Chief People & Culture Officer in Indianapolis, Indiana at Sigma Theta Tau

Shape the People Strategies That Empower a Mission-Driven Organization to Do Its Best Work

Position Overview

As the Chief People & Culture Officer (CPCO) at Sigma Nursing, you will shape and steward the strategies that define how our people experience work, grow in their roles, and contribute to our mission. Your work will ensure that culture is not just an idea, but a lived experience reflected in how we lead, communicate, make decisions, and support one another across the organization.

In this role, you will partner closely with the CEO and executive leadership team to align people strategy with organizational priorities. You will lead and develop the existing People & Culture team, building on their strengths while bringing a fresh, forward-looking perspective that elevates what they are already doing well. Together, you will deliver initiatives across talent management, employee experience, organizational design, performance, and leadership development.

People & Culture is an enablement function within the organization, and you will play a key role in strengthening that impact. While your team does not directly serve our members, your work directly supports the staff who do. You will ensure that leaders and teams have the clarity, tools, and support they need to perform at a high level, make informed decisions, and sustain long-term success.

You will also serve as a trusted advisor and coach to leaders at all levels, helping them navigate complex people decisions with clarity, candor, and accountability. You know how to hold both empathy and directness in the same conversation, and that balance is what makes your guidance credible and actionable. From strengthening feedback and performance practices to supporting organizational change, your influence will help create an environment where both people and performance thrive.

This is not a role for someone who defaults to conventional HR thinking or who is more comfortable maintaining systems than reimagining them. We are looking for a people leader who is genuinely excited about the future of work, who brings a point of view about what great looks like, and who has the vision and the confidence to help move an organization forward. You can think strategically about where the function needs to go while staying close enough to operations to know what is actually happening on the ground.

Location, Travel & Compensation

This is a hybrid and remote-friendly role, open to U.S.-based professionals nationwide; preference given to those local to the Indianapolis, Indiana area.

Domestic and international travel to in-person gatherings is expected approximately 1 - 3 times per year.

The starting salary range for this position is $95,000–$105,000; offers are made within this range to ensure equity, consistency, and fiscal responsibility.

A Week in the Life

Your week often begins by connecting with the People & Culture team, identifying where they may need additional support, clarity, or direction, and orienting around the priorities that matter most. You may start with an early conversation with the CEO or a member of the executive team, aligning on organizational priorities, upcoming changes, or sensitive people-related decisions that require both strategic thinking and thoughtful communication.

Throughout the week, you move between advising leaders and shaping systems. You might spend part of your morning coaching a manager through a performance conversation or navigating a complex team dynamic, helping them balance empathy with accountability. Later, you could be working with your team to refine performance management practices, strengthen onboarding experiences, or design leadership development initiatives that build capability across the organization.

You also dedicate time to the longer arc of the work: ensuring that culture is intentional and embedded across the organization. This may include reviewing employee feedback, identifying patterns in engagement or retention, and partnering with leaders to address root causes rather than surface symptoms. You translate values into action, ensuring that expectations around communication, collaboration, and accountability are clear, consistent, and genuinely lived out.

Strategic work also has a regular place in your week. You are thinking ahead about where the people function needs to go, what capabilities the team needs to develop, and what the organization will require from its people strategy six months or two years from now. You bring ideas, not just reactions, and you are building toward a version of this function that is more proactive, more strategic, and more impactful over time.

No two weeks are exactly the same, but each one requires you to balance big-picture vision with real-time decision-making. Whether you are guiding change, strengthening systems, or supporting a leader through a challenging moment, you bring both the steadiness and the energy that a high-performing people function requires.

Know Your CliftonStrengths? Here’s What We’re Looking For

The strengths most needed to thrive in this role are:

1. Strategic - You see through complexity and find the clearest path forward. When the organization is navigating change or the people function needs to evolve, you are already thinking several steps ahead, orienting the team around what matters most and making decisions that hold up over time.
2. Futuristic - You are energized by what could be. You think about the future of work with genuine curiosity and conviction, and you bring a forward-looking perspective to people strategy that challenges the team to grow beyond where they are today. You are not here to maintain the status quo; you are here to help the organization see what is possible.
3. Command - You bring a confident, direct presence that earns trust quickly. You are comfortable with hard conversations, clear in your point of view, and able to hold your own in a fast-paced environment alongside senior leaders who move quickly. Your directness does not crowd out empathy; it makes your empathy more credible.
4. Maximizer - You are drawn to what is already working and committed to making it exceptional. The People & Culture team has real strengths, and you are the leader who will see those strengths clearly, invest in them intentionally, and help each person on the team become a stronger version of themselves. You build on the good rather than starting over.
5. Ideation - You generate fresh approaches to familiar problems. Where others see a process that has always been done a certain way, you see an opportunity to rethink it. You bring creative energy to strategy, bring new ideas to the table with enthusiasm, and help the team stay curious and innovative in how they approach the work.

You Would Thrive in This Position If

• You bring at least seven years of progressive leadership experience in human resources, people operations, or organizational leadership, including executive-level responsibility, preferably in an association, nonprofit, or mission-driven organization. You hold a relevant degree and an HR certification such as SHRM-SCP, SPHR, or GPHR, or equivalent experience.

• You have a proven ability to design and implement enterprise-wide people strategies aligned with organizational goals, and you bring extensive experience in organizational development, culture transformation, and leadership development.

• You are not bound by traditional HR thinking and can balance HR fundamentals with a willingness to challenge outdated practices. You bring a people-first mindset and a genuine interest in the future of work, and you are as comfortable rethinking a system as you are maintaining one. You bring a point of view and the confidence to share it.

• You lead with both empathy and directness. You can hold a hard conversation with care, give feedback that lands, and help leaders navigate complexity without softening your message to the point of losing it. People trust you because you are honest with them.

• You are a skilled developer of people and teams. You see the strengths in the individuals around you, invest in them deliberately, and know how to help a small, high-performing team grow without disrupting what already makes them effective.

• You have a strong knowledge of employment law, compliance, and HR best practices, and a demonstrated ability to influence at the executive level and lead through complexity and change.

• You are polished, fast-moving, and built for a senior leadership environment. You can keep pace with a CEO who moves quickly, contribute meaningfully in executive conversations, and represent the People & Culture function with the credibility and presence the role requires.