Lucy Adams
Most HR functions were designed for a workforce that no longer exists. Annual appraisals, competency frameworks and compliance-led processes keep running while engagement falls and the best people leave. The tension is that leaders know the operating model is outdated, but the cost and risk of redesigning it from inside the function is precisely what stalls the work.
Lucy Adams is the former HR Director of the BBC and CEO of Disruptive HR, helping leaders and people functions replace inherited HR practice with something built for how organisations actually work today.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Lucy Adams
- A people strategy argument built from running HR at the BBC through the Savile crisis, executive pay-off scandals and the move to Salford, not from a consultancy slide deck.
- A clear, named thesis from HR Disrupted: treat employees as adults, as consumers and as humans, and rebuild HR practice around those principles rather than legacy process.
- Practical credibility with HR audiences: Disruptive HR runs ongoing training programmes, a membership community and toolkits, so the keynote is connected to a method leaders can adopt afterwards.
- A track record of reducing management layers and cost at scale, useful for organisations rethinking structure as well as culture.
- Direct experience of leading the people function through repeated public crisis, relevant to boards considering reputational and workforce risk together.
Biography highlights
- CEO and founder of Disruptive HR, established 2014.
- Former Director of HR and executive board member at the BBC.
- Previously Group HR Director at Serco plc and at law firm Eversheds.
- Author of HR Disrupted: It’s Time for Something Different (Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2nd edition 2021) and The HR Change Toolkit.
- Co-host of the Disruptive HR podcast.
- Led HR through the BBC’s move to MediaCityUK in Salford and the opening of the multi-media newsroom in Broadcasting House.
Biography
Conventional HR was built for stable organisations, predictable careers and a workforce that did what it was told. That world has gone, but most of the apparatus, the annual appraisal cycle, the nine-box grid, the competency framework, the compliance-led policy stack, is still in place. Adams’ work starts from that mismatch and argues the function has to be rebuilt around how people actually work, not how organisations would like them to.
The credibility behind the argument is operational. Adams was Director of HR at the BBC from 2009, sitting on the executive board through a period that included the move to Salford, the opening of the multi-media newsroom in Broadcasting House, executive pay-off scandals and the Savile crisis. She reduced the corporation’s management layer by more than 30%. Before the BBC she was Group HR Director at Serco plc and at the law firm Eversheds.
In 2014 she founded Disruptive HR, an agency that now runs training, keynotes and a membership community for HR leaders and senior executives. The method is set out in HR Disrupted: It’s Time for Something Different, published by Practical Inspiration and now in its second edition, with a follow-up volume, The HR Change Toolkit, focused on implementation. The thesis: treat employees as adults, as consumers and as humans, and design people practice accordingly.
What separates the work from most “future of work” commentary is that it speaks to the people who own the operating model. The audience is HR directors, COOs and CEOs deciding what to keep, what to discard and what to rebuild in the function that ultimately decides whether strategy gets delivered through people or in spite of them.
Key speaking topics
- Modern HR and people strategy
- Leading change in complex organisations
- Employee engagement and the new social contract
- Leadership through crisis and public scrutiny
- Culture and organisational reinvention
- Future of work and workforce design
Ideal for
- CHROs and senior HR leaders rebuilding the people function
- CEOs and COOs reviewing how the operating model is delivered through people
- Boards and executive teams navigating reputational or workforce crisis
- Leadership conferences focused on culture, engagement and change
Audience outcomes
- A clear view of which inherited HR practices are creating drag and which are worth keeping.
- A named framework for redesigning people practice around adults, consumers and humans rather than legacy process.
- Practical reference points from running HR through sustained organisational crisis at a public institution.
- A sharper line between people strategy and the broader business strategy it is meant to deliver.
Talks
A keynote on why conventional HR and leadership practice no longer fits the organisations they were designed for, and what to replace them with.
Key takeaways:
- Why annual appraisals, competency frameworks and engagement surveys are losing their grip.
- The adult, consumer and human principles as a basis for redesigning people practice.
- Where to start inside an organisation that cannot pause to reinvent itself.
A talk on what it takes to move a large, scrutinised institution from one operating model to another without losing the workforce in the process.
Key takeaways:
- How to sequence structural and cultural change so they reinforce rather than cancel each other.
- The role of HR and senior leadership when change fatigue sets in.
- Lessons from leading through repeated public crisis at the BBC.
A keynote on how senior leaders and HR functions hold an organisation together when the external story is running ahead of them.
Key takeaways:
- What composure under sustained scrutiny actually looks like at executive level.
- How to keep the workforce engaged when leadership itself is under attack.
- Practical habits drawn from the BBC, Serco and Eversheds.
A more personal talk on professional recovery after public or career setback.
Key takeaways:
- How to separate identity from role when both are publicly contested.
- The difference between defending the past and building the next chapter.
- Where peer networks and structured reflection earn their keep.