Head of People
Build LISA's People function from the ground up, and help the wider AI safety field do the same.
The London Initiative for Safe AI (LISA) is the UK's central hub for AI safety. Our mission is to build the ecosystem the world needs to navigate transformative AI safely, by strengthening the capacity, capability, and cooperation of the AI safety field.
LISA’s strategy is built around solving three problems that the AI safety field faces:
Capacity: Mobilising talent into the field
Capability: Strengthening organisations working on AI safety
Cooperation: Convening the ecosystem
Our London hub hosts some of the brightest individuals and organisations in the field: researchers, founders, government officials, and AI safety staff from organisations like Anthropic, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and the UK AI Safety Institute. By co-locating these people in the same building, we lower the friction to collaboration, accelerate the careers of those entering the field, and strengthen the organisations working to make AI go well.
LISA is entering a step-change in scale. Over the next 12 months, the organisation will:
Relocate to Kings Cross (Q1 2027) - a six-floor (82,000 sqft), purpose-fit-out facility near other key AI organisations (e.g. Google DeepMind, Anthropic, OpenAI, ARIA, GovAI).
Expand the core team from 10-12 to 40-50 people by Q1 2027, with new functions in Talent Mobilisation, Organisation Support, Ecosystem Convening, and an expanded Operations function.
Launch a redesigned membership and service model spanning programme delivery partners, organisation members, resident members, and guests.
To support our growth we need to build our own People team. You will join as our first hire and build our People function from the ground up: the strategy, the team, the policies, the processes, the systems and the everyday practices that make LISA a place where a small, high-trust team can do its best work as we grow. You’ll have the opportunity to develop the function from scratch, with a full remit and resources to develop a function that can deliver excellence and match LISA’s future ambitions, to help work on one of the most important problems of our time.
Alongside LISA, our partner organisations are also expanding rapidly. With many of them lacking People expertise of their own, you will also act as a trusted People adviser to our partner organisations, a senior sounding board they can bring questions to on topics such as pay banding, contracts and hiring. This is a consulting relationship rather than an outsourced HR function, with organisations remaining responsible for their own people and their own decisions; your job is to help them get those decisions right and to build their own capability over time.
Reporting to the Director of Operations, you'll work closely with the senior leadership team to help make LISA – and the organisations working inside it – to develop leading People functions, and in doing so help build the foundations of the AI safety ecosystem.
About LISA and the Role
Develop and run the People function
Develop LISA's People strategy and a phased roadmap for the function, aligned with our organisational plans and budget, and own its delivery. Build the team that you will need to deliver the function’s aims.
Build the foundations: establish employment contracts, a staff handbook and core policies that are legally sound, proportionate for a small organisation and reflect how we want to work. Keep us compliant with UK employment law and with our data protection obligations for employee data.
Partner with the CEO and Director of Operations on organisational design as LISA grows: structure, role design, headcount planning, succession and key-person risk. Bring a People perspective to leadership decisions before they are made, not after.
Build an end-to-end recruitment process covering role design, structured interviewing, fair and consistent assessment, offers and onboarding, and support hiring managers to run it well. Help LISA hire exceptional people in a competitive talent market.
Introduce lightweight, effective approaches to goal-setting, feedback, performance conversations and professional development, and coach managers to use them.
Help shape a healthy, high-trust, high performing culture as we grow, including engagement, wellbeing, equity, diversity and inclusion, and the rituals and communication that hold a small team together. Take seriously the particular pressures of working in AI safety, where the stakes feel high and burnout is a known risk, and make sure people have access to meaningful support.
Be the first point of expertise on employee relations matters, including grievances, disciplinary and capability processes, absence and exits, acting with fairness, care and discretion and drawing on external legal advice where needed.
Help LISA to build manager capability. Most managers in research organisations are first-time managers promoted for being excellent at their craft. Design and deliver practical support for LISA's managers, from onboarding into the role through to coaching on feedback, performance and difficult conversations, and make this expertise available to partner organisations.
Own our compliance with UK employment law and related obligations, from contracts, statutory rights and the Equality Act through right-to-work checks, sponsor duties, employment status and UK GDPR for employee data. Keep policies and records current, stay ahead of legislative change such as the Employment Rights Act 2025, and know when to bring in external legal advice.
Develop and own on any people related matters for our London Hub, including safeguarding, code of conduct and a clear, trusted route for raising concerns, covering members, organisations, programmes, guests and event attendees, as well as LISA staff.
Own the People budget and our external providers. Manage the People budget and the panel of external providers we rely on, including employment lawyers, regulated immigration advisers, benefits and pension providers, an employee assistance programme and recruiters, ensuring we get good value and that partner organisations can benefit from vetted providers where appropriate.
Support the organisations we host
Design and operate the advisory offer so that it stays advisory, with clear boundaries: partners own their decisions, their employer obligations and their records.
Act as a trusted advisor to our partner organisations, senior People sounding board for founders and leaders of organisations in the LISA ecosystem, through regular office hours, workshops, ad hoc consultations and occasional deeper engagements.
Advise on the questions that most matter to the partner organisations, including policies, pay and reward, contracts, hiring, and employment matters.
Develop reusable resources, including templates, playbooks and guides, such as a model employee handbook, a pay banding framework and a visa guide, that partner organisations can adapt for themselves.
What you’ll do
About you
Essential
Proven delivery: a track record of building People functions or major People processes from scratch. You have designed and implemented policies, systems and processes, not only inherited them.
Broad experience: you don't need to be an expert in any one area, but you've worked across all areas of a People function - including organisational design, reward, performance management, employment matters, and compliance.
Hands-on: able to set direction and operate at pace in a growing organisation without a full support structure already in place. You are comfortable as a team of one, hands-on and organised, and able to move between strategy and execution.
Continuous improvement: a mindset of continuous improvement, identifying the root cause of problems and driving these through to solutions across the organisation.
Experienced influencer: you have the ability to advise and influence senior people you do not manage, across organisations with different cultures and constraints, with pragmatic and well-judged advice.
Excellent judgement: about when to be rigorous and when to be light-touch – you know where strong systems are non-negotiable and where a simpler approach will do.
Desirable
You care about making transformative AI go well, and you're keen to deepen your understanding of the field and your part in it.
Experience of supporting several organisations at once, for example in an investment firm, venture capital, accelerator, hub, group structure or consultancy.
Direct exposure to scaling an organisation through a period of rapid growth.
Experience working in a comparable setting - for example a scaling tech company, research institute, professional services firm, membership organisation, or other complex multi-function environment.