TL;DR
Partner with a former CPO
From team structure and role definition through assessment and onboarding. One partner at every stage to set you up for success.
Transparent Pricing
Published, fixed pricing. No hidden fees, no add-ons, and no percentage-of-compensation uncertainty.
Fractional CPO cover
One day a week of hands-on senior People leadership while the search runs. Urgent priorities get an owner, so you keep moving at full speed.
Advice from the seat
And not the sidelines. 10+ years building People functions through growth, M&A, restructuring and the messy realities of scaling.
A People leadership hire rarely shows up in a calm moment.
Who is the right People leader to take you through your next stage, and how do you keep the business moving until they land?
A partner beyond the search
Finding candidates is the visible part of a search. What decides whether the hire succeeds sits on either side of it: defining the right role before you go to market, and setting the new leader up once the offer is signed. Rippa is led by a former CPO, so you get a partner across the whole arc of the hire.
Nail the brief
Before a search begins, you get time with Pat to think through what the business needs: team shape, role design, and what this hire needs to deliver. A fuzzy brief is the most common reason a senior hire fails. Sometimes the honest answer is that this is not the role you need, or not yet. Better to hear it before a search than after an offer.
Reach the Right People
We map who genuinely fits your stage and your context, in and out of the obvious networks. Pat then writes and runs the outreach himself, engaging candidates thoughtfully so the role and the opportunity are represented authentically from the first conversation. That groundwork leads to sharper, more decisive conversations about what a great fit looks like, for both sides.
Assess in Context
What matters is not a strong CV. It is real evidence someone can handle what is ahead of you, here, at your stage. We get there through the Chief People Index™, a rubric built for your situation, and an assessment led by a former CPO who can tell the difference between someone who interviews well and someone who can do this job.
Keep the Business Moving
A senior search takes around three months, and the People work does not pause while you wait. Org design, manager coaching, comp calls, live employee issues, retention. With Edge, Pat steps in as a fractional CPO until the hire lands. The pressing things get an owner now, and the incoming leader inherits a function that is already running.
Ramp Up for Success
A signed offer is half the job. The other half is the first ninety days. A leader who lands well is adding value inside a month; one who lands badly can be gone inside a year. Every search closes with a structured onboarding plan, and Edge adds executive support and coaching for the new hire. The goal is never just a placement.
Fixed, transparent pricing. Two ways to engage
A working session on your culture priorities and people challenges
A stage-appropriate read on your team, tooling and focus
Whether you need a senior People hire, and at what level
A clear recommendation, even if the answer is "not yet"
Role, level and compensation, shaped with a former CPO
A full-market search, mapped to your stage and situation
Chief People Index™ assessment, built for your business
Candidates tested in context for capability and culture alignment
Offer, close and a structured onboarding plan
One day a week of fractional CPO leadership until they land. Org design, manager coaching, comp calls, live employee issues and retention challenges get an owner straight away.
A People Function Baseline. A structured read of what is in place and what is not, mapped to the Chief People Index, to support the search and assessment and give your new leader a skeleton, not a blank page.
A full handover to your incoming leader. Notes, talent map, open issues and hard-won context from the seat. The handover most People leaders wish they got and rarely do.
A 90-day ramp-up and support plan. Structured sessions as a guide by the side to work through early challenges, seek feedback and set priorities.
👋 Hi, I'm Pat! Believe it or not, I spent the first chunk of my career in the Australian coal mining industry, and honestly assumed I'd spend my whole career there. It has a way of doing that to you.
But somewhere in there I had this itch that wouldn't go away. So I traded it for startups, and spent the next decade or so chasing that itch across London, New York and Austin.
It has been anything but predictable. I've worked across both B2B and B2C companies, in finance, insurance, education, security, consumer and HR, which means I've had a front-row seat to just about every version of "growing a company" there is. I've been part of businesses that found their stride and exited well. I've been part of others that never quite found product-market fit, no matter how hard everyone worked at it. I've sat inside fundraises, restructures and M&A deals that tested every relationship in the room. I've had roles I genuinely loved, and one or two that slowly drained the life out of me before I admitted it out loud.
None of that is theory to me. It's the actual education, being part of the action and working as part of the team going through all of it, and it's what Rippa is built on: a decade of being in the room with CEOs and founders, sometimes with the hard call already clear, sometimes facing a challenge neither of us had seen before.
Outside of work, I'm trying to be an 'athlete.' Right now that means a semi-serious, entirely earnest quest to go pro in pickleball (it's going fine, thanks for asking). I love to travel, and somewhere under the decade of building startups, there's a hiker in me who once trekked to Everest Base Camp for charity and has made a promise to himself to get back out there more regularly (I have a few ideas for what is next, but I'm open to suggestions!).
And I answer to Kirby, a chihuahua of enormous personality and zero size, who has unilaterally appointed herself Chief Barketing Officer of Rippa. She has not yet done any actual work. I don't expect that to change.
I thought about listing a bunch of job titles in this bio. But I figured it's better you know the person behind them, the same way I like to get to know the founders and CEOs I work with. We can chat about your people challenges, or your pickleball form. Either works great for me.
Answers to your most common questions
Let's talk
Dedicated time to discuss your people challenges, the role, and whether now is the right time to hire.
