James Saunders

Chief People Officer

James is an experienced Chief People Officer who joined Wates in May 2025, bringing a strong track record of leading growth, transformation, and organisational change.

James is an energetic and agile leader with a passion for creating open, collaborative, purpose-driven cultures where people care deeply about delivering for customers and creating value for society.

He began his HR career at Nationwide, quickly rising to become Head of HR for People Strategy, Transformation, Technology & Risk. In 2011, James joined Vodafone, progressing through senior roles leading divisional HR strategy working with UK and international Technology Teams, and also the global Vodafone Business Team.

In 2020, he took on his first Chief People Officer role at Intu, a FTSE listed property investment & development business where he partnered with a new CEO and CFO to support a fresh period of investment & transformation.

Most recently, James was Chief People Officer at Highbourne Group, a private equity backed carve out of building supply businesses from Travis Perkins. James supported the carve out and standing up of a £1.5bn revenue business, and over the first three years built out their People strategy, infrastructure and processes.