LACE Partners announces six senior appointments
The leadership team of LACE Partners has expanded to cater for increased demand from the HR teams of clients. Luka Winterborne, Chris Kirby, Chris Horton, Thomas Gruber, James McLintic and Kayley Gaynor have all joined the firm’s senior ranks.
The coronavirus crisis has already disrupted the way people work, what consumers expect from brands and employee expectations of their employers. For HR functions, 2021 has subsequently seen a year of major change, with HR under more pressure to provide transformational support to the business than ever before.
Helping clients to meet such challenges head on, LACE Partners is a boutique consultancy specialising in HR transformation, change and technology advisory work. In order to bolster its capacity to support its partners – many of which are FTSE250 businesses – LACE has announced a number of new appointments as it experiences rapid growth.
Luka Winterborne joins LACE as a Senior Manager. He was most recently Group HR Employee Experience Manager at Centrica. He brings over 17 years of experience in various senior roles within HR, and specialises in employee transformation programmes, employee experience and strategy.
Chris Kirby has also become a Senior Manager with LACE, having previously been a Director with Thistlebarrow Consulting. A payroll specialist with close to 20 years’ experience, he has also held senior roles with Colt Technology Services, Barclays and easyJet.
Chris Horton joins LACE from Vodafone, taking up the role of Director with the HR consultancy. The former Accenture Managing Director brings three decades of knowhow to LACE, specialising in Workday and SuccessFactors HR, HR Operating Model, Shared Services, Employee Experience and People Analytics.
Kayley Gaynor has been consulting in the HR sector since 2006, and has worked in HR consultancy and client-side roles across multiple industries within the private and public sector. The Senior Manager will focus on HR technology and people transformation, having previously been Senior HR Service Development Manager at AWE.
Thomas Gruber is an experienced change management professional with over 12 years' supporting substantial people, process, and technology transformations. The Senior Manager was most recently a change practitioner with Alight Solutions, where he supported clients across multiple industries implement, adopt and realise the benefits of Workday through engaging change management programmes.
James McLintic has meanwhile joined LACE as a Director. Having formerly worked for Prudential and Barclays as a Director for HR technology and change, he has also been a Management Consultant with Capgemini, an Associate Practice Partner with Wipro, and a Director in EY’s people advisory services wing.
Managing Director and Co-Founder Aaron Alburey of LACE Partners said, “The collective strength of our newly formed Leadership and Executive Team means we deeply understand any issue that HR teams and organisations are facingThis is part of a longer-term growth strategy that is in place as HR teams look to accelerate their digital transformation journey beyond the current pandemic period.”
As businesses focus on their employee experience with so many workers now operating flexibly, appointments highlight a wider trend – HR teams need to rapidly deploy experienced practitioners for projects that, as a result of the global pandemic, were put on hold but are now being accelerated. According to Alburey, LACE has strengthened its capacity to provide advice, structure and support “on an incredibly flexible and agile basis,” as its new team members can enable it “to do that on a wider scale than ever before.”
