Vice President, People

Company Description

Novo is a venture-backed fintech that simplifies banking for small businesses. Since our Fall 2018 beta launch, we've expanded offerings from free checking accounts and debit cards to lending products, business tools (invoices, bookkeeping, and more), and integrations.

Today, Novo is a powerfully simple banking platform that serves over 250,000 small businesses. In addition to providing smart tools built for entrepreneurs to better run and grow their businesses, Novo has processed billions in transactions in partnership with a number of established banking partners.

Our vision is to be the go-to platform serving small businesses – from launch to everyday – so business owners can focus on growing, while Novo provides seamless money movement, money storage, and access to capital. We'd like to look back 5–10 years from now and know that we helped new generations of small businesses succeed because of the work we did at Novo.

Novo raised $170 million in venture capital and is backed by leading investors, including Stripes, Valar Ventures, Crosslink Capital, and Notable Capital (formerly GGV). Learn more at https://www.novo.co.

Role Description

Novo is seeking a highly experienced and motivated people leader to own and scale our talent, culture, and people strategy. This role is critical to attracting, developing, and retaining the people who power banking for over 250,000 small businesses, supporting our rapidly expanding team and business operations. The ideal candidate is a hands-on, employee-centric leader who can build and run core people functions — talent acquisition, people operations, performance, and culture — while serving as a strategic partner to the executive team in a dynamic, regulated fintech environment. This is a high-impact, high-visibility role with significant exposure to the executive team and board.

Responsibilities

People Strategy & Leadership

• Develop and execute the people strategy aligned with Novo's mission, growth objectives, and operating plan.

• Serve as a key strategic partner to the executive team, providing insight on organizational design, headcount, and people decisions to guide major business decisions.

• Partner with leadership to determine long-term growth strategy, workforce planning, and staffing plans across the company.

• Lead, mentor, and level up the existing people and recruiting team, building a high-performing function that scales with the company.

Talent Acquisition

• Build comprehensive, integrated recruiting strategies to attract top talent, enable growth, and bring new expertise to Novo.

• Scale and continuously improve the hiring process to attract the best people while delivering an exceptional candidate experience.

• Partner with hiring managers and leadership to define roles, leveling, and hiring plans across a growing organization.

• Establish the systems, tools, and metrics needed to run a data-informed, efficient recruiting function.

Culture & Employee Experience

• Develop and steward Novo's employee-centric culture, building a foundation of empowerment, accountability, and trust across the organization.

• Develop a successful and engaging strategy for a growing, distributed team across the country and around the world.

• Implement forward-thinking policies and processes that develop a culture of peer-to-peer feedback and recognition.

• Build strong relationships across the organization, partnering with leaders to work toward shared goals through a clear, well-communicated people strategy.

Performance & Development

• Lead and innovate the performance management and review process to empower employees in their work and facilitate their personal and professional growth.

• Define career paths, leveling frameworks, and development programs that support employees at every stage.

• Build manager capability and leadership development to grow the next generation of Novo leaders.

• Use people data to understand engagement, retention, and performance, and to inform continuous improvement.

Total Rewards & People Operations

• Own compensation, benefits, and total rewards philosophy, ensuring Novo remains competitive while managing cost responsibly.

• Oversee people operations, including onboarding, HRIS, and the day-to-day employee lifecycle, building scalable systems and processes that grow with the company.

• Partner with Finance on headcount planning, compensation budgeting, and people-related forecasting.

Compliance & Risk

• Ensure people practices, policies, and programs comply with relevant employment laws and regulatory requirements across the jurisdictions in which Novo operates.

• Partner with Legal, Risk, and Compliance to navigate the requirements inherent to a regulated financial services company, including those relevant to hiring and the workforce.

• Identify, assess, and mitigate people-related risks across the business.

Strategic Planning & Budgeting

• Contribute to strategic planning for future people needs and the company's broader operating roadmap.

• Develop and manage the people and recruiting budget, optimizing spend while ensuring teams have the resources needed to deliver.

Minimum Qualifications

• 12–18+ years of progressive experience in people, HR, and talent functions, with at least 3–5 years in a senior people leadership role (preferably in fintech, financial services, or high-growth technology).

• Demonstrable experience building and developing cultures within high-growth companies or startups, and scaling people and recruiting functions in a fast-moving environment.

• Proven track record scaling a company's hiring process to attract top talent, including experience building effective teams at a high-growth company.

• Experience leading and developing people and recruiting teams, and partnering with executives on organizational design, workforce planning, and culture.

• Strong understanding of performance management, total rewards, people operations, and the policies needed to support a growing, distributed workforce.

• Proven ability to lead and motivate teams, manage complex cross-functional initiatives, and communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders, including the executive team and board.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with high emotional intelligence and a genuine, people-first approach.

• Comfortable wearing multiple hats, juggling projects simultaneously, and prioritizing as business needs shift.

• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, evolving startup environment.

• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree or relevant credentials (e.g., SHRM-SCP, SPHR) preferred.