Joanne Baker

HR Business Partner

Greater Oxford Area

About

A highly motivated and experienced HR professional with over 15 years of experience working in diverse global organisations. My experience spans across niche technical organisations in Space Science, Med Tech, Engineering and Manufacturing. I am a commercially focused HR leader with extensive experience leading people strategy across high-growth technology, science, and complex academic environments. I work closely with executive teams and senior leaders to design and deliver people strategies that enable organisational scale, financial sustainability, and strong leadership capability. My experience spans organisational design, workforce planning, complex employee relations, change management, and embedding inclusive, modern people practices. I have a strong track record of leading transformation and restructuring initiatives, including delivering cost reductions through organisational redesign, improving workforce capability, and using people data to inform executive decision-making. I am particularly experienced in environments undergoing growth, change, or ambiguity, where clear people strategy and strong governance are critical. Following several interim and fixed-term roles post-Covid, I am now seeking a long-term Senior HR role where continuity, strategic leadership, and depth of experience can deliver lasting organisational impact. I value pragmatic HR, credible relationships, and people strategies that genuinely support business outcomes. .

Experience

  • Human Resources Manager at Christ Church, Oxford
    Aug 2024 - Present · 1 yr 11 mos

    Managing all HR for the Non-Academic / Operational staff within Christ Church. Working closely with the Steward on organisational design, resourcing, ER casework, training and staff development.

  • Human Resources Manager at Optellum
    Jan 2023 - Mar 2024 · 1 yr 3 mos

    A lung health company, developing products to help clinicians in the management, diagnosis and care of patients. A team of award-winning machine learning, medical device, and clinical experts who work with leading hospitals, physicians, and authors of lung cancer guidelines across Europe and US. Optellum has gathered the largest real-world dataset of CT scans and, using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, developed a solution to enable clinicians to identify at-risk patients and to guide lung cancer management.

  • Interim People Partner at Oxbotica
    Mar 2022 - Nov 2022 · 9 mos

  • Interim People Partner at Enara Bio
    Sep 2021 - Jan 2022 · 5 mos

  • Head of Human Resources at OXIS Energy Ltd
    Mar 2020 - May 2021 · 1 yr 3 mos

    OXIS and its research partners focused on the development of the world-leading Li-S chemistry that can be used in many battery applications. I headed up the HR department, working closely with managers to develop their teams. OXIS was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and went into Administration in May 2021. All staff were made redundant.