes critical.
Leadership exists to create value for customers, shareholders, people and society. The CHRO is uniquely positioned to help boards see whether those value agendas are aligned, where they are in tension and what leadership choices are required to execute strategy successfully.
Maximus Director James Keeler captured this well in his wrap-up: the CHRO playbook of the past is no longer fit for purpose. In a world shaped by AI, shifting workforce expectations, economic volatility, fractured trust and increasingly complex stakeholder demands, CHROs must become orchestrators of value to influence at the board effectively.
Thank you to Chief HR CEO Janelle Leonard for creating such an important forum; to Mark Lewis and AICD for bringing the governance lens; and to Christine Bartlett, Caroline Waldron and Emma Hogan for sharing such practical board-level insight.
We look forward to facilitating the conversation further at the Chief HR Summit in October.
