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Sparta is an AI-powered platform for commodity trading, backed by $42M in Series B funding from One Peak, FirstMark, and Singular. The company has built Leonidas AI, an operating system for oil and commodity traders with proprietary reasoning capabilities and market data.
As Vice President of People, you will be Sparta's most senior People leader, reporting directly to the CEO and managing a team of 3. You will define and execute the global people strategy required to scale the organization from Series B through its next growth phase, ensuring alignment across leadership, capability, culture, and organizational structure. This role offers a clear path to Chief People Officer as the company scales.
Key responsibilities include:
- Develop and execute Sparta's global people strategy, balancing organizational structure, capability, culture, and talent alignment across distributed teams in London, Geneva, Spain, Singapore, Houston, and Dubai, while managing local employment and regulatory considerations
- Serve as strategic advisor to CEO, Executive Team, and Board on organizational design, leadership capability, succession planning, workforce risks, and culture
- Build compensation architecture including salary bands, levelling frameworks, and transparent pay approaches across geographies
- Introduce structured performance processes and individual scorecards so employees understand success metrics
- Build leadership pipeline through talent reviews, succession planning, and management development; empower managers to make decisions independently
- Lead organizational design to ensure operating model, spans, layers, and leadership structure evolve appropriately as the business scales internationally; partner with Finance on workforce planning
- Own talent acquisition strategy and delivery; work with Marketing and TA to grow employer brand
- Own Learning & Development including coaching, training, and capability development for managers and individual contributors
- Provide executive oversight of workplace and employee experience across all locations
- Represent People at the leadership table, raising risks early and keeping stakeholders informed
First-year success metrics include: Executive Team alignment on people strategy, measurably improved leadership effectiveness, workforce plan linked to business objectives, live salary bands and levelling framework, individual scorecards in place, structured performance review running company-wide, middle-management empowerment programme in place, succession plans for key roles, and hiring on track with quality and retention maintained.
The role is based in London or Geneva with flexibility for 1–2 days per week from home.
Requirements:
- You have been the most senior People leader in a scaling organization, or held a Director or VP People role with significant strategic accountability
- Experience in Series B–D SaaS or tech scaleup, with firsthand knowledge of people challenges at that stage
- Personally built compensation, levelling, and performance frameworks with demonstrated impact
- Ability to influence founders, boards, and senior executives; can challenge constructively when needed
- Commercially minded with ability to find workable compromises and build lasting frameworks
- Led organizational change across distributed, multi-country teams (not just HR programme rollouts); familiarity with local laws, regulations, and cultures in London, Geneva, Spain, Singapore, Houston, and Dubai is a distinct advantage
- Takes ownership, moves with urgency, comfortable being hands-on
- Communicates clearly and proactively
- Interested in growing this role into a CPO seat
- Experience scaling a tech business from ~100 to 300+ people is a plus
- The company values what you've achieved and its relevance to the stage over years of experience
