Chief Talent and Capability Officer — Payments Portfolio

The mandate

A privately held payments group has completed an acquisition that broadened its product and merchant reach, but the investment plan now depends on capabilities neither organisation can reliably quantify. Both sides claim shortages in engineering, fraud, product and enterprise sales while maintaining overlapping leadership, vendors and learning programmes. Vacancies, contractors and job titles provide activity measures, not proof that the right skills can be deployed against the roadmap.

The new Chief Talent and Capability Officer will influence approximately A$4,100 million of assets and investment and lead about 200 employees and material partners. The remit combines executive talent, workforce planning, capability academies, internal mobility, succession, organisation effectiveness and people analytics. It is not the full CHRO seat, but it carries enterprise authority over how critical capability is defined, built, bought, borrowed and retained.

The first job is to replace self-reported skill inventories with evidence. Product milestones should identify the proficiency, capacity and leadership required; assessment, delivery history and manager calibration should verify supply. The executive can then decide which acquisition teams to combine, preserve or redeploy and where external hiring is genuinely necessary.

Integration adds a cultural choice. Uniformity is not the goal: acquired strengths should survive where they create value. Yet duplicate titles, inaccessible talent and competing promotion standards cannot remain. The officer must build a shared internal market and make leaders accountable for releasing people, not merely hoarding them.

The integration also creates an opportunity to widen leadership supply. Successors should be tested through real cross-portfolio assignments rather than listed after a calibration meeting. Capability data must allow the executive committee to see where diverse internal candidates are gaining the experiences required for larger roles and where sponsorship is failing.

Why this seat is open

This planned new role was approved for the post-acquisition operating model and is not a replacement. The board is allowing four to six months so the appointee joins before the next capital and talent cycle. Existing accountabilities continue until activation, and confidentiality protects design choices while external and adjacent-sector candidates are assessed.

What you will own

• Translate the payments investment plan into role, proficiency, capacity and timing requirements.
• Verify current capability using work evidence and calibrated assessment rather than title alone.
• Decide build, buy, borrow, automate and partner routes for each scarce skill cluster.
• Integrate talent and succession standards while preserving acquired specialist strengths.
• Create internal mobility with transparent matching, release expectations and transition support.
• Tie learning investment to deployment and delivery outcomes, stopping programmes without evidence.
• Lead approximately 200 employees and partners with clear decision rights and successor depth.
• Give capital sponsors a capability forecast linked directly to roadmap and integration gates.

The first 12 months

In the first 90 days, identify the investment milestones most exposed to capability shortages. Meet the 30 stakeholders central to delivery, including acquired leaders, technical specialists, product owners and capital sponsors. Validate skills in the highest-risk clusters, assess the talent organisation and stabilise regretted-loss risks. Agree board gates for organisation appointments, external hiring and learning spend.

Months four to nine should establish the shared talent market, fill critical leadership seats and launch focused build-or-buy interventions. Remove duplicated programmes and measure whether trained or transferred people reach productive deployment. The first release of cash or capacity should be observable in contractor reduction, vacancy avoidance, faster staffing or roadmap delivery.

By month twelve, verified capability supply, internal mobility and leadership depth should show a repeatable trend. The value case must finish within 10% of plan and forecasts should reconcile capability, cash, delivery and people assumptions for three consecutive quarters. Priority issues must close on schedule with independent evidence, and no severe escalation may age beyond 30 days.

What the board will measure

• Verified supply and forecast demand for the capabilities that constrain investment.
• Time to productive deployment, not simply hiring or course completion.
• Internal fill, cross-acquisition mobility and reduction of unnecessary contractor dependency.
• Keep critical-talent retention above the 90% threshold and provide immediate successor cover for 70% of direct-report seats.
• Leadership diversity and quality across the integrated portfolio.
• Quantified improvement in the capability constraint, supported by clean data and an accountable owner.

The person

You are a Chief Talent Officer, Learning and Capability Head or Deputy CHRO with 22–28 years in financial services or a comparably complex enterprise. You have changed executive structure and workforce economics while protecting critical talent and employee relations during integration.

Your accountable portfolio, budget, book or P&L has been at least A$2,400 million, and you have led no fewer than 150 people; this seat’s perimeter is approximately 200. You can demonstrate that capability investment changed delivery results over at least two reporting periods. A large curriculum alone is not sufficient evidence.

You combine rigorous assessment with respect for specialist identity. You can challenge leaders who overstate shortages, persuade them to release talent and explain why some acquisition capabilities should remain distinct.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is A$380,000–500,000 plus annual incentive. The permanent role is based in Sydney on a hybrid pattern, supports international relocation and can accommodate notice up to six months. Final terms reflect confirmed scope and current mix.

Confidentiality

The organisation will be named only after reciprocal interest and a confidentiality undertaking. The composite market, scale and integration context are not coded clues.