Director of People Operations

Allocate is an intelligent infrastructure platform for private market investing, equipping wealth advisory firms and fund managers to seamlessly source, build, and manage high-quality private portfolios. The platform leverages AI-driven investment management, comprehensive administration, and personalized access to opportunities at reduced minimums, making private market investing more efficient, transparent, and responsible.

We operate at the intersection of private markets and wealth, partnering with sophisticated investors and fund managers. With the opening of our new Palo Alto Headquarters, we are investing deeply in building a best-in-class internal and external client experience—supported by a culture defined by extreme client service, relentless problem-solving, humility, and a bias toward action. Success in this role will come from knowing where to focus, bringing practical structure to a fast-moving environment, strengthening leadership decision making, and putting in place the HR practices that allow the company to grow and operate more effectively.

Allocate is excited to hire a Director of People Operations & Talent to build and lead the next chapter of our people strategy. This role is ideal for a proactive, resourceful, and high performance people leader who can operate independently, anticipate needs, and design a scalable HR foundation for a fast-growing, high-performance organization.

As Allocate’s Director of People Operations, you will be the architect and operator behind our full employee experience—from talent acquisition and onboarding to performance, development, and engagement. You’ll partner closely with our executive team and fractional people operations partners to build the systems, programs, and cultural infrastructure that enable every employee to thrive. This is a hands-on, high-impact leadership role where you will balance strategic thinking with operational excellence to shape how we work and grow together.

Building and leading our People function:
Own daily HR operations, establish foundational systems, and partner with leadership to operationalize our people strategy.

Tactical Execution and Strategic Thinker:
As the only in-house HR person, you must be able to balance time between tactical execution of day to day HR Operations and also be a strategic thinker and implement overarching Company HR strategy.

Partnering with leaders:
Help shape organizational design, anticipate hiring needs, and support managers in building healthy, high-performing teams.

Designing the full employee experience:
Create onboarding programs, define clear expectations, and build programs that support employees from pre-hire to offboarding.

Performance management & engagement:
Oversee and manage, talent reviews (including 9-box), feedback processes, and engagement programs informed by employee insights.

Compensation, leveling & benefits:
Review titles and pay practices, build a leveling framework, and lead compensation/equity benchmarking. Manage benefits, vendors, and evaluate HRIS/PEO solutions (including a potential transition from TriNet).

HR compliance, policies & employee relations:
Own handbook updates, manager guidelines, investigations, multi-state compliance, and sensitive employee relations issues.

Standing up scalable systems & analytics:
Implement HR tools, documentation, dashboards, and reporting (headcount, attrition, recruiting metrics, compensation, etc.). Implement new HRIS to move off current system. Stand up and implement PEO for international hires.

Driving hiring, recruiting operations, and workforce planning:
Partner with external resources to build structured hiring processes, job templates, compensation benchmarks, and a consistent candidate experience. Support managers through each step of the hiring lifecycle.

Required:

• 7+ years of People/HR experience in high-growth tech, finance, or fintech environments

• Experience building or scaling a People function from early to growth stage

• Expertise across core HR areas: talent, performance, compensation, benefits, compliance, and employee relations

• Strong command of HRIS, ATS, and people analytics tools with specific experience owning PEO transitions (Rippling, Justworks, etc.)

• Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills

• A people-first, high-judgment approach to decision-making

• A builder’s mindset—you enjoy creating clarity, structure, and systems in fast-moving environments

Nice to Have:

• SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, or SPHR certifications

• High impact from day one — You’ll build the infrastructure that powers Allocate’s next stage of growth.

• Trusted leadership team — You’ll work closely with leaders who value clarity, transparency, and operational excellence.

• Strong product-market fit — Allocate is scaling quickly with strong demand across private wealth.

• Team camaraderie — We operate with humility, extreme client service, and a bias toward stepping in to help one another.

• A beautiful new HQ — Our Palo Alto office is designed for collaboration, focus, and a warm, high-performance culture.

• Location: Palo Alto, CA. Must be able to work in the office 4 days a week. We believe in the power of in-person collaboration, fast problem-solving, and a culture rooted in partnership, trust, and delivering exceptional service to our clients. We welcome applicants already in—or willing to relocate to—the Bay Area. (no company relocation allowance).

• Employment: Full-time.

• Salary Range: $175,000 - $215,000 base salary, plus performance-based bonus, stock options, and comprehensive benefits.

  • Actual salary will be determined based on the candidate’s experience, location, skills, training, certifications and education, other relevant qualifications specific to the role, and internal equity and market data. Total compensation may include equity and discretionary performance-based bonuses based on individual, team, and company performance factors.

• Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, responsible time off (RTO), 401k.

• In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility