Riaan Carolissen

Designed and implemented end-to-end people operations, including talent acquisition frameworks, AI-automated candidate screening, and onboarding systems—cut onboarding time and improved staff engagement from 25% to 90%. Led organizational change and built real-time KPI/OKR dashboards, eliminating 60%+ of manual processes and recovering EUR 96K annually.

Designed and delivered leadership programs for international operations and built learning journeys using Agile Instructional Design to drive behavior change tied to operational outcomes. Implemented change adoption and performance-tracking frameworks, reducing onboarding time 40%, cross-functional misalignment 25%, and enabling 30% faster execution.

Built and managed distributed cluster operations across 6 locations by designing communication infrastructure, accountability frameworks, and performance rhythms—improving frontline engagement from 27% to 90%. Developed brand-aligned SOPs and service standards with audit and corrective action protocols, and maintained budget accountability while coordinating multi-country lounge builds.

Designed end-to-end people operations, including workforce planning, talent acquisition frameworks, onboarding systems, role clarity documents, and performance management infrastructure to scale without adding headcount. Led organizational transformation across pre-opening and scaling phases and built a high-performance culture with coaching systems and standardized performance delivery across a m

Certificate in Change Management at the University of Cape Town, 2019–2020.

Bachelor Degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of South Africa, 2010–2015.

Graduate Degree in Hospitality Business and Management at the Institute for Hospitality Training, 2003–2006.