Your personal board of vetted CPOs, CHROs, and VPs of People. Bring your hardest problem to your monthly board meeting. Leave with a plan.
Request a Seat Explore the Seat →The problem
Lonely decisions are expensive. Stop paying that tax.
What we're hearing
"It's the loneliest seat in the organization, because you literally sometimes have nobody to talk to about some of the really challenging issues — they're legally complex, or they're morally complex."
CPO · 300-person company, scaling fast"A lot of the stuff I need collaboration on is super confidential. I'm not going to put out there, ‘hey, we're thinking about transitioning this executive.’ I save that for the people in my network that I trust."
CPO · 1,500 employees, post-IPO"The reason I left all the ones I've ever joined is because I felt like I was teaching everybody versus actually learning. When you're at the top you're really lonely, and you miss learning from great HR talent."
CHRO · PE-backed, global"I just have all these random ideas that I have no one to talk to about. And they're not always problems. Sometimes it's just — I'm curious about this. Is anyone else thinking about it?"
VP of People · 500 employees, high growthThe seat
Less programming, higher quality. If one conversation in a year saves you from botching a layoff or an AI rollout, the seat has paid for itself.
An NDA-protected space for candid, real-time peer help on the hard stuff — any day of the week. "I have to lay off 20 people this week and I've never done it — how do I handle it?" Answers from people who've done it, within hours.
90 minutes, every month, with the same 5–6 vetted peers. The hot seat rotates: 20–30 minutes of questions on your hardest problem, 60 minutes solving it. Same group every month, so trust compounds.
Monthly, driven by one poll question: "What's your biggest challenge right now?" We find the expert solving it — often from 300+ former MPL guests — off the record, with office hours after.
Need an intro to a CPO who's run a PE-backed reorg? Gut-checking a board deck? We monitor the room and make targeted connections — plus a 1:1 with Daniel at onboarding and annually, and bookable office hours whenever you actually have a problem. You're never posting into the void.
Board members get first call for MPL podcast episodes, webinar panels, and newsletter features — reach with 15,000 listeners and 16,000 subscribers. Profile-building with the exact audience that hires People leaders.
One flagship gathering per year plus member dinners in key cities — both attached to MPL Live. Show up, eat well, talk shop with people in the same seat.
The board meeting
Every month, your group meets for 90 minutes on a video call. One member takes the hot seat: they introduce the problem they're carrying — a restructure, a comp overhaul, a CEO dynamic — the group asks questions for 20–30 minutes, then spends the rest solving it together. Same group every month, so the conversations get deeper over time.
First-ever RIFs. Comp philosophy rebuilds. AI mandates from the CEO. HRBP org design. Exec team dysfunction. Their own next move. If it's keeping you up, it belongs in the meeting.
We don't throw people together. Every group is deliberately built from your onboarding data:
Hard constraint: never a direct competitor in your group.
Built by MPL
The Board isn't a startup community. It's the private layer on top of Modern People Leader — People leaders already tell us the things they can't say anywhere else. The Board is the room we built for those conversations.
Podcast conversations with People leaders
Podcast listeners
Newsletter subscribers
LinkedIn followers
A note from Daniel
Hey there,
Over the last five years we've had off-the-record conversations with hundreds of People leaders — 300+ on The Modern People Leader Podcast alone. And one thing comes up in almost every single one: the People seat is the loneliest seat in the company.
Your team can't see what you see. And the moments that define your career — the layoff, the restructure, the AI mandate, the comp overhaul — arrive without warning, and you're expected to get them right the first time. Alone.
The real risk isn't one bad decision. It's spending years without anyone who challenges you, and waking up to find you've drifted into "good enough."
That's why we built the MPL Board. We hand-pick 5–6 People leaders at your stage — never a direct competitor — and put you in a board meeting every month. It's your personal board of directors for the hardest job in the company.
Nothing's off the table: layoffs, comp, AI rollouts, your CEO, your own next role. Everything under NDA. Every member interviewed by me personally.
You've spent your career earning a seat at the table. This is where you already have one.
Daniel
Co-host of the Modern People Leader podcast · Co-founder, MPL
Strict vetting
We interview every applicant personally. Otherwise this becomes another noisy HR community — and there are plenty of those.
Short application: role, company size, LinkedIn, and why you want in.
If you look like a fit on paper, Daniel gets on a call with you. Not a pitch — a conversation about what you're navigating and what you'd bring to the room.
You list your direct competitors. We never seat competitors in the same room — it's part of why members can actually talk.
Every application is reviewed and approved personally. Invitations usually go out within days of the interview.
NDA signed. Your priorities and challenges captured — they power your board matching and everything else.
You're placed in a group of 5–6 matched on your priorities and your calendar. No 90-day wait.
Interested?
This isn't the right room if…
You're a consultant, a fractional People leader, an HR tech vendor, an agency, or a recruiter. We keep the room to people in the seat — full-time, in-house, carrying the decisions. It's how the candor stays real. (Former guests and friends of MPL: we love you. This room isn't for selling to.)
Attend your onboarding call and your first board meeting. If it's not for you, full refund within 45 days. No hoops.
Questions about The Board
A private, application-only board of CPOs, CHROs, and VPs of People at 200+-person companies. The core is your monthly board meeting: a standing group of 5–6 vetted peers working through your hardest problems.
Annual dues, discussed in the interview — most members expense the seat against an L&D or executive-development budget. We've priced it so one conversation covers the seat many times over.
Every member signs an NDA at onboarding, and every expert session is off the record. What's said in the Boardroom stays in the Boardroom.
The working rhythm is virtual on purpose — the best five peers for your exact problem are almost never in your city. In person still matters: one flagship gathering a year plus member dinners in key cities.