Description

Vice President of Human Resources

The Company
The Chimes Story
The story of Chimes began in 1947, when The Chimes School opened its doors with a small but devoted staff and a powerful force at its heart: the love of a mother for her child. Frances Bacon envisioned a place where children with developmental disabilities could experience more meaningful, enriching days.

That vision first came to life in the basement of a Baltimore church, where Chimes began as a special education day school serving just five students and their families. From those humble beginnings, Chimes has grown thoughtfully and purposefully to meet the changing needs of the people we support. Today, that legacy continues through The Chimes School, which remains a vital part of our mission...supporting, celebrating, and empowering students to reach their fullest potential.

What began as a single school has grown into a far-reaching network of services. Chimes now offers a full continuum of support that touches every stage of life, helping thousands of individuals with disabilities and mental and behavioral health needs thrive in their communities.

Now known as Chimes Family of Services, we provide a broad range of offerings, including community living, day habilitation, vocational training, employment services, and behavioral health care for more than 20,000 children, adolescents, and adults each year.

Through intentional, mission-driven growth, Chimes now operates in six U.S. states: Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina, as well as the District of Columbia and Israel.

With a history spanning more than 75 years, Chimes Family of Services is carried forward through three distinct business models or service components:

• Behavioral Health: We offer a comprehensive range of services and support for people with mental health, substance use, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and co-occurring disorders
• Employment Services: We are one of the nation’s largest employers of people with disabilities.
• Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) and Autism: Our network expands from toddler-to-senior services, with supports that are tailored to the unique abilities and needs of each person. All of our services are integrated within various communities to maximize opportunities and growth for our participants.

The Opportunity
Position: Vice President of Human Resources
Location: Baltimore, MD
Reporting Relationship: Chief Administrative Officer
Website: https://chimes.org/

Role and Purpose
The Vice President of Human Resources leads Chimes’ people strategy to ensure the organization attracts, develops, and retains a high-performing, mission-aligned workforce. The VP of HR builds systems, culture, and leadership practices that support operational excellence, compliance, and exceptional service delivery. This role serves as a strategic partner to executive leadership, aligning talent, performance, and organizational design with Chimes’ mission and long-term goals.

In this capacity, the VP of HR will play a critical role in stabilizing and modernizing the HR function within a complex, multi-line organization operating at the intersection of nonprofit services and federal contracting. This role requires strengthening core HR infrastructure, standardizing processes, and ensuring alignment with highly regulated workforce requirements. A key priority will be rebuilding trust and credibility in the function while establishing HR as a proactive, solutions-oriented partner to operations.

The VP will also focus on improving workforce stability and scalability—enhancing talent acquisition, addressing frontline retention challenges, and ensuring the organization can effectively staff and support large, mission-critical contracts. Success will require a visible, hands-on leader who can bridge strategy and execution, foster cross-functional alignment, and drive accountability, consistency, and communication across the organization.

Strategic Context
Chimes is entering a period of continued growth and increasing organizational complexity, driven by expansion across geographies, evolving workforce demands, and heightened regulatory expectations. As the organization scales, there is a critical need to strengthen the underlying people infrastructure, ensuring consistency, compliance, and alignment across business lines and affiliates. The Vice President of Human Resources plays a central role in strengthening culture, building leadership capability, and ensuring workforce systems support sustainable growth, while also helping the organization navigate this evolution—balancing immediate operational needs with longer-term capability building.

Over the next 3-5 years, Chimes is navigating:

• Continued workforce growth across multiple states
• Increasing regulatory and compliance complexity
• Evolving workforce expectations and engagement needs
• Integration of HR systems and practices across affiliates
• The need for stronger leadership development and succession planning

The Opportunity
The Vice President of Human Resources role at Chimes represents a critical opportunity to stabilize, rebuild, and elevate the HR function in support of a complex, mission-driven organization. As Chimes continues to grow across multiple service lines and geographies—while navigating workforce challenges, regulatory requirements, and federal contracting demands—the VP of HR will play a central role in ensuring the organization has the people, processes, and culture needed to execute effectively at scale.

In the near term, the VP’s priorities will focus on stabilization and trust-building—reestablishing credibility within the HR function following leadership turnover, strengthening alignment with operations, and improving consistency in core HR processes. This includes enhancing talent acquisition performance, addressing frontline retention challenges, and ensuring that critical processes such as hiring and onboarding. Building stronger communication, transparency, and partnership across HR, operations, and leadership will be essential to restoring confidence and improving workforce outcomes.

Looking ahead, the VP has a significant opportunity to modernize and scale the HR function to support long-term organizational growth. This includes implementing systems and infrastructure (e.g., ATS, HRIS optimization), standardizing policies and practices across regions, strengthening leadership development and succession planning, and building sustainable workforce pipelines to support contract growth. The role will also be instrumental in shaping a more cohesive, mission-aligned culture—one that balances operational discipline with employee engagement and supports the unique needs of a diverse, largely frontline workforce.

Ultimately, this is a high-impact, hands-on leadership role that requires a balance of strategy and execution. The successful candidate will be someone who can drive immediate operational improvements while building long-term capability, ensuring that HR serves as a true business partner and enabler of Chimes’ mission and growth.

Primary Job Functions
The Vice President of Human Resources will oversee a broad range of strategic and operational responsibilities to ensure the effective delivery of HR services across the organization. This role requires a balanced focus on talent strategy, team leadership, compliance, and day-to-day execution, while driving consistency and alignment with organizational goals.

Chief among the primary functions, the VP will:

• Collaborate with executive leadership to define the Agency’s long-term mission and goals; identify ways to support this mission through talent management.
• Identify key performance indicators for the Agency’s human resource and talent management functions; assess the Agency’s success and market competitiveness based on these metrics.
• Lead employee retention initiatives and manage attrition metrics.
• Develop and implement HR strategies and programs that align with the Agency’s mission, vision and values.
• Research, develop, and implement competitive compensation, performance appraisal, and benefits programs.
• Recruit, hire, manage, and serve as a mentor to develop personnel of the HR department and oversee the department’s daily workflow.
• Drive succession planning initiatives to support long-term organizational growth.
• Provide guidance and leadership to the human resource management team; assist with the resolution of human resource matters, compensation, and benefits questions, including discipline and termination of employees following Agency policy.
• Act as a point of escalation, coach, and advisor on complex employee relations, develop recommendations, and ensure matters are handled consistently across the organization.
• Manage responses to any EEOC claims.
• Ensure compliance with employment, benefits, insurance, safety, and other laws, regulations, and requirements.
• Maintain knowledge of laws, regulations, and best practices in employment law, human resources, and talent management; apply such knowledge to the policies, practices, and processes of the Agency.
• Draft and implement the Agency’s staffing budget and the budget for the HR department.
• Occasionally travel to Maryland, DC, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Delaware offices to build and maintain
• strong relationships with each office and the Human Resources Department.

Secondary Job Functions

• Participates in professional development and networking conferences and events.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Supervises

• Multiple HR Directors, Managers, and support staff

Outcomes That Define Success –
Success in this role will be defined by the Vice President’s ability to build a stable, high-performing, and mission-aligned workforce while ensuring HR delivers consistent, compliant, and value-driven support to the organization. This includes strengthening workforce stability, enhancing leadership effectiveness, and creating a more cohesive and engaging employee experience across all regions and business lines. Overall success is measured by workforce stability, leadership effectiveness, compliance confidence, and employee experience.

Success in this role is demonstrated through the following outcomes:

• Effective talent acquisition and retention strategies
• Clear, compliant, and consistent HR policies and practices
• High-performing leadership and management teams
• Reliable HR systems, payroll, and HRIS operations
• Improved employee engagement and performance

Key Relationships
The Vice President of Human Resources operates as a highly collaborative leader, partnering across all levels of the organization to align people strategies with operational needs and organizational priorities. This role requires the ability to build strong, trusted relationships with executive leadership, managers, and frontline teams, ensuring HR is fully integrated into decision-making and execution across the enterprise. Success depends on collaboration, credibility, and strong people leadership.

The VP of HR works in close partnership with:

• The CEO, CAO, COO, and CFO
• Senior leaders and Division Directors
• Legal, Compliance, and Risk leaders
• Managers and frontline leadership teams

The Candidate
The ideal candidate will bring a strong combination of strategic HR leadership, operational expertise, and relationship-building capability to effectively lead the function in a complex, mission-driven environment. This role requires demonstrated experience navigating regulatory requirements, supporting large and diverse workforces, and driving HR initiatives that align with organizational priorities. In addition to core education and experience, the successful candidate will exhibit the leadership qualities, technical knowledge, and adaptability needed to strengthen HR performance and support long-term organizational success.

Essential:

• Senior HR leadership experience in complex organizations
• Strong knowledge of employment law and compliance
• Experience leading HR transformation or growth initiatives

Helpful, but not required:

• Sector-specific experience in nonprofit, healthcare, or human services
• Prior VP-level HR experience

Developmental Stretch - This role often requires continued growth in:

• Balancing strategic leadership with operational demands
• Leading through influence across the organization
• Managing organizational change effectively
• Strengthening leadership development systems

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or related field required; Master’s or law degree highly preferred.
• At least ten years of human resource management experience required, with strategic, talent management, and/or business development experience highly preferred.
• Previous experience working with government contracts and requirements for talent acquisition.
• SPHR and/or SHRM-SCP strongly preferred.
• Ability to effectively build relationships across all levels of the organization.
• Strong team orientation and team-building skills to promote a collaborative HR department.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• High degree of emotional intelligence and ability to effectively manage and resolve conflict.
• Solid understanding of the National Labor Relations Act (NRLA) regarding employee unions and bargaining agreements.
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Strong supervisory and leadership skills.
• Thorough knowledge of employment-related laws and regulations.
• Knowledge of and experience with varied human resource information systems.
• Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite and HRIS software.

Application

• Interested candidates can apply to: ChimesVPHR@kornferry.com