Are You Carrying Too Much Alone?

Why Even Top CHROs Need a Hive  - Not Just a Network

As a Chief HR or People Officer, you are entrusted with decisions others can’t touch. You advise the CEO. You influence culture. You lead people through change.

Yet one thing many CHROs don’t say out loud is: you often don’t have someone to talk to.

You’re expected to have the answers  - for the executive team, the board, the organization. But where do you go when you don’t know?

You’re probably seeing all of this:

• The business landscape feels more volatile than ever  - AI, shifting workforce models, board scrutiny. You’re asked to “see around corners” while also putting out fires today.
  
  
• Reading reports and case studies helps  - up to a point  - but ideas get flat in isolation. It’s not the same as being inside a conversation with peers wrestling with the same issues, live.
  
  
• You pour energy into others  - your CEO, your leaders, your teams. But who is pouring into you? Even elite athletes bui...

AI is moving into HR faster than anything we’ve seen before. At the CHRO Event 2025, one word kept surfacing from every corner of the discussion: urgency.

Felicia Taylor, Chief People Officer at WebPT, summed it up perfectly: “AI is the new COVID.” Think back to 2020—companies that adapted quickly thrived, those that waited were left behind. AI is presenting that same inflection point today.

Why does HR play a unique role in AI adoption?

Maruchy Cantu, EVP and Chief Administrative Officer at DFW Airport, explained it clearly: “HR’s unique role, the thing only HR can truly do, is rewiring how the organization works. It is about mapping how humans and intelligent machines interact.”

And the urgency is real. Her stat was chilling: 80–85% of jobs posted today will be impacted by AI. This isn’t a minor shift—it’s a workforce reshaping.

Why fix data before adopting AI?

Doug Dureau, CHRO of Hillwood, gave a strong warning: don’t chase shiny tools before your foundation is ready...

Overview:
A CEO change can shake the C-suite — and often the CHRO role is one of the first to be replaced. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In this session, Amaris McComas, CPO at TrueBridge, shares how she turned a first-year CEO transition into a career accelerator. You’ll learn how to:

• Build board relationships that last beyond any leadership change
  
  
• Reset and strengthen the CEO-CHRO relationship, even if they were a peer
  
  
• Leverage transformation periods to expand your influence
  
  

Who It’s For:
CHROs and Chief People Officers navigating or preparing for executive transitions.

Key Outcomes:

• A practical framework for handling peer-to-boss dynamics
  
  
• Strategies for earning board trust quickly
  
  
• Ways to position yourself as an indispensable transformation leader
  
  

📌 Next Step: Join the CHRO Mastermind to access more unfiltered strategies from peers who’ve been there. Apply now: https://www.chropartners.com/ 

“When your peer becomes your CEO, everything changes. S...

For many CHROs, a CEO change is a career hazard. A new CEO often brings in their own trusted people.

When Amaris McComas, Chief People Officer at TrueBridge, faced this challenge in her first year, she turned it into a defining moment.

1. Build Board Trust Early

She didn’t just participate. She led the process alongside the board, becoming a trusted advisor and learning exactly what they valued in leadership.

2. Reset the Relationship

Her new CEO had been a peer. Amaris initiated a boundary-setting conversation to preserve trust with both her peers and the new leader.

3. Lead Through Transformation

The CEO change sparked an enterprise-wide transformation. Amaris leaned into the challenge, guiding the people strategy through sweeping changes.

Business Impact

Surviving, and thriving, through a CEO transition can cement your strategic position and broaden your influence at the highest levels.

📌 CHRO Mastermind — learn the unfiltered playbooks from peers who’ve been there...

This session is with Chris McKay and Dr. Jess Conser our Keynote Workshop Team at the Big CHRO Event (part 2 of 2)

Why CHROs Need This:
AI isn’t just streamlining recruiting - it’s redefining the roles of recruiters, HR business partners, and even CHROs. What began as automation is rapidly moving toward fully agentic AI that can orchestrate sourcing, screening, onboarding, and mobility end-to-end. The leaders who stay ahead now will shape how talent is found, developed, and retained in the next decade. The risk isn’t missing the latest tool - it’s failing to reimagine HR’s operating model fast enough.

What You’ll Learn:

• How agentic AI will shift HR from process execution to orchestration and oversight.
  
  
• What AI-native onboarding could look like - personalized pre-boarding, digital coaches, and seamless day-one engagement.
  
  
• Why skills-based taxonomies (Eightfold, Gloat, Beemery) will replace static succession plans and nine-box grids.
  
  
• The organizational risks CHROs must manage - fr...

After our recent Members-Only Mastermind session with Chris McKay and Jessica—who are also keynote speakers for the Big CHRO Event—I asked ChatGPT a simple question:

“What part of this talk was truly unique… the kind of insight our members couldn’t just find on the internet?”

The response was 🔥. Here's what it said:

🔐 1. Agentic AI as a Workforce Redesign Imperative

Chris didn’t just explain agentic AI—he reframed it as a new type of workforce HR must learn to hire, onboard, manage, and offboard.

“Most AI talks treat AI as a tool. This session treated AI as a new kind of talent CHROs will be responsible for—alongside humans.”

🧠 2. The Cost of Intelligence Is Going to Zero

Chris dropped a bold statement: intelligence is no longer your differentiator—clarity is.

“Everyone will have access to top-tier AI. What sets your org apart? Your data, your context, and your people.”

📊 3. An AI Maturity Model Built for HR

Chris and Jessica introduced a 5-level AI maturity bench...

Part 5 of 5 in The CHRO’s Reframe series
Designing Human-AI Collaboration That Competitors Can’t Copy

Welcome to Week 5 of this five-part series on the big conversations every CHRO should be leading around AI.

If you’ve made it this far, you know what’s at stake. You’ve assessed risk, evolved your workforce, managed governance, and reframed investment strategy.

Now it’s time to lead at the highest level, by designing how people and AI work together across the business.

Because here’s the truth: Everyone’s talking about AI tools. But the companies that win will be the ones that design collaborative systems their competitors can’t replicate.

This is where CHROs stop reacting and start reshaping how the business works.

🔹 Domain 5: Strategic Leadership in the AI-Transformed Business Landscape

AI will change how every decision gets made, how every employee spends their time, and how fast your business responds to the market.

The following questions help you lead from a system...

Part 4 of 5 in The CHRO’s Reframe series
Strategic Questions That Reframe Capability as Competitive Edge

Welcome to Week 4 in this five-part series on the big conversations every CHRO should be driving around AI.

So far, we’ve covered AI risk, workforce transformation, and governance.

This week, we tackle the question you may already be getting in boardrooms and ELT meetings:

“We’ve spent all this money on AI, where’s the ROI?”

Here’s the hard truth: most companies are overspending on tools and underspending on the people and processes that actually deliver value.

The shift? Position AI investment as a capability strategy, one that builds a moat competitors can’t easily cross, instead of just another tech upgrade.

🔹 Domain 4: AI Investment Strategy and Business Value Creation

The real value of AI doesn’t come from software. It comes from how your people use it to solve problems no one else can.

These three questions can help you reframe AI spend so your CEO sees it as a c...

Part 3 of 5 in The CHRO’s Reframe Series
How to Protect Enterprise Value While Moving Fast

We are in Week 3 of this five-part series on the big AI conversations every CHRO should be leading.

So far, we have covered how to assess AI risk and value across the business, and how to lead strategic workforce transformation.

This week’s focus is AI risk, governance, and competitive intelligence.

If your AI strategy creates lawsuits or brand damage, you do not have a strategy. You have a liability.

Most executive teams are nervous about what AI might break. Your opportunity is to lead with guardrails that build trust, reduce friction, and help the business move faster, not slower.

🔹 Domain 3: Enterprise AI Risk Management and Competitive Intelligence

When done right, risk leadership earns trust from your CEO, your customers, and your employees.

It also positions HR as the protector of enterprise value and the enabler of smart, fast growth.

Here are three questions to drive that conv...

Course Title:

Leading in the AI era: A CHRO’s portfolio approach to real business value

Why CHROs Need This

AI isn’t just a technology shift - it’s a leadership moment. But many CHROs are stuck managing disconnected pilots and vendor-driven experiments that don’t scale or deliver clear value. In this session, your digital co-hosts from CHRO Partners Ian and Alex unpack how CHROs can lead AI adoption with confidence - by using a portfolio approach that connects AI investments to employee experience, operational efficiency, and future innovation.

What You’ll Learn (and Why It Matters to CHROs):

• The AI Sandwich - Explained.
  Understand the full stack: embedded tools, custom builds, and the all-important trust layer. 

Why it matters: without a framework, AI investments fragment fast - and CHROs lose influence over adoption and impact.

• Three Returns That Actually Matter.
  Get clear on Return on Employee (ROE), Return on Investment (ROI), and Return on Future (ROF) - a...