For most of the past decade, the chief human resources officer has been steadily gaining strategic influence. New research from Heidrick & Struggles suggests that influence has now reached a turning point. The CHRO is no longer judged mainly on how well the HR function runs, but on whether the organisation is ready for what comes next.
In “Chief HR officer focus: What high-performing CEOs want from their CHROs”, published on 7 October 2026, Heidrick & Struggles’ Brian Kropp, vice president of CPO Insights & Community Engagement, and Brad Warga and Jennifer Wilson, partners and co-heads of the firm’s global Human Resources Officers Practice, argue that leadership and talent have become one of the most reliable sources of competitive advantage left to companies. Their analysis draws on a survey of 600 HR leaders at companies with revenues of USD 1 billion or more across 11 markets, alongside 2,716 CHRO searches and proprietary data on Fortune 1000 heads of HR.
Their central finding is a counterintuitive one. The companies that get the most out of their CHROs are not spending more on HR. They are positioning the role differently.
A broader mandate, a deeper bench of skills
The authors describe a CHRO role that is being asked to do more at once than ever before. Redesign work around AI, rebuild operating models, develop new capabilities, speed up transformation and absorb workforce disruption, all while protecting employee trust. Heidrick & Struggles
AI sits at the centre of that shift. According to the survey, 78% of CHROs expect preparing the workforce for AI and technological change to be among the most critical issues for their organisation’s success, but only about a quarter say they are doing this effectively today. Among Fortune 1000 companies, 45% of CEOs have specifically asked their head of HR to take a lead role in the organisation’s AI transformation. Heidrick & Struggles
The job description has grown to match. Across the searches analysed, the number of skills CEOs look for in a head of HR rose from roughly 8.6 in 2016 to nearly 13.0 in 2026. The share of CHROs with direct management responsibility outside HR more than doubled, from 13% in 2022 to 29% today, often covering enterprise transformation, communications or workplace strategy. Heidrick & Struggles
The pattern matches what McKinsey has seen in its own conversations with European CHROs, where the role is described as increasingly about linking technology insight to business decisions and working closely with technology leaders on capability building. McKinsey
The experience premium
One of the clearest signals in the data concerns who gets hired. Among externally hired Fortune 1000 CHROs, the share with previous CHRO experience rose from 41% in 2022 to 75% in 2025. Same-industry experience rose from 23% to 34% over the same period. Heidrick & Struggles
Kropp, Warga and Wilson are careful to explain why. CEOs are not paying for experience for its own sake. They want someone who will contribute from the first day rather than learn on the job.
For senior people leaders, this is an important market signal. Proven judgment, earned over years in the role, is being valued more highly, not less. It reinforces a theme WiseForce Advisors has followed closely: executive transition is a board-level issue, and the experience of leaders in the later stages of their careers is a strategic asset. WiseForce Advisors
More expectation, no extra budget
The most striking finding is what high-performing companies are not doing. Heidrick & Struggles found no statistically significant difference in HR-to-employee ratio or HR spend per employee between companies with high total shareholder return (TSR) and those with lower TSR compared with industry peers. Heidrick & Struggles
In other words, the stronger performers are not simply out-resourcing their competitors in the people function. According to the authors, the difference comes from who holds the CHRO role, what they are measured on, how they show up in the boardroom and who they work with every day.
Defining the enterprise CHRO
The research identifies a group the authors call “enterprise CHROs,” who are significantly more common at companies that consistently outperform peers on TSR. The definition rests on three criteria, applied in sequence:
Strong operational effectiveness across the core responsibilities of HR.
Growing strategic capability in integrated workforce planning, executive succession planning and AI workforce transformation.
Strong alignment with the CEO, giving the CHRO the sponsorship needed to operate as an enterprise leader.
Only 25% of CHROs currently meet that standard. Heidrick & Struggles
At the top-performing companies, the skills CEOs prioritise also look different. They are less likely to look for a traditional HR generalist profile and more likely to look for AI, automation and digital enablement; the ability to advise and partner with the CEO; ethics and integrity; succession planning across internal and external candidates; M&A; organisational design; workforce planning; and workforce restructuring.
That last item is telling. As WiseForce Advisors has observed, restructuring is no longer a phase but an operating model, and the people leader is increasingly expected to design it, not just administer it.
Three ways enterprise CHROs work differently
1. They are measured on what comes next
Enterprise CHROs are still judged on traditional measures such as HR cost efficiency. But they carry more KPIs overall, and those KPIs are shifting from what the authors call “plumbing KPIs” to “performance KPIs” that look ahead to organisational and business outcomes.
Leadership talent is the clearest example. Enterprise CHROs are 32% more likely to be held accountable for the actual strength of the leadership bench, while other CHROs are 10% more likely to be measured on inputs, such as the number of training sessions delivered to senior leaders. Enterprise CHROs are also 20% more likely to be measured on whether the workforce is changing to meet the needs of an AI-enabled future. Heidrick & Struggles
2. Same boardroom seat, different conversation
Structurally, nothing changes in the boardroom. Enterprise CHROs attend around two board meetings a year, much like their peers, and sit on the same committees.
What changes is the content. Their board material looks further ahead, with more weight on strategic workforce planning (8% more likely), future skill needs (23% more likely) and leader effectiveness (11% more likely). They help directors assess enterprise risk and the odds of a transformation succeeding, rather than simply reporting HR metrics. Heidrick & Struggles
3. From triad to quartet
The biggest structural change concerns relationships. For years, conventional wisdom held that the CEO, CFO and CHRO formed a stable triad: one leading strategy, one managing financial resources, one managing human capital.
That triad is becoming a quartet. Enterprise CHROs are building partnerships with senior technology leaders that are as strong as, or stronger than, their ties to the CFO. They spend an additional 10 hours a month working directly with their CTO on the AI transformation of work, and 90% report strong alignment with their CTO, compared with 73% of other CHROs. Heidrick & Struggles
The authors describe this as making CHROs “co-architects of the future organisation” rather than providers of HR systems focused on cost. McKinsey describes a similar division of labour in AI-led transformations, where the CTO builds the platforms and the CHRO manages the talent side, and warns that the effort stalls if any link in that chain is weak. McKinsey
What this means for CEOs and boards
According to Kropp, Warga and Wilson, high-performing CEOs have not solved the problem with money. They have changed the role. Specifically, they have:
Raised the capability bar, looking for CHROs who can build a forward-looking workforce plan and a leadership strategy to deliver the AI transformation of work.
Expanded accountability, with more KPIs focused on what comes next rather than what has already happened.
Changed the board conversation, so the CHRO brings risks and opportunities in the leadership bench and workforce.
Widened the core leadership group, adding the senior technology leader and strengthening the CHRO–CTO relationship to the level of the CHRO–CFO relationship.
Here are four questions for any CEO reviewing a current CHRO or planning succession:
Does the CHRO’s skill profile match what will drive performance, or traditional HR generalist skills?
Are the CHRO’s KPIs framed around enterprise and business outcomes, or HR process metrics?
Is the information the CHRO brings to the board materially different from what a traditional HR leader would bring?
Is the CHRO–CTO relationship strong enough to drive the AI transformation of work?
They also pose a harder set of questions that CEOs should ask themselves: whether they have created the conditions for their CHRO to operate as an enterprise leader, whether they bring the CHRO into strategic decisions early enough, and whether they are aligned on where the business is going and what that means for leadership, talent and succession. Heidrick & Struggles
The implication for senior leaders in transition
The findings matter well beyond the HR function. For CHROs who expect to move on within the next few years, the market is clearly rewarding a particular profile: enterprise-level judgment, fluency in AI-driven workforce change, credibility in the boardroom and the ability to lead alongside technology leaders. Building that track record while still in the role is far easier than trying to show it after leaving.
For CEOs and board members thinking about their own succession, the research is a reminder that the quality of the next leadership team depends heavily on the people leader who helps build it. A strong enterprise CHRO is, in practice, one of the main architects of an orderly handover.
The research also points to growing demand for experienced senior executives who can step into complex mandates quickly, whether in permanent roles, interim leadership or AI-related roles suited to experienced executives. As Heidrick & Struggles concludes, when strategy, technology and capital become easier to copy, the ability to build leaders and keep adapting the organisation increasingly decides long-term performance. Boards also have a growing role to play, as WiseForce Advisors has noted in its analysis of why the ageing boardroom is an opportunity.
The next chapter of a senior career deserves the same strategic thinking as the role itself. WiseForce Advisors helps experienced leaders plan what comes after the role, with peer-level perspective, strategic clarity and a transition plan built for the long term.
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