Home 5 Who we are 5 Our people 5 Emma Leonis-Hughes

Emma Leonis-Hughes, Client Executive Director

Emma specialises in global, large-scale and complex end-to-end HR change programmes. She spent over 10 years at Deloitte before joining LACE Partners in early 2018 as Client Executive Director. Emma works with Chief People Officers and their leadership teams to develop their people strategies and help them drive business value – be that designing the HR operating model around the employee experience, optimising HR service delivery through improved use of digital tools or through building HR’s capability.

She is passionate about HR and challenging, inspiring and motivating HR leaders to achieve more. As part of this, Emma leads LACE’s thought leadership into the future of HR service delivery and operating models. For example, LACE’s bi-annual HR Shared Services trends reports which began in 2020, the ‘HR on the Offensive’ whitepaper and currently LACE’s ‘Demystifying the HR operating model’ campaign.

Skills

  • HR operating model assessment and design
  • HR operating model implementation
  • HR transformation
  • Business case development
  • Shared services
  • Solution design
  • Employee experience
  • Organisation design
  • Change management

Reach out to us to see what opportunities we have available

Insights. Our latest thought leadership, including blogs, webinars, podcasts and videos.
Podcast
How to modernise your workforce strategy to tackle skills gaps
How to modernise your workforce strategy to tackle skills gaps

The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report for 2025 highlights a massive transformation in the global job market and workforce strategy. An estimated 170 million new jobs will be emerging in the next decade, alongside the displacement of around 92 million roles....

Blog
How do skills approaches fit into the employee lifecycle?
How do skills approaches fit into the employee lifecycle?

Creating a skills-based organisation isn’t just an initiative for L&D or top-talent programmes. It’s about integrating skills into every part of your people strategy, embedding them across the employee journey so they deliver lasting value.  Some experience areas...

Podcast
How can HR strategically address the impact of rising NICs?
How can HR strategically address the impact of rising NICs?

What do you do when your business is hit with rising costs, regulatory changes, and mounting pressure to deliver more with less? In this episode of HR on the Offensive, Chris is joined by Simon Fowler, CEO at Empowering People Group, to discuss how HR leaders can...