The chief human resources officer has evolved from an operational administrator into one of the most powerful architects of organizational success. In an age of constant change, this role now defines how companies grow, attract and retain talent, and achieve continuous improvement.
The CHRO no longer just manages people. They build efficiency into the system. CHRO turnover rose 15% in the first quarter of 2025, reaching 32% above the six-year average. Meanwhile, 87% of CHROs say they are actively reimagining HR delivery to lower costs and increase speed.
The message is clear: As transformation accelerates, companies that fail to modernize HR leadership risk losing both their best people and their market relevance. The CHRO is not a cost line but a competitive advantage.
What Is A CHRO?
The CHRO is the senior-most executive responsible for the company’s people strategy, overseeing workforce planning, culture, compensation, inclusion, learning and succession. They typically report directly to the CEO and partner closely with the CFO and board on growth strategy and enterprise risk.
CHROs operate in nearly every industry, from tech and health care to finance, retail and manufacturing. Their influence is magnified in organizations navigating fast change. In these firms, the CHRO is the integrator between people and performance, aligning business strategy with human potential.
Job Responsibilities
A CHRO’s day revolves around four core outcomes: strategic alignment, leadership development, culture design and workforce readiness. Their time today is distributed across three main priorities, according to Deloitte’s 2025 Global Human Capital Trends report:
- Talent strategy and skills transformation (35%) – building future-ready talent pipelines and addressing skills gaps.
- Culture and inclusion (30%) – shaping purpose-driven workplaces that attract and retain top performers.
- Digital transformation and HR tech (25%) – implementing analytics, AI, and automation to drive performance.
The remaining 10% spans crisis response, compliance and board advisory work. Korn Ferry data shows that modern CHROs spend over half their week in cross-functional strategy sessions rather than traditional HR operations. This is a dramatic shift from “personnel management” to “enterprise leadership.”
The CHRO Versus The CPO
The chief human resources officer and chief people officer roles share common DNA, but their emphasis differs. CHROs often oversee global HR infrastructure, risk and strategy. CPOs tend to focus more on employee experience, culture and engagement.
In high-growth organizations both are accountable for outcomes that tie people investments directly to business performance. This is measured not in morale surveys but in retention rates, innovation output, and recruitment agility. This shift signals that the future of HR leadership is not about hierarchy. It’s about human capital strategy as a profit center.
What Defines A Successful CHRO?
Today’s CHRO must be part data scientist, part psychologist and part business operator.
- Technical: Analytics, workforce modeling, AI-driven talent systems and change management.
- Strategic: Scenario planning, organizational design and C-suite influence.
- Interpersonal: Empathy, coaching, resilience and the ability to unify across generations and geographies.
The CHRO must speak the language of both finance and emotion. They must be able to quantify culture and human behavior in business terms. The post-digital enterprise demands that HR leaders anticipate rather than react.
“The more we can be proactive, the less reactive we have to be. There will always be things to navigate. You want to make sure you have the right systems in place. The more that you are aligned to long-term thinking on your values and proactively anticipating the needs of the future as fast as we’re going, it’s a way to keep that through line as the changes happen,” Stephanie Kramer, chief human resources officer at Loreal, shared in an interview.
According to PwC, 60% of CEOs cite CHROs as important business partners, not just talent support. The CHRO’s mandate has evolved from “managing workforces” to engineering ecosystems that enable speed, innovation, and trust. When asked, “What technical, strategic, and interpersonal skills matter most?” Kramer added, “You have to have courage and encourage and sometimes they can be at odds with each other.”
The best CHROs use emotional intelligence to interpret culture, business acumen to drive outcomes, and data fluency to predict risk. “I don’t want them to have to dig through a policy and a website. I want them to have access to it,” Kramer noted.
“And whether that’s through an AI assisted tool or it’s through our shared services, or it’s from their HR business partner or it’s from their people manager, the information is important to that individual, but it’s also really important that you communicate that to your entire organization so they know how to best support their teammates.” The CHRO amplifies the impact of every other executive through alignment, feedback and clarity.
How Do You Become A CHRO?
1. Education
The foundation of a CHRO career is often a degree in business administration, organizational psychology, human resources or industrial relations. Increasingly, MBAs and specialized master’s programs in people analytics, organizational leadership, or change management are considered accelerators.
What’s changed is the emphasis on statistical literacy. Today’s CHRO must be as comfortable interpreting dashboards as developing leaders. Continuing education in AI, workforce analytics and DEI strategy is becoming essential.
Many CHROs also pursue certificates in strategic HR transformation (SHRM-SCP), leadership and inclusion (Cornell ILR, Wharton, MIT Sloan), or executive coaching. These signal readiness to influence beyond HR boundaries.
2. Experience
It typically takes 15 to 20 years of progressive leadership experience to reach the CHRO level. Successful candidates have rotated across talent development, compensation, organizational design and business partnership roles, often adding exposure in operations or finance to build credibility with the C-suite.
Cross-industry mobility is now an advantage. A CHRO who’s led in tech, retail and manufacturing brings an adaptability essential to today’s market. What matters most is not tenure. It’s the breadth of transformation experience and measurable business impact.
Many CHROs began in consulting, legal or communications, fields that strengthen the influence and systems thinking demanded of modern HR leadership.
3. Certifications
Certifications such as SHRM-SCP, SPHR and emerging programs in people analytics, DEI, or future of work strategy demonstrate commitment to continuous reinvention. In an environment where the half-life of a skill is now less than five years, according to the World Economic Forum, adaptability is the differentiator.
4. Leadership
Leadership readiness remains the single biggest predictor of CHRO success. The role requires calm amid complexity, balancing empathy with accountability. CHROs who thrive tend to have led major cultural transformations or crisis responses before ascending.
5. Networking
Networks accelerate visibility and readiness. Board connections, cross-functional peer groups, and executive mentorship circles provide early access to opportunities and insights. Platforms like SHRM, HRPA and the Forbes HR Council are critical spaces for professional influence and exchange.
What Is The Salary Of A CHRO?
CHRO compensation scales with impact and scope. According to Equilar’s 2025 midyear recap, base salaries average:
- $325,000 to $450,000 in midsize firms
- $600,00 to $800,000 or more in global enterprises
- Total compensation often exceeds $1 million for Fortune 500 leaders
Pay correlates strongly with the size of workforce, global footprint and role in business strategy. In firms where HR drives measurable growth, CHROs are among the highest-compensated executives after the CEO and CFO.
Why Is A CHRO Important?
Without a CHRO, companies operate with a leadership blind spot, misaligned culture, unmeasured engagement and lost innovation. According to Gallup, when talent and trust erode, turnover climbs, costing anywhere from 40% to 200% of their annual salary.
A strategic CHRO mitigates these costs by aligning workforce design with business performance. They oversee reskilling, diversity, and leadership pipelines, functions that directly correlate with shareholder returns and brand trust.
The Future Of The CHRO Role
The CHRO of tomorrow is part strategist and part futurist. They are leading through:
- AI integration: 74% of CHROs expect to use GenAI in people operations within 12 to 18 months, according to PwC.
- Skills architecture: Firms shifting to skills-based hiring outperform peers in innovation and retention.
- Culture intelligence: Using data to measure belonging, trust, and team cohesion as leading indicators of growth.
The next decade will reward the CHROs who lead boldly at the intersection of human intuition and machine intelligence. The most forward-thinking ones already see HR not as support but as a strategic growth engine.
The Bottom Line On CHROs
The CHRO has become one of the most vital, visible and visionary executive roles in business. Their influence extends beyond people. It defines an organization’s capacity for reinvention. Becoming a CHRO today is not just a career path. It is a leadership calling that demands courage, intelligence and devotion to what makes organizations thrive: human potential.
Source – https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannestafford/article/how-to-become-chro/