Nicholas Portales
@nicholasportales
People Partner with 8+ years leading HR transformation, ER and reward globally.
United KingdomWhat I'm looking for
I’m a People Partner with 8+ years in HR across financial services, sports betting and technology, operating at Senior People Partner level. I partner ExCo and senior leadership on large-scale organisational design, workforce restructures, executive hiring and reward redesign—typically across multiple countries.
At Entain (FTSE 100), I lead the People remit for c.1,800 Product & Technology colleagues across nine countries, owning end-to-end organisational design, ER, reward, talent and L&D. I’ve delivered a four-week workforce reduction removing c.400 roles and delivering c.£12m in annual people-cost savings, improved CTO engagement (69% to 82%), built job architecture to align job families and bands, and implemented progression with 148 colleagues moving to more senior roles—alongside reward benchmarking to defend and improve total compensation.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
People Partner (Product & Technology)
Entain plc
Jan 2024 - Present (2 years 6 months)
Strategic People Partner for the Sports & CTO function (~1,800 headcount across nine countries), owning end-to-end people remit including organisational design, ER and reward. Delivered workforce reductions, legacy business wind-down integration, job architecture and progression processes, and improved CTO engagement from 69% to 82% across annual cycles.
Dual remit alongside the Group People Director for Business & Commercial Banking and Corporate & Institutional Banking, combining executive Chief of Staff responsibilities with a People Partnering portfolio. Led onboarding of a new People Director, executive recruitment, organisational change, and centralised HR activity to improve consistency of advice.
Senior HR Business Partner across Product, Relationship Management, Operations, Risk and Responsible Business within the Commercial Bank, supporting populations of ~600–1,500 during major Group transformation. Delivered large-scale organisational change, representation goals, reward re-engineering, a learning strategy reaching 500,000+ learning hours, and multi-country employee relations including
Managed transformation people-related activity, including building the Lloyds Bank Academy structure and curriculum ahead of launch and delivering a local digital skills programme reaching 8,000+ individuals. Designed and recruited an internal degree apprenticeship in software engineering and managed relationships with key government stakeholders including the Greater Manchester Combined Authority
Co-led day-to-day operations of the Emerging Talent team, planning and managing graduate and internship programmes. Redesigned the Graduate programme offering aligned to Group strategic priorities and owned the Emerging Talent EVP and recruitment campaign strategy.
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
Mercer
AI Essentials for HR, Artificial Intelligence (HR)
2025 - 2025
Completed the AI Essentials for HR training in February 2025.
Multiverse
Level 3 Data Technician Apprenticeship, Data Technology
2024 - 2025
Grade: Distinction
Level 3 Data Technician Apprenticeship (Distinction) from September 2024 to November 2025.
Korn Ferry
Certified Practitioner, Korn Ferry 360
2024 - 2024
Achieved the Korn Ferry 360 Certified Practitioner qualification in November 2024.
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
CIPD Level 5 (Associate Diploma in People Management), People Management
2017 - 2019
CIPD Level 5 (Associate Diploma in People Management) completed from 2017 to 2019.
University of St Andrews
Master of Arts (Honours), International Relations
2013 - 2017
MA (Hons) in International Relations at the University of St Andrews, completed from 2013 to 2017.
Availability
Location
United KingdomAuthorized to work in
Job categories
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