Interim Chief People Officer (18 month FTC)

• A genuine enterprise level CPO role at a pivotal inflection point
• An opportunity to shape culture and performance at a national charity

About Our Client

RNIB is the UK's leading charity supporting blind and partially sighted people. With an ambitious strategy and a clear social purpose, RNIB is continuing to evolve how it operates, leads, and enables its people in order to maximise impact for the communities it serves.

At a pivotal point in its organisational journey, RNIB is seeking an experienced Interim Chief People Officer to join the Executive Leadership Team and play a critical role in strengthening organisational culture, performance, leadership capability, and long term organisational health.

Job Description

As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, the Interim Chief People Officer will lead the People and Organisational Development Directorate, shaping and delivering a people strategy that enables RNIB to operate with agility, resilience, and impact as the organisation evolves.

The role requires a whole system, organisation first approach, with strong cross organisational influence and the ability to translate strategy into sustained people outcomes.

Key responsibilities include:

• Working collaboratively with the Executive Leadership Team to define, plan, and embed RNIB's organisational strategy, delivering people outcomes that support long term organisational health and strategic ambitions.
• Leading and role modelling RNIB's cultural evolution; acting as a critical accountability partner to the CEO and Executive Team on leadership behaviours, culture, and the creation of a psychologically safe, high trust environment.
• Developing and leading the People Directorate in alignment with RNIB's purpose and strategy, driving improvements in colleague engagement and progressing the digitisation of the end to end people experience.
• Leading, coaching, and motivating a high performing People Directorate team, fostering collaboration, accountability, and performance.
• Partnering with the CEO and Executive Team on organisational design, leadership capability development, succession planning, and workforce planning.
• Championing and embedding people centred transformation and change programmes, ensuring they are sustainable and widely adopted.
• Using internal and external insights to shape future thinking around organisational design, operating models, and culture, enhancing RNIB's long term resilience.
• Taking responsibility for the financial stewardship of the People function, including budgeting, expenditure control, and disciplined resource deployment.
• Working closely with the CEO to embed Enterprise Leadership principles across executive and senior leadership levels.

The Successful Applicant

The successful candidate will be an accomplished executive level people leader with a strong track record of delivering sustained organisational change in complex environments.

You will bring:

• An organisation first mindset, with proven executive leadership experience delivering transformation in a complex and/or regulated environment within a similarly sized or larger organisation.
• Demonstrable experience of digitising the people experience and increasing people data maturity.
• A track record as an inspirational leader who develops high performing teams and delivers measurable outcomes at senior and executive level.
• Evidence of successfully building and sustaining positive organisational cultures during periods of significant change.
• Strong commercial and financial acumen, with the ability to contribute meaningfully to enterprise level decision making.
• Deep expertise in organisational change, transformation, and contemporary people best practice.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with credibility at Board and Executive level.
• A collaborative leadership style, balancing support and challenge, with high personal accountability and a commitment to equity, continuous learning, and improvement.
• Clear evidence of advocating for and delivering specific organisational changes, supported by strong communication and influencing capability.
• Experience of managing and controlling significant budgets.

What's on Offer

• A high profile interim executive role within a purpose driven national charity.
• The opportunity to shape organisational culture, leadership capability, and people strategy at a pivotal moment in RNIB's journey.
• Meaningful work with clear social impact, contributing to RNIB's mission to support blind and partially sighted people.
• Hybrid working with regular travel to Peterborough and central London.