Neil Carberry has started as chief executive of the CIPD, succeeding Peter Cheese, who led the professional body for HR and people development for 14 years before retiring in June.

Carberry, chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) since 2018, used his first message to members to frame his priorities: making the case for professional people practice at a moment when employers face skills shortages, rapid technological change and economic disruption. For HR leaders, his arrival signals the direction the UK's main HR professional body will take on skills policy, workforce participation and the credibility of the function itself over the coming years.

"I'm starting at the CIPD at a time when the profession is being asked to solve some of the hardest questions in organisations," Carberry said. "Work is changing at extraordinary speed, and the demands being placed on people professionals have never been greater. The fact that this has been said before doesn't make it old news – it makes acting on it now more important than ever."

He was blunt about the economic backdrop. "Growth is struggling to get up off the mat – pounded by the repeated blows of tariffs, supply chain crunches, conflict, political disruption, climate change," he said. "Without it, we will continue to fail to provide better standards of living, invest in infrastructure, provide the services people need, protect pension funds."

Carberry pointed to a persistent paradox in the UK labour market: millions of people remain outside the labour market while many organisations cannot find the skills and capabilities they need. He positioned people professionals as central to resolving it.

"Look at almost any issue keeping a policymaker, a politician, or a chief executive awake and, somewhere within it, there is a people question," he said.

He listed the questions he believes HR owns: whether organisations have the skills they need, how to increase the number of people in work, whether existing talent is being developed, whether managers are equipped to lead through change, whether work is being redesigned to reflect changing expectations, and whether technology is being used well.

The new chief executive acknowledged there is nothing revolutionary about saying people and skills drive performance. Yet many still treat them as secondary organisational issues, he said, and some business leaders continue to question the value of the HR function itself. That framing sets up a clear mandate for his tenure: demonstrating, with evidence, the difference professional people practice makes to performance, productivity, opportunity and growth.

"Our focus must be on demonstrating the difference professional people practice makes: to performance, productivity, opportunity and ultimately growth. For me, that starts with members," he said.

He pledged that the CIPD will act as advocate and trusted adviser to people professionals. "We must be advocates and trusted advisers for people professionals as they tackle the hardest questions in their organisations – providing evidence, standards, insight, practical support and a community they can draw on. We should walk by members' side as they face up to challenges and opportunities."

Carberry struck a deliberately humble note about his own role. "The CIPD should be the place people turn to for the best thinking, the strongest evidence and the most credible voice on work and people. I don't arrive with all the answers, and nor should I," he said.

"My first job is to listen, learn and work with our members. Because if we want stronger organisations and a stronger economy, we need to be much more serious about the people and skills that deliver growth."

Carberry brings a policy-heavy CV to the role. Before joining the REC, he worked for the Confederation of British Industry for 14 years, including as director for employment, skills and public services. Earlier this year, he was appointed to the advisory board of the Fair Work Agency as an employer member — a post that keeps him close to employment regulation enforcement at a time when UK employers are adjusting to the Employment Rights Act agenda.

In the interim period between Cheese's retirement and Carberry's start, Caroline Stockmann, CIPD board member and treasurer, served as the body's interim chief executive.

Carberry's combination of recruitment-sector leadership, CBI policy experience and a Fair Work Agency seat suggests members can expect the CIPD to argue forcefully for people and skills as economic priorities rather than organisational afterthoughts.