How A CPO Can Create Meaningful Change In A Leading University

Sergii is Director of Human Resources at Kyiv School of Economics, having previously held senior leadership roles at Metinvest, Alfa Bank, Eldorado UA and Universal Bank.

Our CPO Leadership Matters series highlights the complex and far-reaching role of Chief People Officers, as their role in the boardroom becomes increasingly prominent. Through the voices of top people leaders, we discover how the CPO can align the people function with commercial objectives and transform conventional practices into strategic assets. 

Please Tell Us About Your Current Role As CPO?

I lead the people function at the Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine’s leading educational and analytical institution. KSE brings together a university, business school, research institute, charitable foundation, and our professional and technical training courses called KSE ProfTech.  

Today, we have around 600 full-time employees with a total headcount of over 770, nearly double that from 12 months ago. My focus is on building an integrated HR system across all domains: talent acquisition, organisational development, C&B, HR IT and big data, compliance and administration, HR marketing, employer branding, and culture management. 

Looking ahead, our bold long-term goal is to elevate KSE’s entire ecosystem to the standards of the best U.S. institutions while advancing our mission to build the intellectual foundation for a strong, innovative Ukrainian economy. To get there, we must attract exceptional learners and practitioners, empower world-class faculty and researchers, forge durable partnerships with industry, government, and donors whilst investing in resilient infrastructure and operations.  

What Motivated Your Transition Into The Role Of A CPO?

I’ve been in HR for over 20 years. When I was at university, I already knew this would be my field and after professional training, the trajectory felt natural. The real motivation for taking the CPO role was the chance to build highly effective teams that are motivated, loyal and engaged. To achieve this, the first step is building a strong HR team itself.

Over the past year, that strategy paid off. Our employee net promoter score grew by 50 points year on year and is now double the industry average, even with the ongoing war. For me, this result confirms the logic that resilient organisations begin with resilient HR systems.

Can You Share Some Of The Key Challenges And Opportunities You Encountered As CPO? 

The main challenge came in three layers at once: 

• Building systems capable of scaling the school. 
• Keeping the operational rhythm alive without pre-existing formal processes, while handling a much bigger volume of requests. 
• Reassembling the HR team by strengthening existing staff and quickly integrating new team members. 

Scaling at this pace required aggressive talent acquisition. KSE has a strong academic brand, but our HR brand needed significant strengthening. With limited time, we focused on one clear mission: creating working conditions so strong that employees themselves would recommend KSE to their peers. That became our biggest opportunity and the loyalty and satisfaction results just prove it was the right choice. 

For me, that’s the most meaningful outcome. Not awards or slogans, but when leaders and employees alike recognise the value of HR as an institution, not just a service.

What Are The Key Components Of An Effective People And Culture Strategy That Aligns With Business Objectives?

In any organisation, but especially in scaling ones, three principles matter most: 

1. Open dialogue and accountability. We communicate transparently, listen actively, and admit mistakes when they happen, so people understand not just the values on paper but how they translate into everyday behaviour. 
2. Integration. HR strategy should link to business design: hiring aligns with structure, development aligns with cycles, rewards align with performance. 
3. Resilience. Strategy must support people in volatile contexts. In Ukraine’s reality, this means systems that let people maintain focus despite war, mobility, and uncertainty. At the end of the day, strategy is the invisible architecture that helps people make everyday decisions, especially the hard ones. 

How Do You Balance The Strategic HR Responsibilities With The Operational Demands? 

At KSE, we don’t have the luxury of choosing between the two because rapid growth forces us to do both simultaneously. The teams that build strategy are also handling payroll, compliance, and onboarding. It’s a demanding mix, but it reflects the reality of scaling from 300 to 770+ people during wartime. 

For me, operational issues are never just noise, they’re signals of systemic design flaws. Fix the system, and you fix the pattern. And in war, that discipline matters more than ever. 

What Trends Do You Foresee Shaping The Future Of People And Culture?

I see the future trends including: 

• Hyper-personalisation of employee experience. 
• The collapse of the formal vs informal divide – culture and values show in behaviour, not posters. 
• Talent development as a supply chain, not a training calendar. 
• Data literacy as a baseline HR skill. 
• Integration of AI as a tool for efficiency, from analytics to candidate sourcing. 
• And above all, relentless focus on the employee experience because in volatile markets, retention and loyalty are significant competitive advantages. 

How Should Chief People Officers Prepare To Meet These New Trends?

Embrace AI as a practical tool by learning how to integrate it into workflows, whether for analytics, reporting, or employee support. 

Broaden your skillset to include systems design, behavioral science, and product thinking, as these are no longer optional. Also build strong partnerships across finance, operations, and strategy so HR becomes an equal co-pilot rather than just an advisor; and sharpen your narrative skills, because data alone doesn’t change behaviour - if you can’t tell the story behind the numbers, you won’t win followership. 

What Advice Would You Give To Aspiring CPO Leaders Looking To Make Significant Impact In Their Organisations?

Test your hypotheses and either prove or disprove them with evidence because HR without data is guesswork. Also, be fluent in both metrics and meaning as together, numbers give you credibility, while stories move people. 

Break down silos quickly, because HR in isolation loses influence, and start experimenting with AI now to understand how it transforms workflows before everyone else does. And when some things inevitably go wrong, don’t hide behind ‘process’. Step forward, own the issue, and fix the system. People respect accountability far more than perfection. 

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