Director, People and Culture

About ClearBlue Markets

ClearBlue Markets is a carbon markets intelligence and advisory firm. We help some of the world’s largest industrial, energy and financial organisations understand, navigate and optimise their positions in compliance carbon markets through our Vantage platform and our advisory, project development and market access services.

We are headquartered in Toronto with offices in Calgary and Amsterdam, and a team of around 50 people across Canada and Europe. We are growing quickly and backed by institutional investors.

The Opportunity

This is a senior People leadership role, and the person who takes it will build the function from the ground up. You will own everything people-related: how we find and hire talent across two continents, how we develop and retain it, how careers progress, how we pay, how we manage performance, and how we stay compliant across multiple jurisdictions. You will be a hands‑on operator and a strategic partner to the leadership team at the same time — comfortable drafting an employment agreement in the morning and pressure‑testing an organisation design with the founders in the afternoon.

You will report directly to the President & COO and work closely with the wider leadership team. This role suits someone who has done this before at a growth‑stage company and knows what good looks like as an organization scales.

What You Will Do

People strategy and organisation design

• Develop and own a multi-year people strategy aligned with ClearBlue’s growth plan, translating business objectives into headcount plans, organisation structures and capability requirements.
• Advise the leadership team on organisation design, spans of control, role definition and the evolution of leadership roles as the company scales.
• Build the People function itself — processes, systems, policies and team — sized appropriately for each stage of growth.

Talent acquisition

• Own end-to-end recruitment for roles across Canada and Europe, from workforce planning and role scoping through sourcing, structured interviewing, offer and close.
• Build an employer brand and candidate pipeline for the specialised talent we need — carbon market analysts, advisory professionals, software engineers and commercial roles.
• Manage external search partners and agencies, set standards for interview quality and candidate experience, and equip hiring managers to interview well.
• Design and run onboarding that gets new hires productive quickly and integrated across offices.

Talent development and career model

• Design ClearBlue’s career model: role families, levelling frameworks, competency definitions and progression criteria that give people a clear line of sight to advancement.
• Build and run the performance management cycle — goal setting, feedback, calibration and promotion — in a way that is rigorous but light-touch.
• Establish learning and development programmes, including management and leadership development for first‑time and newly promoted managers.
• Lead succession and talent review processes for critical roles.

Total rewards

• Develop compensation philosophy, salary bands and variable pay structures tied to the career model, with market benchmarking across Canadian and European markets.
• Manage benefits programmes and vendors in each jurisdiction, and support the administration of equity and incentive plans.
• Ensure pay equity and compliance with pay transparency requirements in each market where we operate.

Culture, engagement and leadership partnership

• Act as a trusted advisor and coach to the founders and leadership team, bringing structure and best practice to a founder‑led environment without slowing it down.
• Steward ClearBlue’s culture across three offices and two continents — engagement measurement, internal communications, recognition and the rituals that keep a distributed team connected.
• Handle employee relations matters — performance concerns, investigations, departures — with judgement, discretion and fairness.

HR operations, compliance and systems

• Own employment agreements, policies and the employee handbook across our operating jurisdictions (Ontario and Alberta, the Netherlands, and other EU markets via employer‑of‑record arrangements), working with external counsel as needed.
• Manage global mobility — work permits, relocations and cross‑border assignments between Canada and Europe.
• Select and implement HR systems (HRIS, ATS, performance tooling) and establish the people metrics and reporting used by the leadership team and board.
• Partner with Finance on payroll, headcount budgeting and forecasting.

What You Bring

Experience

• Approximately 10 or more years of progressive HR experience, including several years leading the people function (or a major part of it) as the most senior HR person or a direct report to the executive team.
• Direct experience scaling a technology, SaaS, or professional‑services business through the 50‑to‑100+ employee stage — you know what breaks at each stage and what to build ahead of time.
• Experience in a founder‑led, growth‑stage company: comfortable working with leaders who are experts in their domain and skilled at earning their trust and bringing structure they will actually adopt.
• International experience, ideally including European employment markets (the Netherlands in particular) alongside Canada. Familiarity with employer‑of‑record models and cross‑border mobility is a strong asset.
• A track record of designing and implementing career frameworks, compensation structures and performance systems — not just administering ones built by others.
• Demonstrated success recruiting specialised, hard‑to‑find talent, including analytical, technical and commercial roles.
• Working knowledge of Canadian employment law, ideally Ontario and Alberta; a CHRP/CHRL designation or equivalent is an asset.

Attributes

• A builder. You are energised by a blank sheet and are as comfortable doing the work as designing it.
• Commercially minded. You understand how the business makes money and design people practices that serve that, not the other way round.
• Pragmatic and proportionate. You know the difference between what a 50-person company needs and what a 500-person company needs, and you resist over‑engineering.
• Direct, credible and discreet. You can challenge senior leaders constructively, hold confidences absolutely, and handle sensitive matters with judgement.
• Globally minded. You are comfortable working across time zones and cultures, and travelling periodically to Calgary and Amsterdam.
• Interested in our mission. You do not need a background in carbon markets, but you should be curious about climate policy and energy transition and able to speak credibly about what we do to candidates.

What We Offer

• A genuine seat at the leadership table and the mandate to build a function, not inherit one.
• Direct exposure to the founders, investors and board of a fast‑growing company in a market that matters.
• Competitive compensation and benefits, including participation in ClearBlue’s incentive programmes.
• A Toronto‑based, in‑office role in a collaborative team, with regular travel to our Calgary and Amsterdam offices.