People strategy that boards actually use

I'm Domi Alzapiedi — a Chief People Officer in financial services.

I write about the questions that sit between people, strategy, and commercial performance. The ones that determine whether organisations actually perform, transform, and hold together under pressure — or just present well.

Chief People Officer · Banking · People & Strategy

Most organisations have a people strategy. It sits in a slide deck somewhere, usually updated annually, occasionally referenced in a board paper. What they lack is a people function that speaks the language of the business — that can quantify the cost of a culture failure, model the return on skills investment, or show the Chief Executive exactly where people risk is holding back commercial performance.

That's the work I do. I operate at the intersection of people, governance, and commercial performance — where the questions are harder, the stakes are higher, and the answers rarely fit on a single slide.

The writing below is how I think about these questions. Each piece is built on real data, drawn from genuine experience, and written for the people who sit in the room when the decision gets made.

Writing

Thinking in public

People Strategy — Financial Services

The Eighty-Seven Percent Problem

87% of organisations are not fully AI-ready. The missing pieces are not technology. They are infrastructure, governance, and a skilled, confident workforce.
87%
not AI-ready
People Strategy — Financial Services — International Women's Day 2026

The Multiplier Effect

Promoting a woman into senior leadership does not fill one seat. It strengthens the entire layer beneath her. That is not a diversity argument. It is a return on leadership investment.
6%higher team engagement under women managers
People Strategy — Financial Services

Driving Organisational Performance

People investment often shows up as a cost line. The Chief People Officer who can connect workforce decisions to revenue and shareholder value changes that conversation.
1.5×revenue growth at top-quartile people practices
People Strategy — Financial Services

The Budget Paradox

Boards want AI transformation and cost reduction. Both require people investment. Only one is getting funded.
67%of CFOs cutting costs while protecting AI budgets
Culture & Regulation

The Conduct Question

The Financial Conduct Authority now treats culture as a regulatory signal. Your people function should have done so first.
37kfirms brought into reporting scope
Leadership — Financial Services

The Credibility Equation

The people function has never been more visible. It has rarely been less understood. That gap is ours to close.
15.5%annual CPO turnover at Fortune 200
Governance -- Financial Services

The Culture Balance Sheet

Every bank has a financial balance sheet that's audited quarterly. Very few have a culture balance sheet that's governed at all. That asymmetry has consequences.
£4.70return for every £1 spent on culture and wellbeing
People Strategy — Financial Services

The Eighty-Seven Percent Problem: What to Do About It

Part two. The readiness gap is real. Here's how people leaders can close it — and why the commercial case is stronger than it first appears.
46%of tasks employees expect AI to handle within three years
People Strategy — Financial Services

The Flexibility Dividend

Hybrid working is not an employee perk. It is a talent strategy with measurable commercial consequences — and most banks are getting the calculation wrong.
33%reduction in turnover with hybrid schedules
People & Strategy

The Great Flattening

Your org chart is about to lose its middle. 20% of organisations will use AI to flatten their structure by 2026. That's a strategy problem, not an HR one.
41%already removed management layers
Operational Risk & People

The Resilience Blind Spot

The PRA wants to know if your business can survive disruption. The answer depends on your people more than your technology.
38%likely to leave their role within 12 months
Governance & Leadership

The Succession Deficit

CEO succession is the board's most important job -- and one of the hardest to get right.
21%of directors rate their succession planning as excellent
People Strategy — Financial Services

The Talent Hoarders

The most expensive recruitment problem in banking isn't in the market. It's inside your own building.
1 in 3keep applications secret from their manager
Expertise

What I do

People Strategy

Designing people functions that speak the language of the business — commercially fluent, data-literate, and tied to outcomes the board cares about.

Organisational Design

Structuring organisations for what's needed next, not what worked before. Role architecture, capability mapping, and the hard conversations about where value actually sits.

Culture Transformation

Shaping culture deliberately — not just measuring it. Building the frameworks, leadership behaviours, and governance structures that shift how an organisation actually operates, not just how it reports.

AI & Workforce Readiness

Closing the gap between technology deployment and people capability. Skills architecture, role redesign, and management readiness for AI-enabled organisations.

Succession & Talent

CEO and leadership succession as a governed discipline. Internal pipeline development, board-level succession governance, and talent mobility that actually works.

Driving Commercial Results

Connecting people strategy to the numbers that matter — revenue per head, cost of turnover, time to productivity. Building the commercial case for people investment in language the board and Chief Executive actually use.

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About me

I'm a Chief People Officer in financial services. The question I keep coming back to is: how do you close the gap between what technology now makes possible and what the organisation is actually ready to deliver? That's a people problem — and it's where the right Chief People Officer makes the difference.

Beyond that, I think about how to build succession pipelines that are ready when the board needs them, how to connect people strategy to organisational performance in ways a Chief Executive can see in the numbers, and how to scale and restructure teams through periods of significant change without losing what made them effective.

I've spent my career across private banking, wealth management, and regulated digital banking. I think in systems, I write in sentences, and I believe the people function should be one of the most commercially literate parts of the business.

I write about the questions that keep leadership teams honest.

Get in touch

If something I've written has been useful, or you'd like to discuss how it applies to your organisation, I'd be glad to hear from you.

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