As part of the People & Operations teams, the Strategic Staffing Lead partners with the Director of Global Operations to shape and deliver effective workforce deployment across Forensic Risk Alliance (FRA). This role sits at the intersection of business performance and employee development. You will play a critical role in aligning our people to our projects - optimising utilisation while ensuring individuals gain meaningful, career-enhancing experiences. With a primary focus on EMEA and collaboration on global projects (including the US), you will act as a trusted advisor to both leaders and employees, influencing staffing decisions and helping to build high-performing, well-balanced teams. Key Responsibilities Strategic Staffing & Deployment Lead resource allocation across EMEA, ensuring the effective deployment of client-facing teams in line with business priorities. Partner with project leaders to shape project teams, balancing utilisation, skill requirements, and development opportunities. Anticipate resourcing needs or challenges and proactively identify solutions to staffing gaps or constraints. Trusted Advisor – Career & Staffing Decisions Build strong, trusted relationships with employees to understand their career aspirations, strengths, and development needs. Act as a key advisor to leaders on staffing decisions, balancing commercial priorities with long-term talent development. Facilitate open and constructive conversations where priorities compete, helping teams reach fair and balanced staffing decisions. Stakeholder Management & Influence Develop credibility with senior stakeholders across practices and regions. Influence resourcing decisions through data, insight, and strong relationship management. Encourage cross-practice and cross-region collaboration to maximise utilisation and broaden development opportunities. Utilisation & Workforce Optimisation Drive utilisation through strategic and creative staffing approaches. Keep a clear view of unassigned resources and take the lead in securing suitable billable and non-billable placements. Use data and insight to identify trends, risks, and opportunities to improve workforce planning. Data, Insights & Continuous Improvement Analyse staffing data to generate meaningful insights on utilisation, forecasting, and capacity. Collaborate with People and Finance teams on workforce planning and forecasting. Continuously improve resourcing processes, tools, and ways of working. Development & Performance Contribution Support employee development through thoughtful staffing and training recommendations. Contribute to performance management processes, providing insight on utilisation and project contributions. What We’re Looking For Experience Significant experience in resource management, workforce planning, or utilisation within a project-based professional services environment. Experience working in complex, matrixed, and ideally global organisations. Skills & Capabilities Strong relationship-building skills with the ability to quickly establish trust across all levels. Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders. Commercially minded, with a strong understanding of utilisation and business drivers in a professional services context. Analytical and data-driven, with experience turning insights into action. Ability to manage complex, sensitive situations with sound judgement. Personal Approach Works independently with a strong sense of ownership, ensuring timely and reliable support to the business. Builds strong, trusting relationships across the business. Balances individual needs with business priorities in a practical way. Takes initiative and follows through. Adapts easily as priorities shift. Why This Role Matters This role is critical to both our business performance and employee experience. By ensuring the right people are deployed to the right opportunities, you will directly impact client delivery, employee development, and the continued growth of FRA. Further Information This job description is to be used as a guide for accomplishing company and department objectives and is not intended and should not be construed to be an all-inclusive list of responsibilities, skills, efforts or expectations associated with a job. The management team reserves the right to modify, add or remove duties from jobs and to assign other duties as necessary. Forensic Risk Alliance (FRA) is a market leader in regulatory compliance, financial investigations, and data analytics. We specialise in supporting clients facing cross-border litigation, multi-jurisdictional investigations - internal and external - and compliance program design and testing. At FRA, we are regularly hired to provide expertise on some of the world’s largest compliance matters and are consistently recognised and recommended for our client service excellence FRA is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE). We will not unlawfully discriminate against any of the protected characteristics as identified by the Equality Act 2010 of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race (including colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origin), religion or belief, sex (gender) and sexual orientation. In addition, if you need assistance or accommodation during the application process because of a disability, this is available upon request.