Filling an advisory firm's pay-transparency roundtable with the right CHROs
CHROs with European workforces want to know if their pay data will stand up to transparency reporting. A curated room built on that question gives partners new senior relationships.
- Challenge
A roundtable plan on pay-transparency readiness, but no curated list of senior HR guests.
- Approach
Guest curation, partner invitations and a discussion on reporting readiness, backed by the firm's research.
- Result
CHROs comparing their readiness, and partners in new senior relationships at target employers.
The situation
The EU Pay Transparency Directive puts pay-range disclosure to candidates on every EU employer's agenda and pay-gap reporting on larger employers', and many CHROs doubt their pay data will hold up. Advisory firms often answer with a roundtable built from partners' existing contacts, so the room fills with current clients. CHROs decline anything that looks like a sales event, and when acceptances run short, invitations slide to HR managers. The employers facing the question most urgently never join the conversation.
The question that mattered
Which CHROs face pay-transparency reporting soonest, and how do we get them into a room to compare readiness?
What we did
- 1
Set the audience and business question
Target CHROs and reward heads at employers with large EU workforces, around their own question: will our pay data and job architecture stand up to reporting? The commercial objective is new senior relationships.
- 2
Curate the guest list
Build a long list from account and prospect intelligence, checking each person's role and remit. Balance the room by sector and readiness so early movers and late starters learn from each other.
- 3
Invite and confirm personally
Send invitations from the lead partner, framed around the reporting question rather than the research, with personal follow-up and a waitlist of equally senior alternatives.
- 4
Design the room and the follow-up
Open on guests' own readiness, bringing in the firm's findings on pay-data gaps as evidence. Run it under the Chatham House Rule, and give each partner a follow-up plan for their guests.
What we delivered
The evidence and working documents the team kept.
- Audience definition and target employer list
- Curated CHRO guest list with fit notes and waitlist
- Partner-signed invitation and confirmation sequence
- Discussion guide on reporting readiness, with research exhibits on pay-data gaps
- Partner follow-up plan by guest
The outcome
Guest list
built from target employers, not partners' address books
CHROs
comparing their pay-data readiness against the research
Partners
hosting senior guests they had not met before
Follow-up meetings
proposed on each guest's own reporting gaps
Hosting partners leave with new CHRO relationships at target employers, each tied to a guest's reporting plan and an agreed next step.
What changed in the GTM motion
Roundtables now start from a question CHROs are already asking, with the firm's research cast as evidence. Guest lists are built from target employers before the date is set, and each hosting partner owns a written follow-up plan.
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