Share with your CHRO
High-performing CEOs are redefining what they want from their chief people officer, and the bar has moved well past HR operational competence. A new Heidrick and Struggles report defines the “enterprise CHRO” as someone who sits alongside the CFO and the senior technology leader as a co-architect of long-term business performance, not a service-function head. Only 25% of HR leaders currently operate at this level. The defining shift is a new C-suite quartet, where the CHRO’s closest working relationship may be with the CTO or CIO, not the CFO, built around AI-driven workforce transformation.
What this means for your business
Whether this story is about you depends on one question: does your CEO see you as the person who explains what the workforce can do, or the person who processes what the workforce needs? CHROs at high-performing companies are being held accountable for leadership pipeline depth and workforce AI-readiness alongside cost efficiency. The 75% of HR leaders not yet operating at enterprise level aren’t failing at HR. They’re running a function that their organization hasn’t repositioned yet, and that gap is increasingly a CEO-level disappointment.
The budget detail matters and deserves scrutiny. CEOs at high-performing companies are not increasing HR budgets even as expectations expand, which Heidrick and Struggles frames charitably as a positioning problem rather than a resourcing problem. But Heidrick and Struggles, whose business model depends on placing senior executives into elevated roles, has a structural incentive to argue that the CHRO role needs upgrading rather than funding. The more uncomfortable read is that CHROs are being asked to absorb an AI transformation mandate, workforce planning, and executive succession at the same time, without additional capital. “Positioning” is a generous word for an expanding scope with a flat budget.
The 4% figure from The Conference Board is the number to hold onto. Only 4% of U.S. CHROs say they feel very prepared to manage AI-driven change over the next two years. That’s not a confidence gap you close with repositioning language. If your organization is genuinely expecting the CHRO to co-lead AI workforce transformation alongside the CTO, the question worth raising in your next budget cycle isn’t whether the title fits the moment. It’s whether the function has the analytical capability and the resources to make the claim credible.
Based on reporting from CEOs want ‘enterprise CHROs’ who can talk strategy and skills, report finds, originally published 2026-10-15 03:00:00.
