Chief People Officer, Thorntons Law LLP - 'I'm five weeks into this CPO role and it already excites me'

It’s early days for Helen Honeyman, CPO of Thorntons Law LLP – the irony is that while she is being inducted, she’ll soon be in charge of the induction process herself. Here she talks to HR Grapevine about the steps she took to land at the top of the HR tree and what are the first things she does when she gets her feet under the table in a new job.

It began with graduate training

Honeyman began as many do, fresh out of university and straight into a graduate role. “I joined RBS in 2000 but not in HR,” she says. Starting out in corporate banking and the financial markets was a good grounding in how the powerhouse banks work.

“Eventually I moved into HR via an employee benefits project and that’s where it all began,” she says. Her interest grew and with a background in employment law, HR practices appealed to her. Blink and 19 years passed by at RBS. “I did change job every two to three years, gaining experience in almost every HR function,” she says.

She joined Lothian Pension Fund as their Chief People Officer in early 2020, a role she held for over five years. “My task was to build up HR and the people side,” she says. It was her first role as a CPO, but she was ready for it after holding down senior HR positions at RBS. “I focused on what makes things work, how to support people and build culture. It was definitely a baptism of fire, though, because I joined in January 2020 and lockdown came in March. I had to get to know the board, committees, and staff remotely, but we managed - recruiting, enabling home working, and later returning people to the office. It was the right move for me at the time.”

While the perfect storm of a world health crisis was happening and she was navigating a senior HR job remotely, she also became non-executive director for Dundee and Angus College. “I chair the audit and risk Committee, I’m a member, and also the Vice Chair of the board.”

Thorntons offered a CPO role which was fast-paced and full of growth

“After five and a half years at Lothian Pension Fund, I had built the HR function and wanted a new challenge. My life was changing too – my son moved to America and my daughter went to university – I needed something new,” she says. An empty-nester, she channelled her efforts into a new investment – it came in the form of Thorntons. It was a change of job, but she had acquired the skills of experience to do it.

“Thorntons is faster paced than local government, but not faster than financial services. In fact, I see a lot of similarities between Thorntons and RBS. The pace, the drive for change, the values - it all feels familiar,” says Honeyman.

With a 665 strong workforce the firm is in good shape and growing. It’s one of the reasons that sealed the deal. “They’re expanding carefully and in line with their values. They’ve acquired firms whose cultures align with theirs, so the integration feels natural. The firm is proudly Scottish and focused on embedding a unified culture across locations.”

Those values include ‘community, inspiring, human, bring your whole self to work, feeling supported as an individual and being part of something bigger,” she explains. With a team of 19, Honeyman has set about meeting the growth goals with consistency of processes. “As businesses grow, practices evolve differently across areas. My focus is on making processes smoother and less clunky, creating consistency across the organisation.”

I ask her what her CPO style is and she replies, “I’m very hands on – right now it is about supporting my team to make their lives easier and ensuring the basics are right before I push for bigger changes,” she says. Not one to shy away from the new she adds that she sees AI as an enabler and not something to be feared. “In the legal world it needs to be enabled carefully and governed correctly,” she notes.