ABOUT BALLAST

Built Around a Pattern Seen Repeatedly Inside Organisations

WHY BALLAST EXISTS

Created to Close the Gap Between Strategy and Execution

Most businesses navigating growth, transformation or change face the same problem. The strategic direction is clear. What isn't in place is the leadership and execution capability to deliver it, at the pace and level the commercial agenda demands.

The conventional answer is to recruit. But a permanent senior hire takes months, costs more than it appears on paper, and arrives without the capability to execute the agenda behind them. Fractional leadership alone closes part of the gap, but without resource to execute, even the best thinking stalls.

Ballast came out of founder Nicola's direct experience of this problem. Embedded inside a growing business as a fractional executive, she could see exactly what was missing. Not just direction, but the people and organisational capability to deliver against it.

Like ballast in a ship, the role is to create the balance, steadiness and alignment that help organisations move forward with greater clarity, stability and momentum.

The model she built is the answer she couldn't find elsewhere: senior CPO leadership with specialist execution capability behind it, operating as one integrated function, scoped to what the business actually needs.

THE PROMISE

Ballast helps organisations access the right capability at the right level, combining leadership, organisational and specialist expertise through embedded support that is practical, commercially grounded and sized to organisational need.

Sometimes that means standalone fractional leadership. Sometimes broader embedded capability. Always support that moves at the pace of the business.

WHY FRACTIONAL

Why Do Organisations Choose Fractional Over Permanent Hire?

The size isn't there yet

Not every business needs a full-time senior people leader, at certain stages of growth, it would be the wrong investment. But that doesn't mean the capability isn't needed. Many growing businesses find themselves where the people challenges are complex, but the organisation isn't large enough to justify a full-time senior hire. Fractional support provides that expertise at the right scale, without the overhead of a role the business isn't ready to sustain.

The budget doesn't stretch that far

A senior people leader with the experience to operate at leadership team level commands a significant salary. For many smaller businesses, that spend on a single hire isn't viable, even when the capability is clearly needed. Fractional support closes that gap: the same seniority and quality of thinking, at a cost that makes commercial sense.

The timing isn't right for a permanent hire

Some businesses know a full-time people leader is the right answer eventually, but that moment hasn't arrived yet. Committing to a permanent role before the business is ready carries its own risks. Fractional support provides the senior leadership needed now without locking anything in before the time is right.

There isn't time to hire

Hiring a senior person typically takes six to nine months. When a leadership gap opens or significant change is already underway, that timeline isn't available. Fractional support can be in place within days, no lengthy process, no gap in the interim, no delay when the situation can't afford one.

FOUNDER

Nicola Hale

Nicola brings over 20 years of senior people leadership experience, working across a wide range of organisations navigating growth, change and increasing complexity. Her corporate career includes senior roles as VP HR and Group People Director, giving her the breadth and commercial grounding to operate credibly at board and executive team level. A Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and qualified executive coach, she has led work spanning operating model redesign, post-merger integration, industrial relations, leadership development, and organisational transformation across both large corporates and growing businesses.

She founded Ballast because the market offered businesses a choice between strategic advice without execution, or execution without strategic direction. Her model brings both together. Senior people leadership at Chief People Officer level, with the specialist capability to deliver behind it.

Every Ballast engagement is led directly by Nicola. She sets direction, directs the team, and remains the single point of accountability throughout, from the first conversation to the clean exit.

20+ years senior HR & people leadership

Scale-up and transformation experience

Multi-sector capability

PE-backed and investor-led environments

Board and C-suite advisory

Reward, ER, OD specialism

THE TEAM

The People Behind Ballast

Every specialist who works with Ballast is selected for the same qualities: the right level of experience for the work, a commercial mindset, and the ability to embed quickly and deliver credibly without needing to be managed.

Nikki Townsend

HR BUSINESS LEAD

Amber Lammas

HR & DEVELOPMENT ADVISOR

Jo Wake

EXECUTIVE SEARCH & TALENT ACQUISITION

Extensive people experience across retail, professional services, housing, education and finance, in both large organisations and SMEs. Nikki leads on talent management, organisational development, employee relations and workforce planning, bringing the kind of cross-sector depth that allows Ballast to work credibly across a wide range of business contexts.

Amber brings focused experience supporting and advising managers on the full range of people matters. Practically minded and commercially aware, she works directly with the teams and managers Ballast supports, ensuring the work lands at the level where it makes the most difference.

A highly regarded executive search and in-house TA leader with a track record of connecting businesses with exceptional talent quickly. When the engagement requires the right permanent hire as part of the solution, Jo delivers it.

Anthea Marris

TALENT, L&D & EDI

Verity Cash

COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR

Sarah Richardson-Kean