Culture of Care: Empowering Growth Through People, Purpose, and Process

Client Overview

Founded in 1997, our client is a leading provider of evidence-based crisis management training for organizations supporting individuals with behavioral challenges. Their core offering, Safety-Care®, equips staff in residential treatment, educational, and healthcare settings to manage and prevent challenging behaviors. Backed by a highly credentialed team of Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs), the company trains more than 230,000 professionals annually through its network of over 11,000 certified Safety-Care Trainers.

Headquartered in North Attleborough, MA, the company operates across all 50 U.S. states and Canada. With over 20 years of experience, they continue to deliver high-quality, person-centered behavioral solutions rooted in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports (PBIS). Their growth trajectory is remarkable, averaging 20-30% annually while serving over 3,000 client organizations.

The Challenge / Mandate

Our client partnered with us to recruit a Head of People to join their senior leadership team amid continued rapid growth. The company needed an experienced HR leader to build a scalable talent pipeline, implement retention strategies, and create an operational framework to support the company’s expansion.

Key objectives for this role included developing a comprehensive human capital playbook covering organizational design, recruitment, onboarding, and talent development. The Head of People would be responsible for ensuring compliance, driving employee engagement, and building a positive company culture aligned with the organization’s mission. Additionally, the role required creating KPIs to track HR performance and organizational health while providing strategic insights to the executive leadership.

Search Strategy

The ideal candidate would possess a minimum of eight years of experience in HR leadership, preferably in high-growth, mission-driven organizations. We focused on candidates with a strong background in building talent acquisition processes, retention frameworks, and people operations from the ground up.

Success factors included:

• Proven ability to scale talent operations in growth-stage companies.
• Expertise in recruitment, employee retention, and organizational design.
• Strong leadership skills with a collaborative, mission-driven mindset.
• Experience working in dynamic environments, with a preference for candidates from industries such as behavioral health, consulting, education, or tech.
• Ability to influence, communicate effectively, and foster cross-functional partnerships.

The Placement

The finalist was a highly accomplished Talent Acquisition and People leader with a career spanning multiple industries, including technology, biopharma, consulting, and education. Her career highlights included leading recruiting operations at Bain & Company and ghSMART, where she honed her ability to scale talent functions in demanding, growth-focused environments.

At a leading diagnostic imaging provider, she restructured the talent acquisition team, resulting in a 90% acceptance rate for new hires. She then built the first-ever People function at a biopharma consulting firm, driving 45% headcount growth in just eight months without any full-time recruiters. Her independent consulting work further demonstrated her expertise in developing performance management systems, recruiting strategies, and scalable HR frameworks.

She brought a pragmatic, data-driven approach to HR leadership, focused on building sustainable people operations that support long-term organizational growth.

The Outcome

Since joining, the Head of People has successfully transformed the company’s human resources function into a strategic growth enabler. She developed and rolled out the company’s first comprehensive human capital playbook, introducing scalable processes for recruitment, onboarding, and talent development.

Her efforts have significantly improved employee retention—particularly among BCBAs—through the implementation of targeted incentive structures, professional development pathways, and enhanced engagement initiatives. She also formalized the HR team’s operations, equipping them with robust KPIs and dashboards to track hiring, retention, and organizational health.

Beyond operational improvements, the Head of People fostered a strong, mission-aligned culture that reflects the company’s commitment to person-centered behavioral solutions. Her work has positioned the organization to continue scaling effectively while maintaining the high standards and values that underpin its success in the behavioral health training space.