Head of People & Product

About CBRE

CBRE is the world's largest commercial real estate services firm. Our Experience Services business is building something genuinely new inside it: a hospitality-first operating model for enterprise workplaces that borrows from how the best hotels and premium operators run site-level businesses, and applies it at the scale of a Fortune 500 portfolio. We're a small, highly intentional team inside a 100,000-person company - and we're building the playbook as we go.

About the Role

Experience Services runs on people. Our product is the quality of the people we hire, the way we onboard them, the standard we set for what great looks like, and the culture we build across our team. This is what clients are buying when they choose us. Which means the person who owns this work isn't running HR. They're building our competitive advantage.

This is not a standard People or Talent role. The scope here spans everything a CPO might own at a 7,000-person company - talent brand, values and behaviors, recruiting, onboarding, performance management, growth pathing, manager effectiveness, recognition, internal comms, org design - but the orientation is product and operator, not program and process. You're not building infrastructure for its own sake. You're building a team and a culture that is visibly, measurably different from every other workplace operator in the market.

The first six months will be about writing our people strategy - mapping where we are today and where we need to be across talent brand, values and behaviors, employee value proposition, recruiting and interviewing, onboarding, goal setting and performance management, skill-building and growth pathing (including AI), recognition and community, and manager effectiveness. The point isn't to build a comprehensive HR infrastructure. It's to make a clear, honest "from ? to" and then prioritize ruthlessly: do we start with one to three target accounts and prove the model there first? What do we begin to change across the broader Experience team?

From there, you will personally drive top priorities. That might mean running the hiring process for our first GM at a flagship headquarters site end-to-end, writing the Experience-specific employee value proposition and figuring out which two or three pieces we can meaningfully improve immediately, then making those happen. Mapping who the key People leaders are inside our most important accounts, building real relationships with them, and helping them change their behavior on the ground. Or identifying the two or three places where AI would be genuinely transformative for this team, and implementing them.

This role has a meaningful client-facing dimension. You'll spend roughly 30% of your time with prospective and current clients - diagnosing their challenges, supporting sales conversations, role-modeling what a world-class people operation looks like. You are, in a real sense, as much the product as the service itself. An important part of the role will be walking into the room with a Chief People Officer at a global financial institution and making a compelling case for what we're building.

The honest hard part: this is a senior IC role inside a highly matrixed organization with legacy processes. You will have influence without always having authority. The people and systems you most need to change will resist changing. The person who thrives here is energized by that challenge and has modern, tested strategies for navigating it - not someone who needs a mandate and clear org lines to get things done.

The upside is real. This is a rare opportunity to define what a world-class people strategy looks like for a new kind of business - one that's been proven in theory and is now being built at scale. You'll work directly with the leader of the business, own a portfolio of work that matters immediately, and leave fingerprints on how this team operates for years.

A Typical Day Might Look Like

You start the morning reviewing a draft of the employee value proposition you've been building - you push back on two sections that feel too corporate, tighten the language, and flag a gap in how we're describing growth. Then, you have a call with the Chief People Officer at one of your most important accounts: you're making friends, understanding how they think about talent, and starting to see where your operating model can help them change their behavior. Midday you're reviewing how a top account has implemented goals across the team, and negotiating with a legacy compensation team to make sure front-line employees are bonused for their efforts. Then you're pressure-testing an internal comms plan you wrote for the broader Experience team - the kind of strategic communication that usually falls through the cracks but you've claimed it. You end the day with a working session on what AI could do for onboarding. You have a testable answer by the time you close your laptop.

Winning in This Role Means

• There is a people/product strategy in writing - clear, prioritized, and into execution - and the team can feel the difference

• The Experience team has an employee value proposition that's unmistakably its own and shows up consistently in how we recruit, onboard, and grow people

• Clients ask for you by name. When a prospective account is deciding between operators, you're part of why they choose us

• The 7,000 experience staff run better because of how you've structured the team's ways of working and proactive communication

• At least two major people initiatives exist and are working that didn't exist when you arrived

You'll Love This Role and Succeed at It If

You believe people are the product. Not metaphorically - literally. You've spent your career in environments where team culture, capability, and character is the thing being delivered. HR programs interest you only insofar as they build something worth experiencing. You have a product designer's eye for what a great people strategy actually feels like from the inside.

You operate at both ends of the altitude. You can write the strategy and then personally make the hard thing happen. The distance between "here's the plan" and "here's the thing we built" is where you live. You don't outsource the work that matters most, and you're genuinely faster than the org would be without you.

You are a change agent inside big organizations. You understand that the hardest part of this work isn't knowing what to do - it's knowing how to move a complex, legacy organization toward something new. You have modern strategies for this. You've done it before. The word "bureaucracy" doesn't make you want to leave; it makes you want to figure out the workaround.

You're credible in the room with clients. You can sit across from a Chief People Officer or Chief HR Officer at a Fortune 500 company and hold your own - diagnosing their challenges, earning trust, and making the case for what we're building. This doesn't deplete you. It's one of the best parts of the job.

AI isn't a future state for you - it's your present. You're already using it in ways that would surprise most people at your level, and you're thinking clearly about how it changes what's possible on a lean team. You know the difference between AI as a toy and AI as leverage.

You make the people around you better. Not through formal management mechanisms, but through presence and craft. The squad runs better because you're in it. The Experience team communicates more clearly. People who spend six months working alongside you are different professionals because of it.

This Might Not Be the Right Role for You If

You've built strong people programs but haven't owned them as a product. If your instinct when you hear "people strategy" is to build infrastructure and process rather than a competitive differentiator, this role will pull in a direction that feels unfamiliar.

Your credibility lives inside the organization. This role requires being comfortable in a room with clients - not in a formal sales capacity, but as someone who represents and embodies what we're selling. If being asked to show up externally feels outside your lane, this isn't the right fit.

You need an org beneath you to execute. This is a senior IC role. There is no team waiting to build the playbook with you. The work is yours.

Your track record of change required clear authority and org alignment. Inside a large, matrixed company with legacy processes, nothing happens fast by default. If friction wears you down rather than sharpening your thinking, this environment will be taxing.

You think of yourself primarily as a People person. The best person for this role will resist that label - not because people work isn't important, but because the frame is too small. This role requires a product and operator sensibility that most "people leaders" haven't developed.

What You'll Need

To perform this job successfully, an individual will need to perform each crucial responsibility satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.

• 12+ years building people strategy, organizational culture, or operating model design - with evidence of personal execution, not just strategic ownership

• Demonstrated track record of driving major organizational change inside large, complex organizations

• Experience in a client-facing or commercial role - selling, advising, or directly supporting enterprise clients

• Meaningful familiarity with AI tools and their practical application to people and operations work

• Based in New York City or able to commit to significant in-person presence

Strong Preferences

• Background in hospitality, premium workplace, or experience-driven industries

• Previous experience navigating a highly matrixed enterprise (not only high-growth startups)

• EVP, employer branding, or talent brand work with demonstrated outcomes

• Exposure to executive-level communication and internal comms strategy

Location

New York, NY. This role is primarily in-person in New York, with regular travel to key accounts and prospective client sites.

The total target compensation for the Head of People & Product position is $300,000- $350,000 annually that is inclusive of base salary and bonus. This role will provide the following benefits: 401(K), Dental insurance, Health insurance, Life insurance, and Vision insurance.

Equal Employment Opportunity: CBRE is an equal opportunity employer that values diversity. We have a long-standing commitment to providing equal employment opportunity to all qualified applicants regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, veteran status, political belief, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

Candidate Accommodations: CBRE values the differences of all current and prospective employees and recognizes how every employee contributes to our company's success. CBRE provides reasonable accommodations in job application procedures for individuals with disabilities. If you require assistance due to a disability in the application or recruitment process, please submit a request via email at View email address on click.appcast.io or via telephone at View phone number on click.appcast.io (U.S.) and View phone number on click.appcast.io (Canada).

CBRE, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer (Women/Minorities/Persons with Disabilities/US Veterans)