Sydney Henriques-Payne

Provide executive coaching, fractional senior leadership (e.g., Chief of Staff and VP, People & Culture), and strategy consulting to clients across communications, HR, and operations.

Designed and delivered a career readiness course and facilitated workshops and events for student cohorts, including ongoing 1:1 coaching and direct student support.

Partnered with senior leaders to lead project management and core strategic/operational planning for the organization’s 2025 FY priority, including cross-team systems building.

Led People and Culture for a $60M philanthropic organization transitioning from outsourced HR to a mostly remote model (~100 staff, 12+ fiscally sponsored projects).

Supported a rapidly scaling social enterprise on infrastructure building and systems development ahead of planned ~3x organizational growth ($20M/yr budget).

Partnered with executive leadership and the board to develop a corporate social responsibility arm, co-designing alignment and buy-in with internal and external stakeholders.

Served on the senior leadership team overseeing strategic planning, initiatives, and special projects in the executive office, including end-to-end people operations across teams based in 10 U.S. cities.

Collaboratively oversaw an executive portfolio of incubating organizations and projects with budgets ranging from $12.5M to $25M, supporting business development and product strategy.

Provided HR business partnering and executive coaching to support staffing model changes and management transitions across a multi-city portfolio (35+ people across 14 U.S. cities).

Advised and project-managed HR redesign initiatives for 600+ staff-member organizations within the NJDOE system, streamlining recruitment, selection, staffing, and budget/RIF processes.

Managed selection policy and candidate application hotlines handling 2k+ weekly exchanges, while screening ~3k+ applications per year and hosting 15+ recruitment events annually.

Created and hosted information sessions across national recruitment territories (55% travel in 10 states), growing the lead database by ~3k leads and building relationships with 59 partner LEAs and 250+ universities.

Project-managed student recruitment for a bilingual public charter school (~100 students), hiring and managing a 14-person team and overseeing translation + enrollment support with a $26,000 budget.

Grade: 4.0 GPA (with distinction)

Master of Science program completed with distinction, graduating with a 4.0 GPA.

Grade: Magna Cum Laude

Bachelor of Arts (Magna Cum Laude) with dual majors in English Writing and Communications: Rhetoric.

Postgraduate certificate focused on community and corporate relations.

Certificate coursework in diversity and inclusion and human resources management.

Certificate covering ethics and human subject protection, with a design-thinking component.