Jen Fults, Global Chief People Officer at Alvarez & Marsal

Show Notes

The Golden Thread: Alvarez & Marsal’s CPO on AI, Trust, and Sustainable Growth

Summary

How do you scale a people function for a global consultancy—without burning out the team?

Jen Fults, Managing Director and Global Chief People Officer at Alvarez & Marsal, shares how her HR team is redesigning the entire people experience to fuel ambitious growth sustainably.

Jen explains A&M’s entrepreneurial, “permission to build” culture, the “golden thread” that connects hiring, development, performance, and rewards, and why co-creation with business stakeholders is non-negotiable for adoption.

She details standing up an AI council to accelerate execution (not just add headcount), rebuilding performance in weeks by leveraging internal and external networks, and the leadership practices that keep pace and boundaries intact.

Expect practical insights on stakeholder management, change enablement, and building trust-rich teams where no task is too small—and where programs are rooted in what employees actually need.

Timestamps

[00:45] – Guest intro: Alvarez & Marsal’s global footprint and Jen’s remit

[01:48] – HR team structure, enabling firm growth and operating model focus

[02:44] – The “golden thread” across hiring, development, performance, and rewards

[04:34] – Entrepreneurial culture: permission to pitch, build, and move fast

[05:30] – Case study: rebuilding performance in weeks by tapping networks

[09:13] – What’s ripe for disruption: AI’s role and A&M’s HR AI council

[10:52] – Sustainable execution: pacing, boundaries, and avoiding burnout

[15:20] – Co-creation and change management: turning stakeholders into champions

[16:49] – The rising bar for HR: consultative skills, data, and business fluency

[20:05] – Closing mindset: keep the human experience at the center

Takeaways

- Build the “golden thread” that links hiring, development, performance, and total rewards to a consistent people experience.

- Co-create programs with business leaders to drive trust, relevance, and real adoption.

- Use AI and data to accelerate execution and quality—not to simply expand headcount.

- Set clear pace and boundaries; design roadmaps that prevent burnout while meeting growth goals.

- Equip HR with consultative skills (stakeholder management, change enablement) alongside deep functional expertise.

- Cultivate a trust-first team culture—no task too small, raise your hand early, and support each other to the finish line.

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What is HR Voices?

HR Voices is a scenario-based podcast for People Leaders who’ve actually had to make the call.

Each episode brings experienced HR and People leaders into realistic, anonymized workplace scenarios—the kind you recognize immediately. Performance issues. Messy conflicts. Investigations that don’t fit neatly into a policy box. Instead of talking about their own companies, guests react to outside cases and walk through how they’d think it through in real time.

There are no right answers here. What you’ll hear is judgment: how seasoned leaders balance risk, fairness, legal reality, and humanity when the stakes are high and the path isn’t obvious.

HR Voices is for HR, People Ops, legal, and leaders who want to hear how other smart humans actually handle employee relations—without confidentiality breaches, hypotheticals that feel fake, or a lecture on “best practices.”

Rebecca Taylor (00:17)
Hello and welcome to this episode of HR Voices. We're here with Jen Fults She's the Managing Director and Global Chief People Officer at Alvarez & Marcel. And I'm so excited to have you here as our first guest of the year on HR Voices. Welcome, Jen.

Jen Fults (00:32)
I am so honored.

Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this for some time. So thank you.

Rebecca Taylor (00:37)
Yeah,

I'm excited too. And I know sometimes like this week of the year is sort of the one that's sometimes hard to kind of get into a groove again too. So thank you for being present on a Tuesday and present right at the beginning of the year and ready to chat about kind of all things strategy, all things HR and what we're kind of looking at for this year.

Jen Fults (00:46)
you

That sounds great. It's what lights me up. So where I can have these conversations, I'm always inclined to do so. ⁓ It's really exciting time for our firm and especially for our team, our HR team. And so we've hit the ground running, day two, a new year, new year, new me, new us, I don't know. But everyone's really excited to be back. It's been great so far.

Rebecca Taylor (01:12)
Love.

Cool, cool. And that's a good place to start. So can you tell us a little bit more about your organization and about the people that you support day to day?

Jen Fults (01:22)
Sure, happy to. Alvarez and Marcel, we're a global professional services, we're a structuring firm at our roots, but we work across the gamut of advisory services to turn around to performance improvement, and we have around 13,000 people globally that are focused on doing this work. So across all industries and every pocket of the world, we've got some pretty incredible consultants working hand in hand side by side with some really interesting clients.

around the world.

Rebecca Taylor (01:54)
That's really cool. And so for the group that, how many folks do you generally kind of support and oversee within your remit? are they mostly located in the US? Are they everywhere? How big is the whole thing? Yeah.

Jen Fults (02:05)
Yeah.

Gold is our team.

So our team is around 300 strong now. And we've really been focused on growth and how we really can be an enabler of the firm's growth. From a firm perspective, we're really, I would say, a disruptor amongst our peers. And with that comes a lot of great opportunity. And so for us, as an HR team, we've been really focused on our operating model and our strategy and ways that we can really enable the business to grow at the pace that they're looking to do so for the next

Rebecca Taylor (02:10)
Nice!

Jen Fults (02:36)
you know, three to five, 10, 15 years.

Rebecca Taylor (02:39)
Yeah, very cool. So when you talk about growth, I growth is kind one of those words that can mean so many different things, especially in the HR world, it can mean sort of skill growth, it can mean headcount growth, it can mean business growth. Usually it's a combination of all those things. So when you talk about growth, like what are some of the big growth initiatives and growth strategies that you're working on right now that are really, really important for the company?

Jen Fults (03:01)
Sure. So for our team, it's really thinking more holistically about the people experience and how we support their growth, right? And that means something different to every single person on our team. So we talk a lot about, you know, ⁓ kind of the golden thread between, you know, the people that we hire and the way we develop them, the way we manage their performance or, you know, their development.

performance reviews and some of those things to total reward and benefits, right? And so how do we build an ecosystem that allows our people, right, to do their best work, but also pursue careers that are really meaningful and important to them? Because it's not a one size fits all. That's something that's really special about A as well. You build the career that you want. And so how can our team, the HR team, really support that? ⁓ And that, you know, from a growth perspective for the firm, that's, you know, headcount growth and promotions and some of those things that you would, you know, naturally think about. ⁓

But our team is really focused on start to finish, right? The entire employee life cycle. How do we engage with our people to help them build whatever it is they set out to achieve while they're with us?

Rebecca Taylor (04:06)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Because

I think it's kind of like when you look at organizations as large as yours, there really kind of has this like your world is your oyster kind of perspective when there's so many places to go, I imagine, right? Especially with such a global presence. I'm sure there's a lot of mobility opportunities sort of upward, laterally. kind of like, it seems like it's a place that there's always going to be a lot of work available just because, you know, kind of knowing what you all do and that there really is sort of a lot that someone can

really make of themselves and knowing that you have a lot of that support that your team really focuses on kind of helping them to achieve that and to do that. It's hard to find sometimes. It's hard to find in companies that are so busy and doing so many things. I love that you're so sort of dedicated and focused on that.

Jen Fults (04:51)
And we're really focused, I might add to that, we're really focused on preserving our culture, right? What makes us great? What makes us unique? And we're very entrepreneurial minded. And what does that mean? Well, that means I've got a great idea and I do my diligence, I do my homework and I make the pitch and I get the go ahead to do that. I mean, that's the type of organization we are. ⁓ All great ideas come forward and let's explore everything. All the options, all the avenues. And from a career perspective, that's so exciting.

to join A to be like, well, I'm joining in this area and here's where I think I'm going or the skills I need to acquire to get there and then you go out and get it done. And I'm an example of that too, just being with the firm for three short years. I've had that experience from day one. So it's a pretty special place. ⁓

Rebecca Taylor (05:30)
Yeah.

That's cool. So can you share something

that you sort of ideated and put yourself out there and tried and what happened to it? Was there a project? Was there an idea?

Jen Fults (05:47)
⁓ God.

I think I have a roll of dice with them.

My first week here, I was in a partner comp meetings and we're talking about performance and the development process. It was like, you have permission to rebuild this for us and we're going to launch it in three or four weeks. I thought, I don't really even know anyone yet, but yeah, let's do it. I worked as quick as I could to understand where we were and what were some of the good things that were happening around the firm already. It was a really short window.

Rebecca Taylor (06:08)
Sure, yeah.

Jen Fults (06:20)
of time, but I also relied on my network. I have a lot of really incredibly smart and talented HR professionals and consultants in the HR space too. And so I phoned them up and I said, Hey, what do you think? Am I crazy? And they said, yes, they usually do. I mean, we got it done, but that's been my experience here at A is, you know, as fast as you can go and manage your stakeholders and you communicate and you've got buy-in, you have permission. ⁓

Rebecca Taylor (06:43)
Yeah.

Jen Fults (06:43)
because everybody's

looking to make this the best place that it can be. And that happens at every level in our organization. It's pretty cool.

Rebecca Taylor (06:50)
Yeah, that is really cool. And I love that you're able to kind of lean on an external network too. I mean, that's kind of the thing that I come from HR too. You know, like I was saying before we started recording and I think that some of the things that is just so nice about the HR community in general is that there's such a willingness to share because so many of us have so many different nuanced challenges that we might be facing that there's no really one size fits all option for any company. And you usually have to kind of figure stuff out along the way as you go and just kind of build something that makes the most sense for

Jen Fults (07:05)
Great.

Rebecca Taylor (07:20)
the culture that you're in, the time that you're in, that also kind of keeps things moving forward, but there's no one size fits all for anything.

Jen Fults (07:27)
Right,

right. Well, I think that the advantage that we have too is we have so many, we've grown our team this year, right? And so we talk about learning and development as an example. Well, I've brought together a team of people with 15 different perspectives who've lived different experiences at different organizations maybe, or they've been at A for 15 or 20 years and have seen lots of iterations, right? When you can bring that know-how together, you really can leapfrog ahead of a lot of other organizations ⁓

and kind of using AI and technology and data and some of those things to do something that's really unique and different because 15 people have seen it done 15 different ways maybe, right? And so your point around that network, it's a pretty incredible advantage that you, if you use it right in the right way, kind of bringing the best of all kinds of places together. ⁓

Rebecca Taylor (08:06)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And it's cool because like there could be something that there could have been an idea that someone had five years ago that

Jen Fults (08:26)
Exactly.

Rebecca Taylor (08:26)
didn't work

five years ago, but now that we have new tech like AI, for example, or maybe there's different resources, there's different things that could make that idea new again and make it actually implementable again. I'm a big fan of just having sort of a team parking lot at any time, just sort of a rolling list of ideas that you revisit every once in a while because people think of a lot of really cool things. And sometimes, even if it's not possible now, it could be something that could be possible later, and it's just sort of a really cool way to kind of grow.

Jen Fults (08:53)
completely agree.

Rebecca Taylor (08:55)
I have a question for you. So, you know,

this is something that I think like, we're sort of looking at the new year as like, you know, it's a fresh start, right? In some ways, we're setting fresh goals. There's sort of always this sort of like newness kind of feeling. ⁓ And so there, but, and I think that there's sometimes people are kind of looking for something to be different maybe from last year.

Jen Fults (09:04)
Okay.

sure.

Rebecca Taylor (09:16)
And so what is something that you hope to see that can be sort of different in 2026 compared to what it was last year, whether it's within your organization or just within the people space in general? Like, what do you think is right for disruption?

Jen Fults (09:30)
you

I mean, I think AI disrupts everything, right? Certainly. ⁓ But I think for us in particular, we've really laid the groundwork to execute on a lot of really incredible programs across the firm and across all the functions from learning to performance to operations, right? Benefits, you name it. We looked at everything. And so we spent the last year really kind of hitting the refresh or reset or build button. And now, as we look to the year ahead, we're really excited to put a lot of that into play.

and into motion. ⁓ that's what I'm hearing from the team already coming back from the holiday break is like we're excited, batteries are recharged, right? We know where we're going, we know what we're doing, and ⁓ you know we think we can do quite a bit that's really rooted in what our people are telling us they need and want, right? It's not you know the trap that sometimes organizations fall into which is like OHR knows that we need to do X, and Z and so they rolled this thing out. It doesn't actually do anything that we needed it to do and it doesn't mean

our needs. And so we've been really thoughtful and intentional about, know, rooting some of those programs and priorities in what we heard from our leaders, from employees, from our people. So we're building things that will last. And so that's, think, what we're most excited about. I think with that is how can you work smarter? How to use AI to leapfrog. So we have an AI council within our team. The firm has all kinds of initiatives, as many organizations

do right now, of course. But we're not looking to build this huge army. But now how can we use tech and data and AI to really accelerate where we know we're

Rebecca Taylor (11:00)
Yeah.

Jen Fults (11:09)
that roadmap, how do we use that to get there a bit faster? ⁓ But the challenge we really have, I think ultimately at the end of the day, is how do we make it sustainable? ⁓ How do we, we've got a lot of really incredible, really smart, really incredible talent on our team and we all know where we're going, we know what we want to do, but can we do it in a way that we don't all burn out? And that's something that I'm thinking about, our leadership team is thinking about, and so how can we pace ourselves? So we meet the needs of the business and the growth and the things we talked about earlier. ⁓

Rebecca Taylor (11:18)
Yeah. Yep.

Jen Fults (11:39)
But also focus on careers and development of our people, of our HR team too. So they find that balance and that's still the excitement in what we're doing, but feel like they can care for themselves and their families and friends, their animals, whatever's most important to them.

Rebecca Taylor (11:44)
Yeah.

Yeah, I do love that because it is a really hard balance, especially in an organization that is so entrepreneurial mindset and very like innovative, likes to bring new ideas to the table. It's almost like when you're in action phase, you have to sort of it's almost like you have to freeze the plans and just say, we're not changing any of this for the next X amount of time because we have to see if it works. And then sort of using that as a way to kind of help people find stability and to find sort of

the way to build consistency in their habits to actually make the things that they want to do possible. Because I come from startups and it's always just so tempting to just sort of keep going for the next new shiny thing. And so, you know, are you using certain tools that kind of help keep people on task or, you know, how are you kind of, how are you setting some of those boundaries now?

Jen Fults (12:43)
Oh, that's a one. I joke

all the time. We joke all the time. I have a colleague, Christine Pollack, and we talk a lot about we hold each other accountable on the balance front and sustainability and some of those things, but we push our leaders on that too. And so we always joke like, don't do what we do, but make sure that you're doing better. We're just the whole zoo on your team.

Rebecca Taylor (13:00)
Why do we always

do that though? We always say that where it's like, don't do what I do.

Jen Fults (13:05)
I'm a mom too, right? So I say that to my kids like, well, you know, I'm an adult. You have to do it this way because you're a kid. But no, but I think we really, you know, it's a bunch of really smart adults, right? So you've got to know your limits. You have to know you, you have to have boundaries. You have to honor those boundaries and you've got to raise your hand when you're feeling like you need a break or you need help or whatever, whatever it might be. Right. And so we have a culture within our team where you can raise your hand and you can pull me aside or Christine's that or any of our leaders and say like, this is a lot.

and I need your help in sorting out how I get through this thing. And what I think I'm most proud of is all of our leaders are all up there. So our entire organization is like this truthfully, but in my team in particular, there's no task that's too small, right? I mean, anybody will jump in and help with anything if that helps our team achieve its goal. And so when you build that sort of team culture and space to say what you need or say you're struggling, right, that's where you see

a lot of really great work happen too, right? Because people then feel committed, they feel cared for, and especially when they know where we're going, what we're doing, they're excited. And they know that if they need the help, they can ask.

Rebecca Taylor (14:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, think something, a lot of

sort of the themes and what you're saying that are kind of resonating a lot with me is that it seems like they're sort of a really core foundation of trust and trust in the employees at the organization to have an idea, to try it, to either make it work or not, but also a lot of trust in each other to kind of pick things up where you need or to kind of, it can be hard to say no to your coworker. It can be hard to sort of say, hey, maybe Jen, slow it down a little bit because maybe there's too much going on.

And you can't really do that effectively without a really good foundation of trust. And I think that's, you know, that's a nod to the culture that you have and that you've built. And it's something that I hear. I mean, I talk to people about their workplaces all the time, and it's something that I hear people crave that they can't always figure out how to make, or they can't always figure out how to have. So, you know, one thing that...

I want to kind call out that you mentioned is that you're building programs, you know, sort of from a perspective where people are giving a lot of their own input and it's not just coming from HR saying, here's all the stuff that you have to do and here's why they're doing this in collaboration. So how do you kind of get people's input and feedback?

while you're kind of making all these plans? Because this is the thing, I talk to HR people all the time. They're always like, I feel like I have to have all the answers, but then I feel like I also need to make sure that I'm incorporating people's opinions and people's thoughts. So how do you kind of blend that?

Jen Fults (15:37)
It's you

Something that's unique about our team is we have such a great mix of former consultants, HR consultants or change experts, right? And then we have people who have spent their entire careers in HR who are very deep experts in benefits, right? To pick on something. And so when you marry those two things, Consultants have to manage stakeholders and change and there's a lot, right? You got to bring people along on the journey. ⁓ And so that's the most important piece.

Rebecca Taylor (15:52)
Yeah.

...

Jen Fults (16:07)
You have to come to the table with an idea and a path forward and be thinking about you know Where we want to go and how we're gonna get there But hey stakeholder tell me what you think or or or what has your experience been or you You know your people better than I do how will this be received and so it's that co-creation that conversation Right that kind of brings it together And when you bring them along on the journey, they become your best aid your best change agent So they're you know on the front lines talking about how great it is and here's why it's important and here's the value

and what you'll gain from participating in this program. ⁓ And so it doesn't become an HR led ⁓ priority, right? It becomes part of, you the business has bought in and they've co-created with us and they believe in it as well. And so when they hear their peers or change agents or their leaders talking about the importance of it, that's where you see that adoption ⁓ come through. So we try to do that as much as we can, right? It's time consuming. You've got to bake time into that in your roadmap, but

Rebecca Taylor (17:00)
deal with that.

Jen Fults (17:06)
It's the absolute way to be successful, I think. And I think that the industry at large is changing, right? When you think about some of the trends and things you see from HR at large, that's the direction, right? You understand the business, you understand how to manage stakeholders. You're our deep technical expert too, but some of those more consultative skills, I think, are really, really important today.

Rebecca Taylor (17:10)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I completely agree hearing you talk about just the change management process. I'm such a change management nerd, especially because the hardest part is the influence part, at least for like in my experience and talking to people, it's like you can get.

Jen Fults (17:37)
Okay.

Rebecca Taylor (17:40)
you can get sort of your team on board for something, but then influencing other stakeholders to kind of also be on board for this and partner with them. Again, that comes with just a really solid foundation of trust. But even when you have that trust, it doesn't mean they're gonna say yes to everything. It still means that you're gonna have to prove the case or you're gonna have to still keep them kind of going along. do you ever find that...

So, you know, sometimes they say like Shoemaker's daughter has no shoes, right? So your company does consulting change and everything sort of as a profession. Do you ever find that you have to stop yourselves and remember to take your own advice?

Jen Fults (18:15)
No.

Well, yes, but I think all consulting firms usually bring their consultants in to take a look under the hood, right? Are we doing this the right way? I think it's working in professional, I've spent my entire career in professional services and the value in that is when you're working with consultants who work across industries, right? They are solving really complex problems for our clients. They bring something to the table that you might not have considered, right? ⁓ How you think about data, how you, you know, maybe using experts for interviews, right?

Rebecca Taylor (18:22)
Yeah.

Jen Fults (18:44)
They've just got such a unique perspective and there's a degree of everyone, I think, not everyone. A lot of people think that HR is pretty straightforward. Anybody could do it, right? I think as HR professionals, we would say that's not true. they live the experience, right? They are on the other side of it, right? They're the consumers of everything that we're trying to produce and to build to make their careers possible.

Rebecca Taylor (18:56)
Sure.

No, very much so, yeah.

Yeah.

Jen Fults (19:14)
they've got really unique valuable perspectives as well. So I think it's an advantage ⁓ for an HR team. It can be hard, right? Because depending on who you're working with, it can be a bit challenging based on where they spend their time. if you can harness that energy and that know-how and get them to buy in and be willing to work with you, can go really fast. And I think that's what we do really well in our team.

Rebecca Taylor (19:21)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome. And I wanna, know

we're just about at time here, so, know, my, just wanna add sort of one quick closing thought and then I'd love to kind of hear any closing thought you might have too. One, something that it sounds like you've done really, really well that I think is really worth to kind of mention again is just that foundation of trust and also just bringing in different perspectives and making sure that you're building things for the people and by the people at the organization and not just sort of just strictly top down.

because that's where I see a lot of HR folks kind of struggle is they'll struggle to get buy-in from employees on things that they're trying to do, whether it's learning programs, talent acquisition stuff, whatever it is. And so, you know, I think that you've gotten, it sounds like a really good blend of building that trust because you've brought people in. So kudos to you because that's not easy, especially at an organization of your size. So I loved hearing that. So anything else you want to add as we close?

Jen Fults (20:22)
Thank you.

No, I think it's great. mean, we talked a lot about ⁓ a lot of different things, but at the heart of it all, is it's about the people, ⁓ whether that's, you know, the way that we serve our employees, our people, you know, the people in the business or how we care for our team, our HR team. And so when you keep that in front of mind, right, that we're all here having a very human experience and we're trying to build careers and we're trying to manage family and we're trying to be the best version of ourselves, right, when you keep that at the center of what you're doing, you know, lot of the noise.

and the frustration, you you can kind of manage it because you're not going to make everybody happy. You're not ice cream, but you do your best. And if it's rooted in doing your best for your team or for the people in the organization, like you always come out, you know, in the right spot. It might take you a little bit longer to get there, but at the end of the day, it's about the team and why we're all here. So we prioritize it for sure.

Rebecca Taylor (21:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that.

I love that. It's doing the work. It's what the work is for, right? Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jen, for being here. This was such a great conversation. And happy new year to you and the team. And ⁓ thank you. Thanks for being here.

Jen Fults (21:26)
Squid, great. Yes, thank you. You too. Thank you. All right.

All right. Thank you. Good luck with your head.

Rebecca Taylor (21:37)
Thank you, you too, bye.