What happens when an 80-year-old firm hires its first Chief People Officer

In the ‘Our People’ section of accountancy firm, Gerald Edelman, Chief People Officer Olivia Parrish, lists doing a skydive as the most daring thing she’s done. “I definitely had a few jitters beforehand,” she recalls, “but I ended up loving every second of the experience.” Although she’s not at all done yet. Going into space is, she says, now high on her bucket-list, as is visiting Antarctica and studying for a PhD. The advice she says she’d give to her 10-year old self would – perhaps unsurprisingly – be: “Take every opportunity that comes your way.”

It’s a philosophy that probably answers why Parrish, having spent more than two decades in HR, including for other accountancy firms Haines Watts and Cooper Parry (and most recently running her own HR consultancy business), now finds herself back in the world of in-house HR. “I wasn’t actually looking for a new role, but when Carl Lundberg, CEO of Gerald Edelman, got in touch, it triggered memories of previously working for accountancy firms, and the opportunity being presented to me really felt energising.” She adds: “I honestly felt that this was a company I had to join. I felt I could really make my mark, not least because the reason I was being called was because the board very obviously saw my role as critical going forward: they were wanting to hire their very first chief people officer.

A blank sheet of paper

To some, the prospect of coming in with a blank sheet of paper and having to scale things up from scratch, could be cripplingly daunting.

But not for Parrish: “I’d already done this before – so it wasn’t new in that sense,” she says. “But what really appealed was the fact that while my role wasn’t specifically defined – and it would be up to me to shape – the board said that we would be a team. This was important for me to hear, because so many HR professionals are given a remit, but then they are presented with barriers to getting things done. Here, I really felt I could get my head under the bonnet, and get really stuck in.”

So how exactly does someone successfully join, and start to get themselves involved with a business that has existed quite happily for more than 80 years without a CPO?

“We are a profitable firm, doing great work, and so there was no sense that I was needed to come in a fix things that were wrong,” she says. “But was what was clear from Carl was that as part of our next phase of growth, his vision is to be much better known, and for providing something ‘different’ in our typical traditional space [regulatory compliance, financial reporting and corporate governance].” She adds: “The main aim is to build our advisory presence, and to do this, we believe it relies on creating structures and frameworks that ensure everyone is initially right for their role, so that we can bring them on in terms of their career development.”

Getting ‘right’ right

Parrish calls this having a better understanding (backed by analysis), of describing “what ‘right’ looks like.” She says: “We’re asking fundamental questions about whether people think they’re in the right role for them, whether it’s what they want, and how it can be changed if necessary. It’s important, because one of our key aims is creating more entrepreneurship amongst our partners and employees, and this can only happen if the fundamentals are established correctly.”

Having only been in post since November last year, (and only being there barely a month in when HR Grapevine spoke to her), Parrish admits she’s still very much in the “lots of listening” phase.

She says: “I’m reinforcing what my role actually is, and this helps inform what my initial roadmap will be. The first things that have started to emerge however, are whether we have the right benchmarks; whether we are creating clarity within roles; whether there are things that we’re doing well that we need to do more of, and whether we can make more progress around how people become successful in their leadership roles.” She continues: “This involves lots of extracting of information from people, all in addition to the usual day to day activities of running HR.”

If this already sounds like a long list (oh, and she’s also looking at the firm’s reward strategy), Parrish doesn’t appear to be phased by it. If anything, you rather suspect she is up for the challenge.

“Carl has been with the business for a very long time, but he’s recently stepped into the CEO role, and the vision he has for the business is really exciting,” she says. “On a fundamental level, once we get the data on the right people and the right roles, that’s when I’ll know I can start doing the high level stuff.”