Head of People

Who we are 

Mother Root is the Ginger non-alcoholic aperitif. We harness the power of apple cider vinegar to serve up a dose of good feelings. Our mission is to redefine what it means to drink well and feel good - with drinks that are complex, delicious and rooted in nature.

Fresh from securing three offers on BBC Dragons' Den, we're on an exciting growth journey - having scaled to a £10m brand in 2026 with over 270% year-on-year growth, and ranked 11th in The Sunday Times 100 list of Britain's fastest-growing private companies. We're now building towards £50m+ in the years ahead. With our small but mighty team, we're building one of the UK's fastest-growing non-alcoholic brands, both online and in retail.

We’re bold, inclusive and ambitious. We value creativity, curiosity and collaboration — and we believe work should be joyful, purposeful and full of flavour.

The Role

This is our first Head of People - and the person who will bring our People Vision to life:

A team where ambitious people do the best work of their careers - growing fast, supporting each other, and building something they truly believe in.

People is one of our most important commercial levers - team engagement (eNPS) is one of our five core business KPIs, and we're investing in resourcing it properly. The calibre of who we hire, how well our managers lead, and whether we keep our best people directly shapes how fast and how well we grow - so this is a high-performance, high-ownership role at the heart of how we grow. You'll own our people strategy and be fully accountable for delivering it - across recruitment and onboarding, culture and engagement, performance and development, HR processes, and leadership and management capability.

You won't be starting from a blank page - but there's still a huge amount to build. We've made a strong start: a defined people vision and strategy, our OKR rhythm, engagement work underway, CharlieHR and the beginnings of a people function. You'll have a Office Manager & Team Coordinator to develop and an external Talent Consultant alongside you, and real room to shape what comes next. Your job is to take this from early foundations to a people function that helps Mother Root scale, while keeping the ambition, warmth and low-ego culture that make it special.

You'll report to our COO, sit on our Senior Leadership Team, and partner closely with our Business Ops Lead - building complementary functions side by side: they lead our operating rhythm and ways of working, you lead people and culture, and you'll work hand in hand where the two meet. Most importantly, you'll be the person our team can go to: visible, trusted and genuinely close to what people need.

We think this is one of the most important hires we'll make. As we grow, keeping and growing our brilliant people is our single biggest priority - and our biggest risk if we get it wrong - and this role leads it.

This is a permanent role, open to four days a week or full-time - we're genuinely happy to talk about what works for you. It's London-based and office-led, because being present with the team in person is the heart of the job.

What You’ll Do

• Own our people strategy and bring the vision to life across all five pillars - translating it into clear plans, real change and outcomes the business can feel, including organisational and team-structure planning as we scale.

• Protect the calibre of who joins us: lead hiring and onboarding alongside our Talent Consultant so we keep attracting brilliant, ambitious people and set them up to do their best work fast.

• Build strong managers and future leaders - running manager training "the MR way", supporting SLT development and coaching leaders to run effective functions.

• Lead performance, development and learning - running our review and progression approach, building how we train and grow people so they do the best work of their careers, and partnering with Biz Ops on the operating rhythms where people and process meet.

• Champion smart, responsible AI adoption across the people function - finding high-value ways to use AI in hiring, onboarding and people processes, and partnering with Business Ops on how we roll it out while keeping it human.

• Protect and grow our culture - engagement surveys, wellbeing ("wholebeing"), JEDI, belonging and celebration - keeping it high-energy, ambitious and low-ego as we scale.

• Co-own internal communications with Biz Ops - helping keep the team informed, connected and aligned as we grow, from all-hands and key announcements to the everyday rhythms that keep people in the loop.

• Keep our best people. Losing a critical team member is one of the biggest risks to our momentum, so retention, progression and fair, considered remuneration sit at the heart of this role.

• Run simple, compliant, reliable HR processes (CharlieHR, policies, handbook, employment law) that are easy for the team to navigate.

• Own employee relations end to end - handling grievances, disciplinaries, performance issues and exits directly, thoughtfully and in line with employment law, protecting both the individual and the business.

• Line-manage and develop our People team (including our Office Manager & Team Coordinator) with clear ownership, regular coaching and feedback, and a high-performing, proactive team the wider business can rely on.

What You’ll Bring

• Experience growing people functions in a fast-moving, scaling business — ideally within FMCG (challenger/scale-up or high-growth environment), where you’ve had to build the engine while running it (not just inherit a mature, highly structured people function).

• Strong commercial judgement and an understanding of how a business actually works - someone who connects what the team needs with what the business needs, and can make hard calls on structure, performance and investment.

• The seniority and confidence to operate at leadership-team level, partnering closely with the founder and senior leaders and being trusted on big organisational decisions.

• A real track record of building strong, high-performing teams - raising the bar on how managers lead, and handling performance and sensitive conversations directly, thoughtfully and with care.

• Genuine strength in core people areas you can own and grow - for example talent and hiring, leadership development, performance, engagement and wellbeing, or JEDI.

• Low ego, approachable and trustworthy, with initiative and a strong external network - you bring fresh thinking and spot what's needed next, rather than waiting for problems to land.

• We are looking for someone with strong judgement, commercial instinct, warmth and a bias to action. As long as you have strong, hands-on experience across core People/HR fundamentals (especially employee relations, performance, and building scalable processes), we are more interested in how you work than a particular career path

You’ll Thrive Here If You

• You see People as a driver of business performance, not a support function - you connect strategy and people, rather than speaking for one side only.

• You balance warmth with high standards - kind, low-ego and supportive, but happy to hold the bar and have the honest conversation.

• You love building, and you're as happy designing the strategy as you are rolling up your sleeves to make it happen.

• You stay calm and grounded in a fast-changing, sometimes chaotic scale-up, and you're comfortable with ambiguity.

• You're genuinely excited to help an ambitious, mission-obsessed team do the best work of their careers - and to protect what makes it special as it grows.

Benefits & Perks 

• Salary: 80-90k basic salary

• Share Options Programme

• Hybrid working: 3 x a week in office (Mon, Tues, Thurs) & 2 from home

• Annual Leave: 25 days per year

• Summer Hours: Early finish Fridays (June–August)

• Work From Anywhere: Up to 2 weeks per year

• Pension: Up to 5% matched contribution

• Cycle Scheme: Bike or Lime/Forest Pass

• Personal Development: £300 annual allowance for approved training

• Wellbeing Support: Access to Spill app & Heka allowance (£40/month) + birthday/work anniversary boosts

• Annual Team Trip: Gastronomical & wellbeing-focused team away trip

• Parental Leave: Competitive maternity/paternity package

• Lots of free Mother Root