Dave Williams

Chief People Officer at Jaguar Land Rover

Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, United Kingdom

About

Dave was appointed Chief People Officer for JLR’s Global business in 2020. He leads a deliberately person-centred and experience-orientated approach to HR Management. He instigated the ongoing cultural transformation of JLR, building the top team who have reversed an 8-year declining engagement trend, and returned the JLR business to strong profitability – proving performance truly does follow engagement. Transformation has been a feature of Dave’s career, delivering large scale business change, at pace, to achieve significant growth. He has been integral to JLR’s development in China, growth in advanced technologies and new business start-ups (inc JV’s). He is equally adept at large scale cost saving and restructuring initiatives, and has handled business separations, closures, large scale reorganisations and rapid labour-cost-base restructuring. He has also led transformation of the HR Operating model and continues to innovate approaches to ensure data, insight and robust diagnosis are at the heart of everything HR do. The function is organised around a tightly aligned agenda, enabling increasingly flexible resource allocation and deployment in service of JLR’s key priorities. Dave believes most questions in business have leadership in the answer. Consistently enabling the development of leaders, and supporting senior executives to reach their potential, is the foundation on which JLR’s culture shift is built. A graduate of the Meyler Campbell Mastered coaching programme, Dave considers coaching an essential skill for leaders driving both individual and organisational performance. Dave has worked across significantly different ownership structures, governance models and leadership & cultural environments. Alongside his position in JLR he has held a Board position in Chery Jaguar Land Rover (Chinese JV), is Chairman of Ashorne Training College and holds a number of external roles within the HR industry.

Experience

  • Jaguar Land Rover (Full-time · 19 yrs 6 mos)
    • Chief People Officer
      Jul 2020 - Present · 6 yrs

      Board Director for Human Resources transforming the experience for JLR's People through an integrated agenda encompassing culture, operating model, skills & capability, leadership development and workplace experience.

    • Deputy HR Director & HR Director, Product Creation, Commercial & Corporate Functions
      2016 - Jul 2020 · 4 yrs 7 mos

      Reporting to the Board Director for Human Resources & Global Purchasing. In this role I delivered a complete restructuring of the labour cost base, underpinning a return to profitability in our most recent (Sept 2019) quarterly results.

    • HR Director, Organisation Development & Design
      2014 - 2016 · 2 yrs

      Reporting to the Board Director for Human Resources, I led HR Transformation, reshaping HR structure, processes and systems (inc. implementing SAP Success Factors), installing key capabilities to support emergent business needs, without growing the costs (and built the OD&D CoE from scratch).

  • HR Manager at Ford
    Oct 1998 - Jun 2007 · 8 yrs 9 mos

    Employee Relations Officer for Dagenham Transport Operations. Personnel Officer for Central European Sales Operations HR Manager, Ford Britain Marketing and Sales HR Manager, Ford Britain Parts and Service Operations Employee Relations Manager, Leamington Foundry