The CHRO of the future

Foreword

The CHRO role is no longer just about managing human capital—it's about unleashing the potential of your workforce, whether they’re a human or a bot. Effective CHROs today are those who blend technological innovation with human insight, transforming workplace ecosystems from the inside out.

CHROs are also responsible for more today than ever before. With AI reshaping work, hybrid models the norm, and employee experience and sentiment taking center stage, the role demands a unique blend of tech know-how, leadership skills, emotional intelligence, and strategic vision.

Perhaps most importantly, CHROs are uniquely positioned to build organizations led by responsible leaders, and thus create companies that positively impact society, the environment, and the future. With trust in institutions at an all-time low, businesses are viewed as both competent and ethical, in contrast to governments, the media, and even NGOs, which are often seen as lacking in one or both areas. Through their pivotal role in C-suite succession, CHROs have the power and responsibility to elevate leadership and improve the way the world is led.

In this report, we will explore how the CHRO role is changing today, what is likely to happen to the role in the future, and what that means for the types of leaders who will succeed as CHROs.

Success in 2025 and beyond will belong to CHROs who can turn human potential into competitive advantage—creating organizational models as agile and innovative as the markets they serve.

Anna Penfold
Global Leader of the CHRO Practice, Russell Reynolds Associates

Chapter One: How the CHRO role has changed

The CHRO role has elevated

Gone are the days when CHROs mainly oversaw HR policies and procedures. Today CHROs spends 80% or more of their time working with the most senior stakeholders in their organizations on the most sensitive issues, such as C-suite succession, how an organization is preparing for the future of work, and transformation. In some cases, CHROs have explicit board-level responsibility for areas such as culture, workforce, and risk.

Alongside this, CHROs are typically the confidant of the CEO, acting as a sounding board and thought partner. They are also a valuable presence on the executive committee and board, entrusted with keeping the organization’s best interests at the fore of decision-making. To perform this role, CHROs have to be experts in building trust between different stakeholders, and adept at mediating between different parties.

Figure 1. CHRO stakeholders, roles, and key areas of responsibility today

_{Source: RRA analysis; 21 interviews with global CHROs in 2024; RRA internal analysis 2025.}

The CHRO role has broadened

The CHRO role has expanded significantly as companies seek to harness the workforce as a strategic differentiator. An analysis of publicly listed companies in the UK, USA, and Canada reveals that nearly half of CHROs have responsibilities which extend beyond traditional HR duties. To oversee this breadth, HR leaders need to be more strategic and commercial than they have done previously.

Those responsibilities are often related to transformation goals. It is increasingly common to see CHROs with responsibilities such as transformation, sustainability, and brand and marketing coming under their wing. In these areas, being able to inspire, motivate, and sell behavior change to the workforce is critical in creating the desired impact of many strategic investments. It’s also likely why we also see an increase in CHROs with aspects of operations and technology explicitly listed in their job titles.

Figure 2. Percentage of CHROs with expanded remits in different markets

_{Source: Russell Reynolds Associates CHRO Turnover Index 2024; RRA analysis of S&P 100, FTSE 100, EuroStoxx 100, TSX 60 and ASX 200, 2025.}

 

This evolving remit positions CHROs as pivotal in driving both operational agility and sustained business performance. This diversification of their role could correlate to the fact that 57% of CHROs are considering a career move beyond their current employer, which, although it might still seem high, is 7% lower than the global average for all leaders. Organizations with expanded CHRO roles are keeping top HR talent engaged.”

Anna Penfold,
Global CHRO Practice Head, RRA

 

The CHRO is critical to organizational stability

Externally, companies are grappling with complex socio-political challenges, new legislation across sectors, and the impact of new technologies. Internally, record numbers of CEO and CFO changes have occurred, which can be disruptive even with careful planning.

Amidst this volatility, organizations are choosing to prioritize CHRO stability. Despite a spike in turnover activity in Q4 2024, CHRO turnover reached a five-year low last year. It was 21% lower than in 2023 and 30% lower compared to 2022.

Figure 3. CHRO turnover decreased in 2024

 

The declining turnover reflects organizations' strategic focus on leadership continuity. By retaining CHROs, companies can leverage deep institutional knowledge while navigating complex workforce transformations. Stability in the CHRO role is no longer about maintaining the status quo, but about creating a consistent platform for strategic evolution."

Ted Moore,
Americas HR Practice Leader, RRA

 

Additionally, CHROs are choosing to stay in their role for longer. In 2024, the average CHRO tenure increased to 4.5 years, up from the 3.9-year average seen in both 2023 and 2022.

As the pandemic demonstrated, the CHRO is critical to organizational stability, therefore, organizations are working harder than before to retain top HR leaders. Companies also want to keep hold of their CHROs to steady the ship during CEO and CFO changes, entrusting them to ensure a smooth transition between leaders.

It also reflects the importance of leadership continuity around some of the most critical organizational health risks that are owned by the CHRO: the availability of talent and workforce transformation. With CHROs pivotal in preparing for and navigating these threats, it makes sense to retain talented CHROs with the agility and vision to turn these threats into opportunities.

Figure 4. % of leaders ranking each item as a top five issue impacting organizational health in the next 12-18 months

_{Graphic displaying the top five threats to organizational health for CHROs in 2025 against the top five for all roles.}

The CHRO role will change even more as AI advances

As AI technologies scale and become more reliable, CHROs will dedicate more time to transformational changes in the workforce and work itself. Questions about workforce composition, the division of tasks between humans and AI, and managing their interactions are becoming central to organizational strategy. CHROs of the future will need to be able to design, orchestrate, implement, and sell that change to everyone from senior leadership to front-line workers.

That future state will likely mean new roles and responsibilities emerging in the HR function. Many roles will require a combination of human intelligence and AI capabilities to succeed, although some areas—such as data, process, and reporting—could be entirely handled by AI.

The role of the CHRO will thus mean far more interaction with and management of technology. But it should also free CHROs up to fulfil the more human aspects of their role. These AI-enabled efficiencies will likely mean CHROs can be more present with employees and spend more time as a coach with senior leaders. They can focus their time on talent, culture and performance as the “value add”.

Potential roles in the HR team of the future

Chapter Two: Who will be the CHROs of the future?

The CHROs of the future will have broad experience; fewer will have ‘pure’ HR backgrounds

CHROs of the future will need to be confident engaging across more functional capabilities than ever before: they’ll need to be strategists, technologists, operationally pragmatic, and data literate, as well as a HR expert.

The need for a breadth of experience to become a CHRO is already coming through in the leaders appointed to the top job. Of the CHROs appointed in 2024, 15% were promoted from an immediately prior role that was outside HR altogether. These roles ranged from regional CEOs and business unit leaders to other C-suite roles, including governance, transformation, and compliance.

In addition, 26% of newly appointed CHROs in 2024 had HR Business Partner, regional HR or deputy HR responsibilities immediately prior. Many experienced CHROs credit these types of roles as being pivotal in their development because it brings them closer to the business, as well as providing exposure to all the verticals within HR.

The trend towards selecting HR leaders with a breadth of experience is only likely to increase as companies navigate the future of work. It’s likely that in the future, ‘pure’ HR backgrounds will be less common than they are today.

 

Many CHROs make the step-up to the top job after gaining rotational experience in regional HR roles. This type of exposure builds credibility with P&L leaders, develops a strategic mindset, and exposes high performing HR talent to some of the breadth of leadership challenges they will encounter when they become a CHRO."

Michelle Chan Crouse,
APAC HR Practice Leader, RRA

 

Figure 5. Immediately prior roles of all CHROs appointed in 2024

_{Source: Russell Reynolds Associates CHRO Turnover Index 2024; RRA analysis of S&P 100, FTSE 100, EuroStoxx 100, TSX 60 and ASX 200, 2025.}

The CHROs of the future will be leaders of leaders

The CHRO role has broadened in scope. This elevated role means more responsibility for HR leaders, and the need to develop a team of great leaders beneath them.

With 80% of their time spent with senior stakeholders, CHROs cannot be hands-on in running the HR function: they must select great leaders and empower them. This is a very different type of leadership development, and most have little experience of doing so until appointed as CHRO. To cope with the broadened remit—and to avoid burnout—spotting and developing the next generation of talent is a must.

CHROs are also required to demonstrate leadership with the executive committee and around boardroom tables. Balancing their role as confidants, mediators between disagreeing stakeholders, advocates for the business's best interests, and champions of culture requires emotionally intelligent leadership and resilience—a unique challenge for CHROs.

Often serving as a safe space for other leaders seeking counsel, CHROs typically lack an internal outlet for themselves. More than ever, future CHROs will need to invest in external CHRO networks to stay informed about job evolution, learn best practices from peers, and find a psychologically safe space to address their greatest challenges.

Chapter Three: How CHROs and organizations can prepare for the future

What CHROs can do

Prepare for human and machine integration

The integration of AI presents both a critical challenge and opportunity for CHROs in 2025. Working in close partnership with technology leaders, CHROs must architect responsible AI adoption strategies that balance innovation with human considerations. Their approach should prioritize small-scale pilots before broader implementation, while actively addressing employee concerns and resistance through targeted reskilling programs and change management initiatives.

 

AI is fundamentally reshaping business models, workforce structures, and leadership capabilities. It’s influencing how companies compete, how employees work, and what skills will matter most in the future. CHROs need to be at the forefront of this transformation. The most strategic CHROs are helping shape how AI drives the business, shapes the organization structure, and is ensuring leaders are savvy on AI."

Brad Pugh,
Americas HR Practice, RRA

 

Invest in HR data and analytics capabilities

AI presents HR leaders with an incredible opportunity to unlock value from unstructured data that was previously almost impossible to analyze. Upskilling your HR team and investing in analytics solutions will enable your team to articulate, measure, and track the impact of HR initiatives on the business. This will help to build the confidence of both senior executives and the workforce that transformation is working, decisions are data-driven, and HR KPIs are improving.

Sell your vision and organize the change-maker troops

Workforce transformation is the number one threat CHROs are concerned about in 2025. And no wonder—it’s their job to set out a vision, sell it to the board, then lead the company through an era of unprecedented technology change. CHROs will spend the bulk of their time with senior stakeholders ensuring that transformation goals are aligned with strategic ambitions, agreeing what good looks like, aligning people in the pursuit of performance and, crucially, ensuring it will be measured.

That means a CHRO needs a small army of change-maker troops: those who can lead transformational change while ensuring cultural continuity on the ground. Leaning on HR Business Partners, regional and deputy HR leaders, and ensuring this community is up-to-speed on technology and workforce transformation is a must.

Ensure your involvement in C-suite succession

The future of the workforce includes the future of leadership teams, and the CHRO's involvement can only add value to the most strategic and sensitive issues an organization faces. CHROs can continue to elevate their own role by bringing deep understanding of internal talent pools, being an objective sounding board for incoming and outgoing leaders, and connecting it all with the future vision for the organization. By playing this role, CHROs can smooth out potential conflicts during the process, but most importantly ensure the board selects the right leaders to set the organization up for success for the long-term.

What organizations can do

Redraw the lines of the role to enable the work(force) transformation your company needs

AI and other new technology will change workforces—and work itself—in a matter of years rather than decades. When thinking about the role of the CHRO in your organization, consider where to draw the lines between HR, operations, technology, and strategy. The answer will be different for each company.

Re-drawing the lines will have implications when hiring a new CHRO—can they stretch as far as you need them to in the future? It can also be a great opportunity for sitting CHROs to develop their own journeys as transformation leaders.

Assess for future potential

As the CHRO role continues to expand and external volatility remains high, examining a candidate’s potential to grow, oversee major change, and support your organization’s culture—as well as how they benchmark against the wider market—are all crucial for successfully hiring your next CHRO. Whether assessing talent internally or going out to the market, robust assessment of candidates’ experiences and competencies—as well as their future potential and ability to realize it—really matter in helping companies understand the nuances of a particular leader’s style.

Structured assessments like our Leadership Portrait model can help organizations understand both a leader’s ability to succeed today, as well as their potential to lead the organization through the inevitable change and transformation that sits on the horizon.

Authors

Michelle Chan Crouse leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Human Resources capability in APAC. She is based in Singapore.
Ted Moore leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Human Resources capability in the Americas. He is based in Chicago.
Anna Penfold leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Human Resources Officers capability. She is based in London.
Brad Pugh is a member of Russell Reynolds Associates’ Human Resources Officers capability. He is based in Atlanta.
Alison Huntington leads Russell Reynolds Associates’ Human Resources Officers and Legal, Risk & Compliance Officers Knowledge teams. She is based in London.