For this technology consulting firm CHRO, ‘our people are our product’

Sponsored by

Powerfully easy HR: BambooHR helps businesses of all sizes hire, pay, manage, and support employees across the entire employee life cycle with the help of automated, unified tools. Learn more about this HRIS.

Here’s this week’s edition of our Coworking series. Each week, we chat 1:1 with an HR Brew reader. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

With more than 20 years of experience inside the IT and business consulting firm CGI, Steven Starace knows the business inside and out. Starace worked on the business and finance side of the company before moving into its top HR role leading people operations in 2023, “which was shocking to me,” he said. “It was never on my radar.”

For CGI, he told HR Brew, it actually was a great fit.

“They wanted to make sure that HR was not HR for HR, that HR was not process centric, that HR was really about empowering the business,” he said. “Who better to have that perspective than people who lived and operated in the business, and especially, in a professional service organization, everything we do is about talent.”

Starace’s approach to HR doesn’t abandon policy and process management or compliance. Rather, those are simply tablestakes, and he’s looking to further evolve the function into a strategic growth driver. Employees at CGI need to grow their people skills, soft skills, and leadership, he said, because in many ways that’s what they’re selling to clients.

“Do I have to stop thinking about driving growth and stop thinking about P&L and only think about people? I was encouraged to not think that way…you’re going to think about people, but you have to think about people in the context of clients and P&L, impact, and how you help make the organization better.”

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

What’s the best change you’ve made at a place you’ve worked?

One of the most impactful changes I’ve led was reshaping succession planning at CGI. It didn’t come with any HBO Max-worthy drama, but it did require a serious mindset shift. We moved away from a reactive, backfill model to a forward-looking strategy focused on building leadership capacity years in advance.

Instead of asking, “Who’s ready now?” we started asking, “Who could be ready in five years—and what do they need to get there?” It’s allowed us to think more intentionally about how we grow our future leaders, align development with business strategy, and ultimately shape CGI’s long-term success from within.

What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job?

That HR is the policy police. Yes, compliance is part of the job—but it’s not the purpose. At its best, HR is a strategic lever to grow the business. We’re here to translate people dynamics into P&L impact, helping the organization make better decisions about talent, culture, and performance.

When HR is in the room early—at the table, not just in the rollout—it becomes a force multiplier for innovation and growth.

What’s the most fulfilling aspect of your job?

For me, it’s all about making a measurable, lasting impact. Consulting is a people business—our product is our talent. That means every decision we make about how we develop, support, and empower our people has a direct line to client outcomes and business success. Getting to shape that every day, at scale, is incredibly rewarding.

What trend in HR are you most optimistic about? Why?

I’m incredibly optimistic about the potential of new technology—especially AI. That might not be surprising given the company I keep, but the opportunity in front of us is transformative.

AI and automation are reshaping work, and that shift is creating space for people to focus on what only humans can do: strategic thinking, creativity, and empathy. The key is not just adopting the tools but upskilling our workforce and giving them the autonomy to integrate AI into their workflows in ways that elevate both productivity and purpose.

What trend in HR are you least optimistic about? Why?

Ironically, it’s also technology—when it’s misapplied. The potential of AI and automation is enormous, but if we rush to implement without purpose, it becomes noise instead of progress.

It’s easy to get distracted by shiny tools and lose sight of the real goal: enabling people to do more meaningful, high-impact work. HR’s role is to cut through the hype, ask the right questions, and ensure that technology is solving problems—not creating new ones.