Chief Talent Officer
The Chief Talent Officer steps in and steps up the sourcing-to-screening layer of your business: a role spec written tight enough to filter the inbox, applications screened down to the four or five worth your partner cluster's time, interviews scheduled, reference calls run, and rejection notes that do not damage your firm's name in the small South African professional community where everyone eventually meets again. Today the role is delivered by a senior South African operator from the WeOwnLeads team, with the productised AI agent in research and preorder pricing locked at R5,000 a month. POPIA handling, candidate data subject requests, and the final hire decision sit with your judgement; compensation strategy and performance management are out of scope.
The honest comparison.
The closest hiring alternative is a senior recruiter or HR officer at R45,000 to R65,000 a month, plus 12 to 18 percent placement fees on every external hire and the monthly ATS subscription that comes with the role.
Sign off the number in discovery, or we work for free until we hit it.
Discovery quantifies a single specific outcome for the Chief Talent Officer engagement. The number gets locked in writing in the one-page brief you sign at the end of week one of onboarding, and the 60-day outcome window opens on the first day of live operation. If the engagement has not hit the agreed outcome by day 60, we keep working at no further cost until it does.
We can promise this because we cap C-Suite AI onboarding intake to the engagements we can actually deliver against in any given quarter. The cap is what makes the 60-day promise something you can read as a real commitment instead of a marketing claim.
What partners ask before they sign.
Is it POPIA-compliant?
Yes, by design. Candidate data subject requests are handled automatically, retention windows are set per role, and the audit log is exportable on demand. The DPA we run with you covers candidate data the same way it covers client data.
Does it replace our hiring judgement?
No. The role sources, screens, schedules, and runs reference checks. The hire decision is yours and stays yours. The role removes the load-bearing-but-not-judgement-heavy work that currently eats partner hours.
Can it source for niche South African professional services roles?
Yes, SAICA clerks, paralegals, junior associates, audit seniors, and HR officers are within scope. We brief the senior operator (and, once shipped, the productised agent) on the specifics of South African professional certification routes during onboarding so the screen actually catches the right candidates rather than generic CV-keyword matches.
Two roles most partners stack with the Chief Talent Officer.
Tell us how a chief talent officer would fit your business.
Fifteen minutes on Google Meet that ends with a one-page brief, the outcome we would write into the contract addendum, regardless of whether you sign.