Chief people officer named at Sonder

The employee health, wellbeing and safety platform has revealed its new chief people officer.

Raechel Gavin will take the reins in the top job at Sonder, effective immediately.

Ms Gavin’s appointment comes as Sonder looks to expand its reach in the Australian market and launch its UK offering.

Throughout her career, Ms Gavin has gained significant expertise and experience working in fast-growth tech environments in all aspects across strategic and operational human resources matters.

Ms Gavin brings over 20 years of experience to her new role at Sonder, having worked for large corporations through to boutique consulting companies, professional services, government and founder-led businesses.

Her new role will see her play a crucial role in shaping Sonder’s people strategy as well as its product “as the business expands to new markets and rolls out features and capabilities to help customers keep their teams safe, healthy and mentally well”, a statement explained.

Craig Cowdrey, chief executive and co-founder of Sonder, said Ms Gavin is the perfect fit for the chief people officer as Sonder continues its growth aspirations.

“I am excited to work with Raechel. She brings a perfect blend of experience and passion with pragmatism as well as a real focus on driving intentional culture at scale – both at Sonder and for our customers,” Mr Cowdrey said.

“We support over 600,000 people from students, government workers, people in corporate offices, frontline and retail workers at places like Woolworths and McDonalds. Our digital product and technology-enabled service provides proactive, 24/7 support from a team of safety, medical, and mental health professionals – plus immediate onsite help for time-sensitive scenarios. With such a complex and sophisticated offering being provided at scale across the world – and continuing to grow quickly – Raechel will bring the required variety of expertise needed for the role of Sonder chief people officer.”

Commenting on her new role, Ms Gavin said: “I’m excited and honoured to be joining Sonder, a company that shares my passion for creating the right conditions for people to do their best work and thrive. Sonder’s vision is to have global support through the right care at the right time, [which] is what got me excited about the role and the strategy we will deliver to achieve the vision.”

August saw another chief people officer hired – this time at an Aussie law firm.

Olivia Holmes was elevated to the executive leadership position of chief people officer at BigLaw firm Macpherson Kelley.

Ms Holmes has been with the firm since 2014, starting as an HR business partner for Victoria, then moving into the Victorian HR manager and national HR manager role.

She has, the firm said in a statement, been “instrumental” in implementing progressive changes to the firm’s policy and priorities, including driving the expansion of Macpherson Kelley’s parental leave policy in 2022 and launching the firm’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) working groups.