Director of People and Culture

CAMELBACK VENTURES 

Camelback Ventures (Camelback) transforms the landscape of entrepreneurship by investing in ventures and leaders who have been systematically excluded from capital and opportunity. We focus on entrepreneurs of color and women, providing not just funding, but mentorship, advocacy, and access to networks that drive meaningful change. Since 2015, our impact speaks volumes: we've raised over $75M and supported 220+ social entrepreneurs through our flagship Camelback Fellowship. Our Fellows have collectively raised over $400M+, earned recognition as Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees, and created a transformative impact in communities nationwide, from Eastern North Carolina to Seattle.

THE ROLE 

Camelback Ventures is hiring an inaugural Director of People & Culture — a strategic and operational leader who will shape how our people experience every stage of their journey with us. Reporting to the Vice President of Finance and Operations and serving as a member of the Leadership Team, this role is both an architect and an operator: designing the systems, frameworks, and culture that allow Camelback to grow with intention, and rolling up their sleeves to make those systems work day-to-day.

This is an opportunity for a people leader who understands that organizational health and mission impact are inseparable. The Director of People & Culture will help Camelback continue to navigate ecosystem and team change, while building the internal capacity, trust, and resilience to sustain our work for years to come.

The right candidate brings deep expertise in change management, a steady and positive presence during periods of organizational evolution, and a genuine belief that staff transitions — whether through promotions, role changes, or departures — are not disruptions to manage, but milestones to honor and opportunities to celebrate growth. They understand that how people enter and exit an organization shapes its culture just as powerfully as what happens in between.

This role will translate Camelback's values, talent philosophy, and performance frameworks into practical processes and cultural norms that reflect our deep commitments to care, equity, and accountability, across the full employee lifecycle.

Strategic Priorities for This Role

Before outlining the full scope of responsibilities, we want to name the strategic priorities that will define success in the first 18–24 months:

• Anchor the Leadership Transition. Partner closely with leadership to manage the organizational, relational, and cultural dimensions of Camelback's leadership evolution, ensuring building of a positive culture, clarity of roles, and effective people processes.

• Build Change-Ready Culture. Establish frameworks and practices that help Camelback navigate change as an organizational strength, so our team faces uncertainty with grounded confidence.

• Reimagine the Employee Journey. Design onboarding and offboarding experiences that set a clear tone: joining Camelback is an investment in your growth, and leaving is not an ending, but a transition into the next chapter of your impact.

• Establish People Infrastructure for Scale. Build the foundational systems, documentation, and internal capacity that allow Camelback to grow in ways that align with our values and culture.

People Strategy, Change Management & Organizational Readiness

• Serve as a strategic thought partner to the Leadership Team on workforce planning, organizational design, and people-related decision-making, including preparing inputs for leadership planning, talent reviews, and key organizational decisions

• Facilitate change management efforts with a structured, empathetic approach that builds stakeholder alignment, communicates with transparency, and sustains team cohesion

• Champion a talent philosophy that treats staff transitions, including promotions, role changes, and departures, as natural milestones in a person's growth through language and processes

• Build documentation and internal capacity that support Camelback's growth and operational independence, partnering with Finance team on workforce planning and people-related reporting

People Operations & Performance Management

• Own day-to-day people operations, ensuring processes are compliant and consistently applied, covering compensation and benefits, policy maintenance, recordkeeping, and legal compliance

• Maintain and improve core people systems spanning goal-setting, feedback cycles, career progression frameworks, and manager enablement tools

• Lead the design and implementation of Camelback's performance management system as a developmental tool and manager accountability built in

Hiring, Onboarding & the Employee Journey

• Own equitable hiring processes in partnership with hiring managers from role scoping through offer 

• Develop and implement a dynamic and equitable interview process to facilitate deeper information sharing between the Camelback team and applicants

• Design an onboarding experience that goes beyond logistics, grounding new staff in Camelback's culture and accelerating belonging from day one

• Build a meaningful offboarding practice that honors departing team members, captures institutional knowledge, and reinforces that staff and Fellows carry our mission forward 

• Maintain job descriptions and competency documentation that support hiring clarity and internal mobility

Culture Building, Employee Relations & Engagement

• Serve as a steward of Camelback's organizational culture, translating values, equity commitments, and mission into tangible norms and practices that staff experience

• Lead employee relations matters with discretion, sound judgment, and clear escalation pathways, serving as a trusted and steady resource for staff and managers, especially during periods of organizational change

• Facilitate engagement surveys; synthesize findings and partner with leadership to turn insights into actionable improvements that support retention, belonging, and sustainable workloads

Manager Enablement & Development

• Build and maintain a manager enablement infrastructure,  including learning experiences and guides that equips managers to lead with clarity and confidence across the full employee lifecycle

• Create structured onboarding for new managers — whether promoted internally or hired externally — that accelerates their effectiveness and grounds them in Camelback's values and internal systems

• Use data from performance cycles, engagement surveys, and employee relations patterns to identify manager development needs and design interventions that improve team outcomes

THE PERSON

You are a people leader who is equally comfortable setting strategy and running the operational processes that make it real. You have navigated a founder or executive transition and understand the organizational weight that carries. You believe that every moment in the employee journey, including onboarding is an opportunity to deepen trust and reinforce values. You lead change with clarity and compassion, and you help teams see transitions not as disruptions, but as healthy, normal parts of organizational life. You bring a deep commitment to Camelback's mission and an understanding of the social impact landscape, particularly the unique challenges facing organizations led by and serving historically marginalized communities. Experience in racial equity, education, entrepreneurship, or philanthropy is a plus.

Experience & Expertise

• 6+ years of progressive people operations or HR experience, with demonstrated ownership of core people systems in a mission-driven or nonprofit organization

• Proven track record managing end-to-end people operations — performance cycles, employee relations, compliance — with consistency and care

• Experience supporting multi-state compliance and a strong remote employee experience across distributed teams

• Equity-minded practice embedded in people decisions, including hiring, compensation, and performance management

• Familiarity with industry best practices and the ability to adapt them to the realities of a growing, mission-driven organization

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience in human resources, organizational development, nonprofit management, business, or social sciences

• Hands-on experience with Rippling and Employee Navigator preferred

How You Work

• A trusted relationship builder across roles and levels — discreet, steady, and sound in judgment when handling sensitive situations

• A clear, accessible communicator who translates policies and processes into practical guidance that managers and staff can actually use

• A systems thinker who builds for future scale from current state, with strong documentation habits and project management skills to run cyclical processes reliably

• A growth-minded, continuous learner who stays connected to evolving practices in people operations and equity-centered organizational development

• Able to work independently while remaining closely integrated with team and organizational needs, and collaborative across functions and with external partners