Leadership Stories Unveiled: Hannah Holmes
We sat down with Hannah Holmes, People Director for IDR Group, for the latest instalment of our Leadership Stories Unveiled series.
Hannah, tell us about yourself and what inspired you to pursue a career in HR and people management.
From a very early age, I have always been guided by my moral compass. I have always been inspired by the diversity of thought and understanding the value this can bring. People are hugely diverse; you can learn so much from others who are completely different from you. I have always been hugely passionate about being guided by principles and values. When looking back on my career, I guess you could say that I have coupled these two things up with the roles and career steps I have taken. Most roles I have undertaken have been in ‘start-up’ or scaling businesses involving creating an HR function from scratch or establishing a more formal HR structure. I have used my love of values and principles to coach and educate leaders to create a brand/personality for their business to reflect who they are at the core and be guided by this. I initially pursued a career in HR because I like collaborating with people and helping people, but in reality, HR does so much more than this and I’ve found what I most enjoy is providing an experience for all stakeholders in a business that aligns with their vision and brand. I also love a challenge and to be challenged. HR provides opportunities to do both every day.
You joined IDR Group in 2023 to strengthen its people function and support its global expansion. How has this experience been for you and what have you learned so far?
IDR has been an incredible opportunity so far. The leadership team has restored my faith that leaders can be people-centric and commercially driven. It is the leadership team’s goal to do the right thing in the right way, even when making difficult commercially beneficial decisions. I have learned about different jurisdictions and delved back into a regulated market. I work with an incredibly talented team who challenge me to think differently in a respectful way.
In what ways do you leverage technology and data to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your people processes and employee experience?
As a FinTech business, we’re all about bringing people and technology together to deliver better outcomes for our clients. We also apply this approach to enhance our internal functions and within HR we are just at the start of our technology journey. We recently implemented a new HRIS which enables managers to manage their teams more effectively. Our management team are on their own personal development journey, so removing the ‘administration’ burden and automating as much as possible is a must. The system allows our employees to connect with each other, which is hugely important being a global company. We are also leveraging AI more to support job descriptions, job adverts and internal communications. IDR works at an incredible pace, so AI has been a game changer.
What are the strategies and practices you use to foster a culture of compliance and innovation, where employees are empowered, motivated, and skilled to perform their roles and embrace change?
Being a rapidly scaling business, it is inevitable that we won’t always get everything right the first time. However, building a culture where learning is the norm is crucial. Being transparent and honest is important.
We hold companywide internal communication sessions and roundtables with leadership to support the flow of communication across the business, break down silos and champion compliance and innovation. This is also part of our values system, ensuring we connect with each other and commit to best practices. We have created an eNPS and launched our first survey through our HRIS which has been fantastic alongside our steering committee of department representatives. This supports communication flow across all levels of the business and provides us with the data needed to embed meaningful and practical change. It also helps our team to feel psychologically safe and empowered to own their impact on the company’s success through their employee voice. We promote a culture of continuous improvement, where employees are encouraged to seek better ways of doing things. We have embedded a quarterly performance review process, which focuses on value and motivation as well as development and investment. This encourages ownership of individuals’ roles and the impact our teams can have on their own and colleagues’ journeys.
How do you support your team members’ professional development and career progression?
We are introducing a training and development programme which synchronises with our career ladder which was launched in January 2024. Employee ladder levels, are not intended for hierarchy but are meant to highlight what is required at each level and what opportunities are available for our employees to further their growth. This, coupled with our performance-building quarterly reviews, encourages open, transparent discussions between employees and management about investment opportunities, strengths, and development areas. We are rolling out personality and team profiling to enable our teams to understand how others’ strengths can support others’ development areas. We have recently provided neurodiversity awareness training to help our teams understand the value that our neurodivergent colleagues can bring to the success of IDR. We are off to a fantastic start with regards to embedding a solid program with our team now able to see what they can expect from their journey with IDR and really drive their own performance.
IDR has achieved some impressive milestones in the private markets industry, Including raising initial startup capital from a family office, and more recently, investment from a leading US investment manager, which further underlines their clear vision. The firm now connects over 40,000 investors (c.50% of private markets investors globally), across 5,600 funds with 300 managers, managing $3.5T of assets. How do you celebrate these successes and what are the key factors behind them?
Tim Andrews, our founder/CEO is hugely passionate about IDR’s vision of being the trusted hub of the private markets. This is invaluable in terms of providing our global team with an aligned goal; we’re very much one global thread, united behind one vision. We are launching a rewards and recognition programme in 2024 so we can focus on our achievements and shout about them louder. We use social platforms and our HRIS to really promote a culture of KUDOS to celebrate our teams’ achievements and also have a biweekly newsletter to highlight key successes to which teams contribute, so it is live and interactive.
How do you balance customer experience and speed-to-market with KYC demands, especially in the digital and competitive environment?
IDR’s one-and-done KYC solution enables private market investors to authenticate once to universally compliant standards, in one platform with support from an expert team. Alongside our tech, our people are essential to the delivery of a smooth and efficient customer experience. Recruiting the right people and developing our people technically is therefore key. We have a robust recruitment process that not only reflects our brand but enables a transparent candidate experience. During this experience, we were clear and concise about the expectations of the role, the innovative and fast-paced nature of our business and what is required of our team. We support new hires with an equally robust onboarding process which equips them with the relevant training and information about our service offering and systems, as well as an introduction to people across the business. We’re a global business but work as one team with client-facing teams working closely with our in-house technology team to continuously improve our platform. Additionally, we work with industry leaders from our regulated governing bodies to support and shape our team’s development.
What methods and strategies do you use to find and attract skilled and qualified candidates in a competitive and global market?
We have recently launched our EVP internally, so everyone on our team can be a champion. Our teams are our greatest asset in attracting future talent. The promotional work they do when they feel engaged and motivated is important. We continuously review our JDs to provide accurate benchmarking for our roles, enabling us to be competitive in the market. We review our benefits package annually and take pride in the content we share about our teams to provide insight for future talent.
In what ways do you promote diversity, equity and inclusion in your hiring and retention strategies?
We are a global business; diversity is inherent in our DNA. However, we are not complacent with this. Although we are able to attract a diverse range of talent, we want individuals to feel they learn about each other, listen to each other, and create space for individuals to be creative. We provide opportunities through social inclusion acknowledgements and celebrations. These acknowledgements are chosen by our steering group, and everyone plays a part in leading events throughout the year. We create opportunities for team building and we provide ‘connection’ opportunities by leveraging technology with apps such as ‘donut’ so simple yet effective in bringing diverse individuals together to learn from one another. We analyse statistics and these support future talent decisions on talent pools, organisational design, and succession, which has a knock-on effect on our workforce plan.
Our leaders all must attend and obtain a ‘hiring license’ which includes E, D, I&B, and safe recruitment. We believe providing an inclusive process during recruitment and onboarding is not just our Talent team’s responsibility
Do you cope with change and uncertainty in a fast-paced and dynamic environment?
Workplace change is increasingly difficult however handled well it’s a fantastic opportunity for HR and business leaders to build trust across the wider team. This is what I believe is so exciting about HR: we have a huge opportunity to make a positive impact. Managing the external environment, generational differences and unconscious bias are all part of the challenge. Transparent communication is key and this is especially true with a diverse team with diverse expectations and opinions. At IDR we believe that alignment with our values, code of conduct and vision is key to knowing who we are and ensuring that what we do aligns with this. We understand that as we evolve and grow, our operations, ways of working and delivery will change and our people will need support to navigate this. We aim to retain our team for as long as possible, hence why listening to and communicating with our team is so important. As any business leader and HR professional will know, even with the best-laid plans sometimes events can be out of our control or things don’t go as expected. Ensuring we are led by our IDR values, is key to coping with both changes we expect and those we don’t.
Hannah joined IDR in July 2023. Hannah has worked in various industries in senior HR positions supporting founders and business leaders. As IDR’s People Director, Hannah is responsible for the design and delivery of the global IDR people strategy. Hannah holds an CIPD L7 Certificate in Strategic HR Management, a L7 ILM diploma in Executive Coaching and is a Fellow of the ILM.
