Human Resource Business Partner

Rhizome Consulting

Rhizome Consulting - Our primary objective is to meet both the needs of our client and to exceed their expectations. We offer a broad range of services, tailored to our client specification with full confidentiality.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Human Resource Business Partner

Location: Lagos

Job Summary

• The position holder will serve as a trusted thought partner to executive leadership and portfolio company founders, aligning people strategies with fund performance.
• Combining strong commercial acumen with deep human capital expertise, the candidate will lead annual goal-setting and the quarterly accountability cadence, design competitive total reward architectures across cross-border jurisdictions, conduct human capital due diligence for new investments, and cultivate a high-performance, evidence-led organisational culture.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Human Capital Advisory:

• Serve as a strategic advisor to the COO and Managing Partners on all human capital dimensions across the firm and its investment lifecycle.
• Translate fund strategy into an actionable human capital agenda, refreshed annually and stress-tested quarterly.
• Provide strategic counsel on organisational design, leadership capability, and team effectiveness during growth or restructuring phases.
• Contribute human capital insights to the Investment Committee, evaluating talent risks, management quality, and organisational dynamics during deal evaluations.

Performance Architecture & Quarterly Accountability Cadence:

• Own and govern the organisation s goal-setting framework, ensuring all individual and team objectives are aligned to fund strategy before Q1.
• Design and facilitate the Quarterly Business Review (QBR) cadence tracking evidence-based progress against OKRs/KPIs, mitigating performance risks, and recalibrating priorities.
• Manage the end-to-end performance cycle (mid-year, year-end, calibration, and documentation) with zero overdue reviews.
• Develop and maintain an annual talent-tiering framework to drive succession planning, retention strategies, and reward decisions.

Recognition, Reward & Retention:

• Design and govern the total rewards philosophy, benchmarking base, variable, and long-term incentives against VC/PE market benchmarks in Nigeria and broader Africa.
• Lead data-driven retention strategies for top-quartile talent, identifying flight risks early and implementing targeted interventions.
• Embed non-monetary recognition frameworks that reinforce fund values and high-performance behaviours while ensuring reward equity and transparency.

Portfolio Human Capital Support & Due Diligence:

• Provide structured human capital advisory to portfolio companies during key inflexion points (scaling, leadership transitions, structural redesigns).
• Support investment due diligence by evaluating management capability, organisational health, and cultural risks of target companies.
• Curate and maintain an executive talent pipeline for senior leadership roles across portfolio companies.

Culture, Leadership & Organisational Development:

• Champion firm values and observable behaviours across hiring, performance conversations, and leadership practices.
• Design and execute targeted leadership development programmes for internal staff and portfolio executives.
• Steward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as a strategic driver of fund performance rather than a compliance exercise.
• Monitor organisational health signals (engagement metrics, turnover patterns) to address culture risks proactively.

People Analytics & Workforce Intelligence:

• Leverage HR technology to generate actionable workforce analytics covering engagement, attrition risk, and capability gaps.

• Produce and present a Quarterly People Dashboard to executive leadership within 10 business days of quarter-end.

• Ensure all people and talent decisions across the firm are evidence-led, commercially grounded, and measured against business outcomes.

• Educational Qualifications

• Bachelor`s Degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Economics, Organisational Psychology, or a related discipline.

• Master s degree (MBA or MSc) from a top-tier institution is strongly preferred.

• Relevant professional certifications (e.g., SHRM-SCP, CIPD Level 7, SPHRi) are strongly desirable.

Knowledge, Skills & Experience:

• Experience: Minimum of 13 - 15 years of progressive human capital experience, with significant exposure to venture capital, private equity, management consulting, or fast-paced financial services.
• Commercial Mindset: Demonstrated ability to think commercially, act with urgency, and link human capital strategies directly to financial and venture returns.
• Performance Governance: Proven track record of designing and running firm-wide performance management systems, OKRs, and Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs).
• Cross-Border Expertise: Deep understanding of compensation benchmarking, employment standards, and talent dynamics across African markets and international hubs (specifically UK/Europe).
• Due Diligence & Advisory: Direct experience or capability in conducting leadership assessments and human capital due diligence for investment/M&A targets.
• Leadership Potential: Strong executive presence, high emotional intelligence, and the strategic capacity to quickly step into broader operational oversight as Chief Operating Officer (COO).

Application Closing Date

Not Specified.