The CPO to CEO Pipeline: Why Australia’s people leaders are heading towards the top job

That’s changing. Across Australia, Chief People Officers are stepping into CEO roles. According to Gartner, workforce considerations are now the third most important business priority for CEOs in 2024-2025, with 57% of CEOs planning to increase investment in people and culture. The signal is clear: people strategy is business strategy. 

From back office to business driver 

Over the past decade the CPO role has changed dramatically. What used to focus on recruitment and compliance now touches every part of how a business operates. Our NSW Director, Merridy Thomas, has seen remits for CPOs evolve substantially. “CPOs are expected to build relationships and insights in business functions across the organisation,” she said. “They’ve essentially become a bit of a glue for different departments and need to understand how the entire business operates.” 

There’s data to back this up. According to Heidrick & Struggles’ 2026 analysis, 7% of Australian CPOs reach the role before age 45, compared to just 1% in the UK and 4% in the US. Australian organisations are promoting people leaders earlier, and increasingly giving them broader responsibilities beyond HR. The pathway typically involves taking on additional portfolios, like operations, retail and property, that demonstrate enterprise leadership capability. 

That’s exactly what Roisin Currie did in the UK. She spent 20 years at ASDA in various HR roles, joined Greggs as Group People Director in 2010, took on retail and property responsibilities, and became CEO in 2022. Similarly, Leena Nair spent 30 years at Unilever, rising to CHRO before moving to CEO of Chanel with zero fashion experience. What she had was deep knowledge of running a global organisation through change. 

Why CPOs understand the business 

Today’s CPOs are commercially minded. They understand workforce economics, how to scale organisations, and how talent decisions drive business performance. The World Economic Forum’s 2025 Chief People Officers Outlook, based on surveys of over 130 CPOs globally, found that the majority of organisations now rely on their people leaders to ‘actively co-drive and co-design company direction’. 

Merridy says HR leaders are “heavily involved in business strategy, culture, and operational decision making. The difference is that HR leaders’ experience puts people at the centre of their decisions.” 

Think about what CPOs are juggling right now: AI transformation. Skills shortages. Hybrid work models. Psychosocial safety legislation. While these issues are managed by HR, they’re core considerations in the business strategy. 

The conversations our team are having with HR leaders every week are pointing in the same direction. “CPOs are talking about business outcomes,” says Merridy. “They know their numbers. They can connect workforce decisions and EVP to revenue, productivity and growth. That’s CEO-type thinking.” 

Globally, SHRM predicts that by 2050, nearly 20% of Fortune 500 CEOs will have HR experience. Right now, 30% of CEOs were former CFOs. The same pattern is starting with people leaders who can show they deliver business results. 

People strategy is business strategy 

The companies that grow are the ones that can attract, develop, and keep the best people. Technology and capital are available to everyone. What separates the winners is execution, which depends on people. 

The WEF’s 2025 Chief People Officers Outlook notes that people leaders are critical to managing workforce transitions during AI disruption and skills scarcity. Organisations that put people strategy at the centre outperform those that treat it as an add-on. 

The competitive advantage will be with CPOs who have created systems to attract talent, develop capabilities competitors can’t match, and retain high performers. 

What about the P&L barrier? 

The traditional bias against CPOs as CEO candidates is lack of P&L experience. Boards wanted leaders who’d run a business unit and delivered financial results. We can see that’s changing. 

Boards are starting to recognise that understanding how businesses create value matters more than ticking the P&L box. CPOs who lead transformation and deliver measurable outcomes demonstrate these capabilities. “People leaders have strategic skills and holistic thinking that can help them take on wider, cross-functional remits on their path to CEO,” says Merridy. “A lot of people don’t realise how transferrable these skills are, but that’s changing.” 

In service and knowledge-based economies, people costs are often the largest expense line. CPOs who manage workforce strategy effectively are managing a foundational part of business performance. 

The Talent Strategy Group’s 2025 report shows that 30 new Fortune 200 CHROs and CPOs appointed in 2024 now oversee more than 2 million employees and $1.5 trillion in annual revenue. These are enterprise-scale leadership roles. As organisations recognise that different career paths can produce strong leaders, the CPO to CEO transition becomes more viable. 

What this means for HR professionals 

If you’re an HR leader eyeing the CEO role, build commercial credibility early. Learn to read and interpret financial statements. Understand your business model. Most importantly, actively seek cross-functional responsibilities beyond HR, like operations, sales and even finance. That’s what boards look for in CEO candidates. 

CPOs are expanding beyond HR expertise to develop what you need to run a business. That includes influencing without authority, managing complex stakeholders, and making decisions when you don’t have all the information. 

On the other hand, there’s a challenge. Two-thirds of CPOs are considering leaving their roles, citing workplace culture and work-life balance concerns. For the pipeline to strengthen, organisations need to recognise the value these leaders bring and support them with development opportunities and board exposure. 

The future of leadership 

The CPO to CEO transition is happening because the skills required to lead organisations have shifted. Technical expertise and operational knowledge still matter. But the ability to get people aligned, moving in the same direction, and delivering whilst everything around them is changing? That’s what separates good CEOs from average ones. 

Australian organisations that recognise this will access talent their competitors overlook. Those that stick to traditional CEO profiles will end up with leaders who aren’t equipped for the people challenges ahead. The pipeline is forming, and we’ll soon see whether boards have the courage to promote from it.