Sophie Graves Consulting

Senior HR Expertise without the overhead of a fulltime hire

I work with SMEs that need experienced, strategic HR support, without the commitment of a permanent senior hire. Whether you're navigating a restructure, expanding into new markets, managing a complex employee relations situation, or building people infrastructure that can actually keep pace with your business, I can step in and get on with it.

I'm a senior HR professional with 15+ years partnering with executive teams across EMEA and APAC in global, PE-backed and fast paced environments. I'm known for landing in complex situations quickly, getting to the real issue beneath the presenting problem, and resolving it without adding to the noise.

My background spans financial services, fintech, SaaS, enterprise technology, data and business intelligence, hospitality, and workplace design. I'm equally comfortable as the sole senior HR presence in a business or operating as an extension of an existing team — building trust fast, working across time zones and cultures, and keeping things moving.

How I can help

Interim HR leadership

Covering a gap at Head of HR or HR Director level while you recruit, or supporting a period of change that needs experienced hands on the wheel.

People infrastructure

Building or overhauling the frameworks, processes and tooling your business actually needs e.g. performance, talent, onboarding, manager capability.

M&A and restructuring

Multi-jurisdictional experience across acquisitions, integrations, redundancy processes, and workforce stabilisation across EMEA and beyond.

Market entry and expansion

HR lead on new market establishment including entity setup, first-in-market hiring, payroll capability, local employment law compliance.

Employee relations

Managing complex ER cases, cross-border and compliance risks, across multiple European jurisdictions.

Project-based HR support

A specific initiative with a defined scope and timeline e.g. leadership development, engagement, organisational design, workforce planning.

What I have helped businesses

  • Integrated and stabilised a distressed acquisition across five countries, from organisational design through to a profitable exit.

  • Established first-in-market presence in several countries including entity, payroll, and first hires — enabling sales functions to operate on the ground quickly.

  • Identified and remediated inherited employment law risks across an EMEA region, materially reducing legal and financial exposure.

  • Eliminated external recruitment agency spend entirely — from 40% of hires to zero — while sustaining 15–20 open roles at any time, saving an estimated £115–150k annually.

  • Built HR operating framework from scratch, reducing management reliance on HR and improving decision-making quality across five jurisdictions.

  • Turned around a sales function where HR was seen as a blocker — redesigning hiring and onboarding to the point where the Regional MD described the result as game-changing within seven months.

Let’s Talk

If you're an SME looking for senior HR support on a fractional or interim basis, I'd be glad to have a conversation. Tell me a bit about where you are and what you're dealing with, and we can work out whether I'm the right fit.