Staff People Business Partner
Clio
People & HR
Toronto, ON, Canada · Calgary, AB, Canada · Vancouver, BC, Canada
CAD 112,100-168,100 / year
Clio is the global leader in legal AI technology, empowering legal professionals and law firms of every size to work smarter, faster, and more securely.
We are transforming the legal experience for all by bettering the lives of legal professionals while increasing access to justice.
Summary:
We're seeking a Staff People Business Partner to partner with Clio's Finance organization and key frontline leaders across Product (Product Management and Product Design) and Content. This role sits at the intersection of business strategy, operational execution, and team performance during a period of continued scale, maturity, and transformation.
As a Staff level PBP, you are not simply executing People strategy, you are shaping it. You serve as a principal advisor to senior executive leaders across Finance, Product, and Content, influence Clio's People programmes at a company-wide level, and set the standard for what exceptional People partnership looks like. You bring a multi-year lens to organizational health, talent strategy, and business transformation, anticipating challenges before they surface and driving proactive, lasting solutions.
This role is ideal for a seasoned People leader who has operated at the intersection of corporate and R&D functions, who speaks the language of Finance and Product fluently, and who brings enterprise-level thinking, executive presence, and deep practitioner craft to every engagement.
Who You Are
You are a senior-level People partner who operates seamlessly between the strategic and the structural — capable of shaping system-level organizational thinking while remaining grounded in the realities of execution. You have a proven track record of advising executive and front-line leaders with confidence, and you bring a point of view that goes beyond process and compliance to genuine organizational insight and business impact.
You understand how Finance enables scale, discipline, and financial accountability, and how Product and Content leaders define strategy, prioritize, and deliver. You move fluidly between these contexts, building trusted relationships at all levels while holding the organizational People perspective.
You are known for your strong judgment. You navigate the most complex organizational situations with clarity, calm, and principle. You are a trusted voice across both People and business leadership, and you elevate everyone around you.
What Your Team Does
The People Business Partner team at Clio is responsible for enabling leaders and teams to do their best work while ensuring Clio scales sustainably, equitably, and compliantly. PBPs partner closely with leaders, People Centers of Excellence (Talent, Total Rewards, TD&L, People Ops), and cross-functional teams to deliver thoughtful, data-driven people solutions that align with Clio's business strategy and values.
Together, we help Clio build human and high-performing teams, and exceptional leaders.
What You'll Work On
Strategic Business Partnership
Serve as the principal People advisor to frontline and executive leaders across Finance, Product, and Content — operating as a true thought partner on the most consequential organizational decisions.
Drive the People strategy for your client groups with a multi-year lens, connecting business trajectory, organizational health, and talent imperatives in a coherent, integrated plan.
Influence company-wide People priorities by surfacing patterns, risks, and opportunities from across your groups — translating local insight into org-level recommendations.
Anticipate second- and third-order organizational effects of strategic decisions before leaders see them, and proactively shape plans accordingly.
Organizational Architecture & Transformation
Lead complex, multi-phase organizational design efforts — including operating model transformation, large-scale restructures, and integration of newly formed or acquired teams across your client groups.
Serve as the go-to expert on organizational architecture for Finance, Product, and Content — advising on spans and layers, structural interdependencies, and team operating norms at scale.
Partner with leaders to define and evolve their organizational models in anticipation of growth, market shifts, or strategic pivots.
Apply a systems-level lens to organizational challenges, identifying root causes and structural solutions rather than addressing symptoms in isolation.
Partner with Talent Management and TD&L to support leadership development, manager capability, and team effectiveness programmes.
Executive Coaching & Leadership Development
Provide deep, ongoing executive coaching to senior leaders up to and including VP and C-suite across Finance, Product, and Content on leadership effectiveness, team dynamics, stakeholder management, and organizational impact.
Identify leadership development needs at the senior-most levels and create tailored, high-impact development plans in partnership with Talent Development.
Lead or co-design senior leadership team effectiveness engagements, including offsites, team diagnostics, and sustained effectiveness programs.
Support succession conversations and contribute to executive talent assessments with depth and rigour.
Model what exceptional coaching looks like for the broader PBP team, sharing frameworks, approaches, and lessons from the most complex leadership situations.
High-Stakes Employee Relations & Risk Leadership
Advise on and lead sensitive, high-complexity, or high-risk employee relations matters across your client groups.
Lead or oversee complex investigations, ensuring outcomes that are fair, legally sound, and consistent with Clio's values and obligations.
Partner closely with Legal Counsel on matters of significant organizational risk, executive conduct, or legal exposure.
Develop and champion ER frameworks, investigation standards, and escalation protocols that elevate practice quality across the People team.
Maintain knowledge of employment law across all relevant jurisdictions, including cross-border and international employment contexts as Clio continues to grow globally.
People Strategy, Talent & Performance Architecture
Shape the design and execution of Clio's most critical People programs. This includes performance management, talent calibration, succession planning, and total rewards alignment contributing an enterprise-level perspective, in combination with Talent Development.
Lead workforce planning for Finance, Product, and Content aligning talent supply and demand to multi-year business roadmaps and financial planning cycles.
Serve as a key voice in talent reviews, contributing senior-level assessments of leader readiness, critical role risk, and organizational capability gaps.
Translate executive-level strategy into talent implications with precision, defining what capabilities, headcount, and structures the organization will need 1–2 years out.
People Team Leadership, Mentorship & Operating Model
Act as a senior practitioner role model within the PBP team, setting the bar for quality of thinking, depth of partnership, and standard of execution.
Mentor and coach Senior and mid-level PBPs, sharing frameworks, reviewing approaches on complex cases, and actively developing the next generation of People partners.
Contribute to the evolution of the People operating model by identifying gaps, proposing structural improvements, and piloting new approaches within your groups.
Drive consistency in practice quality across the PBP team through the development of playbooks, standards, and shared tools.
Serve as a connector between the People team and the business — translating what Finance, Product, and Content leaders need into team capability and capacity investments.
Data, Insight & People Intelligence
Use people data with sophistication, moving beyond descriptive analytics to predictive insight, proactively identifying organizational risk before it surfaces in leadership conversations.
Synthesize multi-source data (engagement, attrition, performance, DEI, workforce trends) to construct a full picture of organizational health across Finance, Product, and Content.
Develop and present executive-ready people insights that influence business strategy, not just People programs.
Establish and champion data standards and reporting practices across the PBP team.
What You'll Bring
10+ years of progressive HR / People Business Partner experience, with a substantial portion at a senior or Staff-equivalent level supporting complex, cross-functional organizations, specifically Finance and Product/R&D.
A demonstrated track record of advising senior executive leaders, ideally including C-suite, with confidence and impact in high-growth SaaS or technology companies.
Deep expertise across the full spectrum of People practice: organizational design, executive coaching, ER and investigations, workforce planning, talent strategy, and performance management.
Deep experience partnering across Finance and Product/R&D functions — with the ability to credibly speak each function's language and understand the distinct operating cadences of both.
Superior knowledge of employment law across multiple jurisdictions, including cross-border and international employment contexts.
Exceptional executive presence, communication, and influencing skills — you are equally credible in a boardroom, a sensitive employee conversation, and a People team workshop.
A systems thinker who sees organizational dynamics holistically, not in siloed functional areas.
Strong data fluency with the ability to translate complex people analytics into executive-level narrative and strategic recommendations.
High tolerance for ambiguity and a proven ability to lead through organizational change and transformation.
A collaborative, values-driven approach combined with the confidence to challenge, push back, and hold a point of view when it matters.
Demonstrated interest in and application of AI tools to elevate People practice and personal productivity.
Bonus Points
Background supporting companies through major inflection points — pre-IPO scaling, post-merger integration, international expansion, or significant workforce transformation.
Experience aligning workforce planning with financial planning cycles in a disciplined, high-growth environment.
Experience building and scaling People practices across multiple geographies and employment jurisdictions simultaneously.
Background supporting Finance and/or Product and Engineering functions in a pre-IPO SaaS or technology company.
What you will find here:
Compensation is one of the main components of Clio’s Total Rewards Program. We have developed a series of programs and processes to ensure we are creating fair and competitive pay practices that form the foundation of our human and high-performing culture.
Some highlights of our Total Rewards program include:
Competitive, equitable salary with top-tier health benefits, dental, and vision insurance
Hybrid work environment, with expectation for local Clions (Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Dublin, London, New York City and Sydney) to be in office min. twice per week.
Flexible time off policy, with an encouraged 20 days off per year.
$2000 annual counseling benefit
RRSP matching and RESP contribution
Clioversary recognition program with special acknowledgement at 3, 5, 7, and 10 years
*Our salary bands are designed to reflect the range of skills and experience needed for the position and to allow room for growth at Clio. For experienced individuals, we typically hire at or around the midpoint of the band. The top portion of the salary band is reserved for employees who demonstrate sustained high performance and impact at Clio. Those who are new to the role may join below the midpoint and develop their skills over time. The final offer amount for this role will be dependent on geographical region, applicable experience, and skillset of the candidate.
Diversity, Inclusion, Belonging and Equity (DIBE) & Accessibility
Our team shows up as their authentic selves, and are united by our mission. We are dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion. We pride ourselves in building and fostering an environment where our teams feel included, valued, and enabled to do the best work of their careers, wherever they choose to log in from. We believe that different perspectives, skills, backgrounds, and experiences result in higher-performing teams and better innovation. We are committed to equal employment and we encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.
Clio provides accessibility accommodations during the recruitment process. Should you require any accommodation, please let us know and we will work with you to meet your needs.
Learn more about our culture at clio.com/careers
We're a Human and High Performing AI company, meaning we use artificial intelligence to improve all of our operations. In recruitment, AI helps us streamline the process for greater efficiency. However, we've built our systems to ensure that a human always reviews AI-generated output, and we never make automated hiring decisions.
Disclaimer: We only communicate with candidates through official @clio.com email addresses.
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