When Athalie Williams transitioned from a 14-year consulting career at Accenture into senior HR roles in global corporations, she encountered an unexpected identity shift.
“It took me about six or seven years before I felt comfortable saying I was in HR,” she reflects. “I used to say, ‘I’m not really an HR executive.’ It wasn’t about rejecting HR; it was about how I understood the work and its potential.”
That discomfort wasn’t a dismissal of HR’s value. It signalled something deeper: a belief that HR’s future lies not in functional boundaries, but in transformation thinking. Williams has built her career as a transformation executive with deep HR expertise, and she believes the next generation of HR leaders must do the same.
From People Strategy to Enterprise Impact
Traditionally, HR has focused on people-first solutions: talent strategies, culture programs, engagement initiatives. Williams argues that tomorrow’s HR leaders must expand this lens, anchoring their work in enterprise-wide outcomes.
“I’ve led transformation across industries, geographies, and business models,” she explains. “While my grounding is in HR, change always starts with a broader question: What are the business outcomes we’re trying to achieve?”
This mindset shaped her leadership at BHP and BT Group, where she served as Chief People Officer and Chief HR Officer respectively. In both roles, she positioned herself as a business executive first, using HR as a strategic lever to drive transformation.
Integration Over Isolation
Williams is clear: transformation doesn’t happen in silos. Future-ready HR leaders must embed people strategy into the heart of business transformation, not treat it as a parallel track.
This principle was tested during her time at BHP, when she was part of the executive team responding to the 2015 Samarco tailings dam disaster in Brazil. With lives lost and communities devastated, the crisis demanded clarity, speed, and integration at a scale few organisations face.
“I don’t wish a crisis of that magnitude on any organisation,” she says. “But when you’re managing something so complex, you realise quickly that clarity, integration, and putting people at the centre aren’t optional, they’re essential.”
That experience deepened her understanding of how clarity and integration shape effective transformation, not just in crisis, but in any complex change. HR leaders have an opportunity to bring coherence to transformation, integrating people, process, and purpose into a single, aligned agenda.
The Consulting Foundation
Williams’ transformation mindset was forged in management consulting, where she worked across financial services, telecommunications, health, and resources.
“That gave me a systematic approach to understanding complex business problems across different contexts,” she explains. “It taught me to diagnose transformation challenges in diverse environments, and to spot patterns that might elude functionally focused leaders.”
This cross-sector fluency, she believes, will be essential for HR leaders navigating increasingly dynamic and disrupted landscapes.
Redefining HR’s Purpose
Williams offers a crisp view of HR’s role:
“At its core, HR has two critical roles: ensuring compliance and enabling outstanding business performance.”
Far from diminishing HR’s importance, this clarity elevates its strategic relevance. It ensures that people initiatives are tightly connected to business success, not operating in isolation.
“Many senior leaders find that approaching HR through a business-first lens unlocks greater strategic impact. It’s a mindset I’m seeing more and more HR leaders begin to adopt, one that connects people strategy directly to enterprise outcomes.”
Speed, Courage, and Accountability
Williams also challenges conventional approaches to change.
“Many organisations try to drip-feed transformation over years,” she notes. “But real change benefits from urgency.”
She emphasises the courage required to lean into discomfort, a lesson reinforced during Samarco.
“Not wanting to run away, but to lean into the issue,” she says. “That principle applies whether you’re managing a crisis or leading planned transformation.”
Confronting difficult realities, dismantling legacy structures, and making tough decisions, these are hallmarks of transformation leadership. And they require both urgency and accountability.
The AI Capability Imperative
As AI reshapes the nature of work, Williams believes HR must evolve its skillset and mindset.
“AI represents more than a technology shift; it’s a transformation in capability, mindset, and leadership,” she says. “HR leaders need to understand how AI changes the operating model, the design of work, the talent mix, and the leadership requirements.”
She argues that transformation-minded HR leaders will play a critical role in helping organisations build AI fluency, from workforce planning and skills development to ethical governance and change enablement.
“HR can be the bridge between human capability and technological possibility,” she notes. “But only if we step into that role with confidence and enterprise-wide perspective.”
The Future Imperative
In a world of rapid disruption, Williams believes HR must embrace a new identity: transformation executives who bring human insight, business acumen, and digital fluency to the table.
“When you think about the pace of change; economic, technological, geopolitical, we’re asking leaders to manage extraordinary complexity,” she says.
For Williams, this isn’t about sidelining HR. It’s about amplifying its impact.
“HR is one of the levers, but its greatest value lies in how it’s integrated. When embedded within a bold, coherent transformation agenda, HR becomes a catalyst for enterprise-wide impact.”
As the boundaries between business, technology, and people continue to blur, HR leaders have a unique opportunity: to shape transformation not just within their function, but across the enterprise. The future will belong to those who lead with clarity, courage, and a mindset built for change.
