This course contains the use of artificial intelligence
A funding round can pay for more hires. It cannot give you a people strategy.
57 tools connect the CPO mandate to a workforce plan, an HR operating model and the people section of a board pack.
The growth plan says more customers, more revenue and more people. Department requests arrive as disconnected headcount lists. Recruiting has a target without enough interviewer time, managers interpret values differently, and the board receives activity counts instead of a clear account of people capacity, cost and risk.
The document changes before the organisation changes. A project wish list becomes a page of choices linked to business assumptions. A hiring target becomes a proposal constrained by recruiter capacity, interviewer hours and cash. The HR team has a reason for each role and a quarterly sequence for building the function.
One fictional company, eight complete document makeovers
Wrenmeadow Cloud is a fictional business-to-business software-as-a-service company. It begins with 120 people and a plan for 450 over 24 months. The 50-to-500+ growth range frames the role; 50, 150, 300 and 500 are reference stages for reviewing systems and the service model. All scenario figures are example numbers, including illustrative salaries, costs and option units.
Each lesson opens with its own short company context and a weak document. The document is rebuilt within that lesson, ending in one practical assignment and an HTML workbook. Each lesson stands alone, including when studied inside a broader HR leadership programme.
What the 57-tool count includes
- 8 standalone HTML workbooks: People Strategy on a Page, Workforce Plan and Org Design, Board People Dashboard, People Function Build Plan.
- 25 planning templates, maps and records inside the workbooks: CPO mandate, employer promise proof, service route, quarterly build plan.
- 16 calculation and validation worksheets inside the workbooks: quarterly headcount allocation, loaded people cost, fixed-reserve reconciliation, quarterly HR budget.
- 3 question, conversation and practice banks inside the workbooks: CEO questions and phrases, four CEO practice cases with debriefs, manager conversation bank.
- 5 dedicated AI draft-and-review workspaces inside the workbooks: people strategy draft check, workforce explanation check, culture summary check, HR-service and policy draft review.
That is 8 files plus 49 working parts, rounded down to 50+ Tools in the title. There are 16 downloadable resources: 8 lecture presentations and 8 HTML workbooks. The 42 reusable forms and procedures shown on the slides repeat workbook content and add nothing to the unique count. Explanatory models and methods are separate teaching content, with zero additional items added to the advertised count. Save, copy and print functions also add nothing to it.
Practice behind the teaching
Mike has more than 20 years in HR and has worked as an HR director at Wargaming, Preply and iDeals. His experience includes building people functions in growing technology companies. He is also an academy founder. The teaching draws on that HR practice; the board, scale-up planning and option-reserve exercises use the fictional company rather than claims about his own CPO or investor experience.
Where the tools enter the work
- Strategy and structure — 16 tools: the mandate, people hypotheses and CEO rehearsal come first; revenue assumptions, headcount allocation, reporting structure and people cost follow.
- Hiring and rewards — 14 tools: demand, recruiter and interviewer limits, employer promises, direct hiring cash, pay philosophy and a fixed option reserve make the proposal explicit.
- Culture and systems — 14 tools: values become behaviour and manager actions; the performance rhythm, current HR systems, data flows and metric definitions support repeated work.
- Board reporting and the function — 13 tools: reconciled people metrics, risks and an aggregate investor data room lead into the HR team, service routes, budget and quarterly build plan.
The scope is the growing company
The centre of the course is a people function built from scratch for growth, with a CEO and board mandate, investors, hiring capacity and cash/equity decisions. CHRO and HR Director cover the corporation and the classical HR function. Head of People Operations covers operational processes. Here the organising task is connecting strategy, capacity, cost and the function’s build sequence.
Levels and compensation are covered at decision level. Detailed job and grade construction belongs in Job Architecture; detailed equity mechanics belong in Executive Compensation. There is no sourcing or interview-technique course, payroll implementation, vendor configuration lab or certification preparation.
AI drafts; people check
Scripted examples cover analytics commentary, policy wording, communications and HR-service replies. People check the source, numbers, context and unsupported claims, then decide what can be used. The HTML files make no AI model calls. Employee personal data must not go into public AI services without company policy and an appropriate agreement. AI does not make hiring, performance, dismissal or compensation decisions.
The course is independent of professional bodies and HR-system vendors. There are no live vendor-interface demonstrations; any neutral interface illustration is a mockup and a real workflow may differ. Legal, tax and investment advice, share valuation and promised option returns are outside the scope. Rules differ by country and change; check with the appropriate advisers.
Included
- 8 self-contained lessons and 8 practical assignments using the fictional company or approved aggregate planning data.
- 16 downloadable resources, with local saving, text copying and browser printing in the HTML workbooks.
- Lifetime access to purchased course materials under the platform’s terms.
- Active instructor support in Q&A.
Every new hiring wave makes the assumptions behind the plan more consequential. Start with one business outcome and the mandate needed to support it. Enrol now and start your first lesson today.
