Overview

A People Director will be the key People partner for our global foundational teams (Finance, Tech, Customer Love, Brand & Creative), and will partner with our UK Commercial Directors. You will translate stakeholders\' ambitions and growth plans into People needs and shape the People Plan. You will contract with Centres of Excellence to align delivery with business priorities and take accountability for the successful execution of the People Plan in your areas.

This role requires you to act as a critical friend to senior leaders, supporting and constructively challenging their thinking to define role success, build high-performing teams and set ambitious goals. You will lead and develop your local People team (People Leads, Payroll, and People Experience) to ensure the delivery of brilliant basics and an excellent People experience. The People Director is part of the People Leadership Team, reporting directly to the CPO.

Key Responsibilities

• Business Partner with Global Functional Leads and UK Commercial Directors; build trusted peer relationships to enable high performance across their teams.
• Translate business ambitions into actionable People Plans, ensuring these feed into CoE priorities and are delivered effectively.
• Partner with CoEs as a peer: shape strategy, agree delivery priorities and contract expectations with business stakeholders.
• Lead, coach and develop your direct reports, ensuring they are empowered, supported and growing their skill set.
• Ensure the consistent delivery of brilliant basics including employment relations, payroll, compliance, performance processes and employee experience.
• Influence senior leaders with data and insight: build, interpret, and present key People metrics to shape decisions and measure impact.
• Champion DEI, wellbeing, and engagement initiatives as a cultural carrier, embedding values and ways of working into every aspect of the People lifecycle.
• Contribute to the wider strategic evolution of the People Team, supporting the design of scalable, innovative processes that serve all markets.

About You

• Extensive experience in senior HR/People leadership roles, ideally in a fast-paced, international environment.
• Proven track record as a senior business partner with the confidence to challenge, influence, and shape decisions at exec level.
• Strong leadership capability with experience developing and enabling People managers and teams.
• Excellent communicator with an ability to simplify complexity, build trust quickly and influence.
• Data-driven mindset, able to translate metrics and insights into action.
• Deep knowledge of UK employment law and strong commercial awareness.
• Comfortable balancing strategic influence with operational delivery, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
• Inclusive, values-led leadership style with a genuine passion for people and culture.

Interview Process

• Application review
• Initial call (45 minutes): Introductory chat with our Talent Partner
• Technical interview (60 minutes): Remote interview with scenario and competency-based questions
• Chief People Officer interview (45 minutes): In person interview in our office in White City to discuss commercial knowledge and values alignment
• Final interviews (60 minutes): In person interview with our Co-Founder with competency and values-based questions

Logistics

• This team works 3 days per week from our West London office (Mon, Wed and Thu) and 2 days from home. This is non-negotiable, so please only apply if you\'re within a reasonable commute of London.
• We reserve the right to close the position if we receive a lot of applications. We aim to respond to all applicants personally.
• We are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.
• We are not looking for recruitment agency support for this role.

About Us

At Butternut, we put the food back into dog food. We make freshly prepared dog food cooked like you would at home, delivered in perfect portions. We are a B-Corp certified company committed to sustainability and care for our people, product, and environment.

What We Offer

• 25 days holiday (plus 8 bank holidays) and an additional day for every year of service
• 5 paid "paws" days per year for learning and wellbeing
• £500 personal learning & development budget
• Butternut Box employee discount
• Enhanced parental leave (52 weeks maternity include 26 weeks fully paid and 6 weeks paternity/secondary leave)
• Co-working office space
• Flexible working hours and work from home options
• Cycle to work scheme
• Pension with NEST
• Private Medical Insurance with Vitality
• Private Dental Insurance with Bupa
• Time off for fertility treatments and pregnancy loss
• Paid sabbaticals for squad members with 5+ years at Butternut
• Discounted gym access through MyGymDiscounts
• Office dogs on site

Equal Opportunity

• Butternut Box is an equal opportunity employer and values diversity and inclusion. We welcome people of different nationalities, backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives.
• We are committed to improving our social and environmental performance as we grow.
• We strive for diverse teams and an inclusive environment for all.