Lead Consultant, Talent Strategy & Operations

The Opportunity Awayday is a private-equity-backed, multi-brand operating platform in the vacation rental and hospitality services space. We partner with founder-led and operator-driven businesses across the U.S. to help them scale while preserving what makes them great locally. Today, Awayday operates across 13+ states, with 55+ brands, 1,700+ employees, and a rapidly expanding leadership footprint. Awayday is looking for a strategy and operations leader to solve one of the company's most important scaling challenges: building an enterprise Talent Acquisition capability from the ground up. This is not a traditional recruiting leadership role. We are seeking a structured problem solver and builder who can take an ambiguous business problem, break it into its fundamental components, challenge assumptions, design a scalable solution, and drive it through implementation. To attract the right candidate profile for this need, we've externally titled the role, "Lead Consultant, Talent Strategy & Operations". Internally, you will be the " Director of Talent Acquisition ". The initial mandate is Talent Acquisition, but the opportunity is intentionally broader: this role can become a platform for future leadership across Talent, HR, Strategic Initiatives, or other enterprise functions. You will step into an environment undergoing significant change. Recruiting is currently distributed across HR Business Partners with contractor support. Your job is to assess what exists, determine what should exist, and build the operating model, processes, technology, analytics, and team needed for the next stage of Awayday's growth. What You Will Own Diagnose and Architect Conduct a rigorous current-state assessment of Awayday's recruiting model, workflows, capabilities, technology, and talent needs. Break complex talent challenges into clear workstreams, identify root causes, challenge inherited assumptions, and establish priorities. Design the future-state Talent Acquisition operating model from first principles rather than simply importing an existing playbook. Evaluate whether current systems, including UKG Ready, are sufficient for the future state and develop recommendations for the appropriate recruiting technology stack. Build the Talent Acquisition Engine Create scalable recruiting processes, governance, service levels, intake and calibration practices, sourcing strategies, selection standards, and candidate experience expectations. Build a data-driven recruiting funnel with clear measures of pipeline health, conversion, speed, source effectiveness, quality, and business impact. Transition recruiting work from a distributed HRBP-led model into a dedicated Talent Acquisition capability. Build and lead the organization as it scales toward three regional recruiting leaders and approximately 6-10 recruiters. Solve Critical Talent Problems Initially focus on the leadership and operator pipeline, including Brand Presidents, Regional Vice Presidents, Owner Relations leaders, and other high-impact roles. Develop proactive talent pipelines rather than relying solely on requisition-by-requisition recruiting. Partner with business and HR leaders to improve role definition, candidate calibration, assessment, and selection quality. Support M&A and organic growth by identifying talent gaps and building repeatable solutions that can scale across a multi-brand platform. Advise and Influence Leadership Serve as a thought partner to the VP of Talent, CEO, HR leaders, and operating executives on talent strategy, organizational needs, market dynamics, and hiring decisions. Translate analysis into clear recommendations, decisions, and executable plans. Create reporting and operating rhythms that give leadership visibility into recruiting performance, constraints, risks, and opportunities. Balance speed and action with thoughtful judgment in a fast-moving, private-equity-backed environment. What We Are Looking For A high-caliber strategy, operations, transformation, or management consulting professional who wants to move from advising businesses to owning and building an enterprise capability. Demonstrated success solving ambiguous, cross-functional business problems using structured analysis and first-principles thinking. Experience designing operating models, processes, systems, funnels, or scalable business capabilities from the ground up. Strong analytical orientation and comfort using data to diagnose problems, prioritize work, measure outcomes, and influence decisions. Experience leading complex projects or engagements and driving work from problem definition through implementation. Executive presence and communication skills sufficient to work credibly with senior leaders while also operating tactically when needed. A builder and ownership mentality: energized by creating structure in a chaotic environment and personally driving outcomes. Ability to lead and develop teams as the function grows. Bachelor's degree. Relevant Backgrounds May Include Project Leader, Engagement Manager, Senior Manager, Principal, or comparable roles in management consulting; strategy and operations; sales strategy / sales operations; revenue operations; workforce or organizational transformation; PE portfolio operations / value creation; or internal strategy roles with a strong consulting foundation. What You Do Not Need You do not need to have spent your career in Talent Acquisition. Deep recruiting expertise is less important than demonstrated problem-solving horsepower, systems thinking, leadership potential, analytical rigor, and the ability to learn a new functional domain quickly. Experience with talent, people, recruiting, workforce, or organizational topics is helpful, but we are deliberately open to exceptional operators and consultants from adjacent disciplines. How Success Will Be Measured A clear, leadership-aligned future-state Talent Acquisition strategy and operating model. A disciplined recruiting funnel with measurable stages, accountability, and reliable reporting. Scalable processes and technology that reduce dependency on HRBPs for recruiting execution. Improved quality, speed, and predictability of leadership and critical-role hiring. A high-performing TA organization built to support Awayday's continued expansion. A leader who earns broader responsibility by repeatedly solving important enterprise talent and organizational problems. ....then lead it.