Lead People Partner, Commercial

Crux

4d • $175,000 - $200,000 • Remote

About The Position

The Role
Crux's commercial organization is growing rapidly and at an inflection point. In the past year, we've scaled from a small but mighty team to a multi-product commercial engine spanning Investments, Debt Capital Markets, Transferable Tax Credits, Investor Coverage, and Industry Coverage — and we're not done. As the org matures and takes on the complexity of a multi-product capital markets firm, we need a dedicated, experienced people partner who can operate at the intersection of strategic HR, talent management, compliance, and executive coaching.
This is a brand-new role, built specifically to serve the commercial org and its leaders. You will be an embedded strategic partner to our Chief Capital Officer, Co-Founders and Commercial management team,, translating business needs into people programs that develop, retain, and elevate our commercial talent. You'll bring the rigor of a financial services HR professional, the agility of someone who has operated in a high-growth tech environment, and the empathy of a trusted advisor.

Requirements

• Background in financial services HR, ideally including banking or capital markets. You understand what it means to support professionals in high-stakes, transaction-intensive environments — the culture, the pace, the sensitivity around comp and titles, and the compliance landscape. Experience at a bank, investment manager, or similar institution is strongly preferred.
• Experience in a high-growth or dynamic/changing work environment. You've also operated in a scrappier, faster environment where the rules are still being written. You're comfortable building things from scratch, iterating quickly, and operating without a large HR team around you.
• Strong HR generalist chops with a strategic lens. You bring experience across the full people lifecycle:, onboarding, performance management, comp benchmarking, employee relations, and offboarding. You can handle the operational and the strategic in the same week.
• Compliance fluency. You have working knowledge of employment law, and you understand the regulatory environment in financial services well enough to flag issues early and escalate appropriately. Experience with FINRA, broker-dealer environments, or securities regulatory frameworks is a plus but not required.
• Experience coaching managers and leaders. Whether trained in a specific coaching methodology, or experienced in leadership and executive coaching, you know how to hold a coaching conversation and help people grow — not just manage them.
• Excellent judgment and emotional intelligence. The commercial team is full of high performers who care deeply about what they do. You know how to build trust, manage up and sideways, and give honest feedback with kindness.
• Comfort with ambiguity and a startup pace. Crux is growing and evolving quickly — org changes, new products, new hires, and new challenges are the norm. You thrive when things are moving fast and you're building the plane while flying it.

Responsibilities

• Be a true strategic talent partner to commercial leadership. Work closely with commercial team managers to understand business goals, team dynamics, and organizational gaps — and translate those insights into proactive HR strategy.
• Drive performance management with sophistication. Lead the design and delivery of performance reviews, calibration, leveling, and feedback frameworks for the commercial org. Help managers have the right conversations at the right time — not just during review cycles. Champion a culture where continuous feedback and high standards are the norm.
• Navigate complex topics with good judgment. Handle sensitive situations — with discretion, fairness, and a clear understanding of legal and regulatory obligations.
• Build and maintain HR policies and programs with compliance in mind. Crux operates as a capital markets and advisory firm with growing regulatory complexity. You'll be attentive to employment law, broker-dealer compliance considerations, and the intersection of HR and finance regulatory requirements. You won't need to be a compliance officer, but you’ll partner with our legal and compliance team to ensure our people's practices are appropriate.
• Support manager development and team health. As the commercial team adds layers of management, help develop the management muscle across the org. Run enablement sessions that can also be leveraged across functions/teams, provide coaching to people managers, and serve as a sounding board for team leads working through people challenges.
• Bring a coaching mindset to everything you do. You'll work with high-performing and talented experts who respond to direct, insightful guidance. Whether you hold a formal coaching certification, or have substantial experience in executive or leadership coaching, you bring the frameworks to help people unlock their best work.

Benefits

• Healthcare: We cover 100% of premiums for employees with a variety of plans on Aetna (nationwide) and Kaiser (WA and California) and subsidize 70% for dependents (total as a group), if relevant.
• Dental & vision: We cover 100% of premiums for employees and 50% for dependents (each), if relevant.
• Holidays: 10 company holidays per year.
• Paid time off: 20 days per year.
• 401k: We support a 401k account but don't have a matching program set up at this time (typical for an early-stage startup).
• Parental leave: 16 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents.
• AI Learning Stipend: Up to $5,000 to learn and build AI skills to help you be effective in your role.
• Work from home allowance: $400 stipend for your home office setup.
• Stock options in a rapidly growing company.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed