Head of People

Who We Are

Emergence is a thematic holding company backed by the Pritzker Organization focused exclusively on acquiring and scaling category-defining software businesses. We invest in focused portfolios, specialized operating groups with deep domain expertise and proven playbooks. Emergence combines operational rigor with a growth equity mindset, driving sustainable ARR growth, profitability improvements, and industry-leading customer outcomes.

The Mission

Build a scalable People function that enables rapid acquisition, integration, and scaling of portfolio companies from 25 to 300+ employees.

What You'll Do

• Design and deploy a People Operating System (HRIS, ATS, performance management) across new acquisitions within 90 days of close.

• Establish repeatable talent acquisition playbooks for technical, GTM, and operational roles that reduce time-to-hire by 30%+ and improve quality-of-hire.

• Build end-to-end performance management frameworks including goal-setting, calibration, promotion criteria, and career pathing for distributed portfolio teams.

• Create manager training programs on hiring, onboarding, feedback, and performance conversations for portfolio company leadership post-acquisition.

• Develop people analytics capability to track retention, time-to-hire, engagement, and headcount planning across portfolio with monthly insights to leadership.

• Design and launch DEI program strategy that portfolio companies can customize and implement with measurable quarterly outcomes.

What We're Looking For

Must-haves

• Built and owned the People function as the most senior People leader (not as member of larger HR team) reporting to CEO or CFO.

• Led full-cycle talent acquisition across engineering, product, sales, customer success, and operations at a SaaS company.

• Implemented at least one HRIS, ATS, or performance management system from scratch and drove adoption across your organization.

• Designed, built, and facilitated manager training programs on hiring, goal-setting, feedback, and performance calibration yourself.

• Owned performance management end-to-end including goal-setting frameworks, calibration processes, promotion criteria, and career pathing.

• Built and ran a DEI program from launch with measurable outcomes and business unit adoption.

• Managed the transition from foundational to structured People Ops at a scaling company where you implemented policies, processes, tools, and programs from scratch.

• Demonstrated people analytics capability through engagement surveys, retention cohort analysis, headcount planning, or hiring pipeline metrics.

• SaaS company experience is required. Excludes enterprise HR, staffing, or consulting-only backgrounds.

Nice-to-haves

• PE portfolio or multi-company People leadership experience managing talent functions across 2+ business units or companies.

• Experience scaling organizations across multiple geographies or time zones.

• Background in high-velocity hiring environments such as Series A-C SaaS companies with 50%+ annual headcount growth.

Who you are

You've built People functions from the ground up at SaaS companies where you owned recruiting, onboarding, performance management, and culture. You identify talent gaps before being asked and create systems that other teams adopt. You seek input from finance and operations leaders before designing major initiatives. You refuse to compromise on hiring bars even when business pressure mounts. You've changed your approach based on candid feedback from your team and leaders. You take ownership of adjacent problems like compensation strategy and organizational design without waiting for budget approval. You measure everything and hold your organization to documented standards.

What We Offer

• Salary: $200,000 to $280,000 base plus equity stake in Emergence.

• Health, dental, and vision insurance with company contribution.

• 401(k) with company match.

• Flexible PTO policy with remote-first work model.

• Professional development budget.

• Potential for board exposure and direct engagement with portfolio company leadership.