Track Record

The record.

A philosophy only counts if it shows up in the numbers. Numbers first; stories on request.

Cognite

2025–Present · Industrial data & AI SaaS · ~800 employees · Global

VP, People & Operations · #15 on the 2026 CNBC Disruptor 50

  • Drove people and organization readiness for the $3.1B Schneider Electric acquisition (announced June 2026) — leadership-bench depth, succession, equity refresh, and governance aligned to a public-company parent
  • Embedded generative AI into core People workflows — manager coaching, performance synthesis, engagement sentiment, policy guidance — absorbing expanded scope with zero added HR headcount, with a human retaining decision ownership on every employee-affecting outcome
  • Led a full VP-layer executive refresh across Global Value Delivery in under nine months, through a period of steep Services growth
  • Redesigned senior hiring end-to-end: behavioral competency pillars, anchored rubrics, structured question banks, and 90-day ramp data feeding back into interview quality
  • Serve on the company-wide AI steering committee — agent ownership, people-data ethics, and bias review as autonomous agents enter daily operations

Braven Partners

2022–Present · Early-stage venture capital · Regulated industries

Senior Partner, Talent & Performance · Internal Head of People through 2025

  • Joined founder William Abecassis (former Head of Venture Capital at BlackRock) as the firm’s second person — for the first nine months, Braven was the two of us — helping craft the manifesto and operating model behind “value creators, not just capital allocators”
  • Part of the founding team that built the firm’s operating model, with team formation named as a discipline alongside sales development and capital formation — hands-on with portfolio founders on org design, first hires, and culture, including building the founding team at Inprobable, an AI-powered commercial insurance platform
  • Built the talent engine as an individual contributor: 4,000+ candidates assessed with cognitive and video automation, a proprietary 15,000+ candidate database, and the Braven Fellowship for non-traditional MBA/PhD talent

Loadsmart

2021–2022 · Logistics-technology SaaS · ~775 employees · 21 countries

Chief People Officer

  • Scaled from 350 employees in 6 countries to 775 in 21; built and led a 45-person People & Experiences organization spanning HR, Talent, People Analytics, Sales Enablement, IT, Facilities, and Business Process Optimization
  • Led company-wide org redesign through hypergrowth, contributing to a valuation increase from $400M to $1.3B — presenting people strategy to the Board and Compensation Committee throughout
  • Raised eNPS from +22 to +66 in one year across a fully distributed workforce

Collibra

2020–2021 · Global data-intelligence B2B SaaS unicorn · ~840 employees worldwide

Vice President, People

  • Strategic partner to a refreshed executive team (CRO, CCO, CMO) through a year of rapid ARR growth — realigning leadership, talent, and go-to-market structure
  • Established the global Talent Management function; delivered the Career Path Project: skills bank, competency framework, structured pay bands, quarterly OKRs
  • Rebuilt the workforce plan through a headcount path of roughly 600 to 450 to 825 inside two years — freeze, reduction, then hypergrowth — while shipping the Career Path Project underneath it
  • Steered the People function through COVID-19 — pivoting to well-being and resilience while leading a restructuring that supported a return to sustainable growth

Altisource (NASDAQ: ASPS)

2015–2020 · Mortgage & real-estate technology · ~7,500 employees · NASDAQ-listed

Chief People Officer · 125-person global People organization

  • Cut early-stage attrition from 14% to 4% with predictive talent assessment across a global recruiting engine (U.S., India, Philippines, Uruguay, Luxembourg — 3,000+ hires annually)
  • Drove high-performer retention from 48% to 98% — Hay-method job architecture, incentive scorecards streamlined from 23 goals to 6, and an RSU program for 725 previously ineligible employees
  • Replaced annual forced-curve reviews with quarterly Impact Reviews; built succession plans covering 75% of Director+ roles, up from under 10%
  • Consolidated 15 business units into one, integrated four acquisitions, divested six entities, and replaced spreadsheet HR with Oracle HCM as the global HRIS
  • Raised Glassdoor from 1.4 to 3.3 by rebuilding the employer brand from the inside out

Earlier

Adcap Network Systems — VP, Talent Management (2013–2015). Scaled the People function through a period of rapid revenue growth and margin expansion; built apprenticeship and sales-talent programs that opened entirely new revenue lines; two-time #1 Best Place to Work in Atlanta; company acquired.

University of Maryland, Smith School of Business — Advisory Council Member & Guest Lecturer (2013–Present) on preparing emerging leaders for management in the age of AI.

Recognition

The external record.

HR Rising Star, Atlanta Business Chronicle (2019) · Pegasus Award for excellence in Human Resources · Two-time #1 Best Place to Work in Atlanta, Best & Brightest (2014, 2015) · Top 25 HR Executive Under 40

The multiplier

The best measure isn’t the function you run.

It’s the leaders your function produces. Former direct reports now run People functions of their own — and the systems on this page are still operating at companies I left years ago.

Read what they say →

Brad Wilkins
People as a business accelerator.
© 2026 Bradford Wilkins