Associate Principal – Work & Career Architecture

Design careers that work. Build skills for the future. Shape reward that’s fair, transparent and scalable.

If you’re a Work & Career Architecture specialist ready to step into a senior consulting role with real influence, this is an opportunity to do your best work — with clients, colleagues and solutions that genuinely matter.

At Korn Ferry, we help organisations align strategy and talent to drive performance. From job architecture and career pathways to skills and reward, we design integrated people frameworks that stand up to complexity and deliver real impact.

Why Korn Ferry?

We’re a global organisational consulting firm with 11,000 colleagues across 50+ countries, partnering with 99% of Fortune’s Most Admired Companies. Our clients consistently outperform their peers — and our people are central to that success.

We’re driven by a clear purpose:

to enable people and organisations to exceed their potential.

And we live our values every day:

• Inclusion – different perspectives, one team
• Honesty – integrity in how we work and lead
• Knowledge – relentless curiosity and learning
• Performance – always raising the bar

The opportunity

As Associate Principal – Work & Career Architecture, you’ll play a senior role in shaping, leading and delivering integrated work and career engagements. This is a genuine step‑up from Senior Consultant, with increased accountability for client leadership, solution design, quality and team development.

Your work will be primarily private‑sector focused, helping organisations build coherent, scalable frameworks that underpin fair reward, transparent careers and effective talent and skills development.

What you’ll be known for

Leading integrated solutions

• Leading complex Work & Career Architecture workstreams end‑to‑end
• Shaping integrated approaches across job architecture, job evaluation, careers, skills and talent development
• Designing job architectures that form a robust foundation for benchmarking and reward
• Translating business strategy into practical, scalable people frameworks

Advising senior clients

• Building trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders
• Leading high‑impact workshops, design sessions and decision forums
• Advising on trade‑offs around work design, career pathways and progression
• Supporting Principals and Senior Principals on overall client leadership

Owning quality and delivery

• Taking accountability for the quality, coherence and consistency of W&C Architecture deliverables
• Coaching and guiding consultants across delivery teams
• Applying Korn Ferry methodologies with rigour and sound judgement
• Proactively managing risks, dependencies and delivery challenges

Developing people and capability

• Coaching and developing Senior Consultants and Consultants
• Building an inclusive, collaborative and high‑performance team culture
• Contributing to the evolution of W&C Architecture tools, IP and ways of working
• Sharing best practice across the Consulting community

What you bring

• Deep experience in Work & Career Architecture, with a particular focus on career pathways, skills and talent development
• A proven track record of leading workstreams within complex consulting engagements
• Confidence and credibility advising senior client stakeholders
• Strong systems thinking — able to connect work, careers, reward and organisational context
• A structured, pragmatic approach to complex design challenges
• An inclusive leadership style that builds trust and accountability
• Comfort operating in ambiguity and change
• Strong technology literacy, including Microsoft tools and AI‑enabled platforms (e.g. Copilot, ChatGPT)

Background

• Experience in career architecture consulting or a senior in‑house people role
• A bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience

What you’ll get

• A competitive total rewards package, including performance‑related bonus
• Access to world‑class learning and IP through the Korn Ferry Institute
• A values‑led, flexible and genuinely collaborative culture
• The opportunity to deliver meaningful work with high‑profile clients — and see the impact

We’re committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive. We welcome flexible and agile working arrangements, and candidates returning after career breaks.

Isn’t it time you joined us?