Chief People Officer

Chief People Officer Nashville, TN, United States | req1602 Posted on: 5/11/2026

What We're Looking For:

The Chief People Officer (CPO) is an executive leader at Barge Design Solutions, reporting directly to the Chief Executive Officer and serving as a strategic partner to the executive team and other leadership to ensure alignment between the firm's people strategy and its business operations and growth objectives. As a member of the executive leadership team, the CPO is responsible for designing and executing a comprehensive human capital strategy that enables Barge's annual business plans and long-term strategic plan, strengthens internal leadership pipelines, enhances retention, and supports profitable growth. This role ensures the firm attracts, develops, engages, and retains top talent while reinforcing Barge's culture, values, and commitment to service. The CPO oversees the full employee lifecycle, including talent acquisition, career pathways, leadership development, succession planning, total rewards, employee engagement and belonging, HR operations, safety, and people technology. The role ensures that Barge's employee value proposition is compelling, competitive, and aligned with the firm's mission and CARES values.

Responsibilities:

Aligns people strategy with Barge's ongoing operations, growth, and long-term strategic plan. Understands professional services planning (utilization, margins, workforce management). Partners effectively with the executive team to drive enterprise results. Connects talent investments to measurable business outcomes. Builds strong internal talent pipelines and succession plans. Leads talent acquisition as a strategic pillar of the organization's growth, ensuring the attraction and hiring of high-caliber talent aligned with business needs. Strengthens leadership capability across all levels. Drives engagement and retention, particularly among high performers. Coaches and advises senior leaders with credibility and influence. Designs competitive, performance-driven compensation strategies. Aligns benefits and rewards with financial sustainability and retention goals. Ensures the employee value proposition supports attraction and engagement. Uses data and workforce analytics to guide decisions. Leverages HR systems and digital tools to improve employee experience. Drives operational efficiencies through process improvement and automation. Ensures compliance and risk management standards are upheld. Champions Barge's CARES values: Collaboration, Authenticity, Responsibility, Excellence, and Service. Fosters a high-performance, accountable employee-owned culture. Represents Barge through active engagement in community and nonprofit initiatives.

Education & Experience Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, or related field required Master's degree or MBA preferred. Senior HR certification (SHRM-SCP or equivalent) preferred. Minimum 15 years of progressive HR leadership experience, including executive-level strategic responsibility. Demonstrated experience aligning people strategy with business growth in a professional services or architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) environment preferred. Proven ability to influence executive leadership and lead organizational transformation initiatives.

Skills:

Demonstrated ability to shape and execute multi-year people strategies that directly support Barge's ongoing operations, growth objectives, operational scalability, and long-term business plan. Strong understanding of professional services, including workforce planning, compensation modeling, benefits cost management, and the financial impact of talent investments. Ability to translate enterprise vision into clear workforce frameworks, leadership pipelines, succession strategies, and measurable talent initiatives. Proven ability to influence and align executive stakeholders; skilled in leading high-level strategy discussions and facilitating decision-making across the leadership team. Strong analytical capability with the ability to leverage workforce data, people analytics, and systems thinking to inform decisions and improve organizational effectiveness. Strong collaborative mindset with operations, finance, marketing, and business development leaders to ensure alignment between people strategy, client delivery, and growth initiatives. Exercises strong judgment in balancing short-term operational needs with long-term leadership development, retention, and cultural sustainability.

People Skills:

Leads and develops a team of HR professionals with clarity of expectations and performance standards. Delegates effectively while holding leaders accountable for results. Coach's managers within the HR function to strengthen technical and strategic capability. Builds bench strength within the People function. Engages executive leadership to align operational strategies and people programs and demonstrates executive presence while interfacing with and presenting to the Board of Directors.

Other:

Walk, sit for extended periods of time, and stand. Occasionally reach with hands, stoop, kneel, or crouch. Occasionally lift to 40 lbs. Visual acuity is sufficient to read alpha/ numeric symbols for comprehension and editing. Ability to travel up to 25%. Why join us? Barge Design Solutions, Inc., is an engineering and architecture firm with diverse in-house multidisciplinary practice areas. The employee-owned company is more than 650+ people strong and serves clients nationwide from multiple U.S. locations. Barge is ranked on Engineering News-Record (ENR)'s Top 500 Design Firms and Architectural Record's Top 300 Architecture Firms and is a certified Great Place To Work®. Our primary purpose for being in business is ultimately to create a better life by unleashing the potential of our people, clients and communities. This purpose is supported by our company's core values because at the end of the day,

Barge CARES:

Collaborate

• Help and expect help. Teamwork is essential in what we do. Authentic
• Honesty, integrity and trust are at the heart of everything we do. We are who we say we are. Responsible
• We are accountable for our work, our attitude, and our actions. We make Barge better. Excellence
• We go all in and expect more of ourselves than others expect of us. Service
• We are humble.

We use our gifts in service of others. We believe that if we are living out our purpose for being in business and integrating our values into everything we do, we will ultimately achieve our vision to be the firm best known for being selected when it matters most. Equal Opportunity Employer All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status or on the basis of disability. Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled Agency Submissions No unsolicited agency submissions. Barge Design Solutions does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or staffing agencies. Any unsolicited resume becomes the property of Barge Design Solutions, and no fee will be paid for resulting hires. Only agencies with a signed agreement are authorized to submit candidates. Barge Design Solutions is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity company. We do not discriminate based on race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, genetic information, religion, national origin, marital status or Vietnam-era or disabled veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.