About

RESULTS, NOT RHETORIC

Meet Mary Peros and find out what real problems she solved and what changed once she fixed them.

Meet Mary Peros

mary peros

Founder | Fractional & Interim Chief People Officer

I’ve held the Chief People Officer seat inside growing companies and PE-backed portfolios — the person leadership calls before a hard comp decision, a difficult exit, or a deal that needs people diligence done right. I’ve seen what a people function looks like when it keeps pace with growth, and I’ve seen the cost when it doesn’t: bad hires at the executive level, comp structures that trigger turnover, restructurings that damage trust faster than they solve the problem they were meant to fix.

why?

Peros Consulting exists because most companies between 50 and 500 employees are in an awkward middle: too complex to run without senior people leadership, not yet at the size (or budget) that justifies a full-time CPO. I bring exactly that senior judgment, structured around what your business actually needs right now.  Interim and M&A work is regularly for larger companies, 1,500 employees and beyond.

credentials & sector experience

  • SHRM-SCP (Senior Certified Professional)
  • MCIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development)
  • MA, Strategic Human Resource Management
  • Intelligent Leadership Certified Coach — John Mattone

Sector experience
Financial Services · Manufacturing · Retail · SaaS · Non-Profit · PE-backed and Tech 

Global reach: USA (multi-state), UK, EMEA, APAC

Fractional and interim CPO roles spanning early growth stage through significant scale — meaning I’ve seen what breaks at each stage of headcount growth and what needs to be in place before it does, not just how to react once it has.

 

Case Studies

Discover how practical executive HR leadership has strengthened businesses, reduced risk, improved management,
and supported confident organizational growth.

Building a Compensation Structure
Family-owned group, 13 companies, finance, manufacturing, real estate, engineering

The problem

Thirteen businesses, no consistent way to pay the people running them. Every president’s package was negotiated from scratch, with no market data and no logic behind it. That’s how you overpay some leaders, lose others, and end up with no answer when someone asks, “Why does he earn more than me?”

What I did

  • Benchmarked president and leadership pay against the market
  • Built one pay and bonus structure for all 13 companies
  • Leveled every role so pay could be compared fairly
  • Created a clear process for pricing new president hires
  • Documented the reasoning behind every decision, so the family could run it without me

The result

Pay decisions went from gut feel to a structure they can defend, repeat, and own.

Changing How People Get Paid, Without Losing Them
Mid-sized company, planning a shift from flat profit-share to performance-based bonuses

The problem

Changing how people get paid is one of the fastest ways to lose trust. Half the workforce had only ever known profit-share. Explain the change badly, and good people start reading it as a pay cut. Nobody on the team had run a change like this before, and there was no plan for who needed to hear what, or when.

What I did

  • Set clear goals for every message, from the CEO announcement to team meetings
  • Mapped every audience, from leadership to frontline staff, with their concerns and the right channel for each
  • Wrote the business case in plain language: why it’s changing, how it works, what it means for pay
  • Flagged the risks early, like perceived favoritism and high performers versus team players, so leaders were ready for them
  • Gave managers the talking points and training to explain it to their own teams

The result

A pay change landed with understanding instead of panic. They also got a repeatable framework for communicating any major change.

Finding the Real Reason People Were Unhappy, Before They Quit
Fast-growing software company
Fast-growing software company, small team

The problem

The survey scores were sliding on communication, leadership, and trust. Messages felt contradictory, leaders felt out of reach, and some people felt undervalued. In a small team, that mix turns into resignations fast, and every exit hurts. Leadership knew something was wrong but couldn’t pin down what.

What I did

  • Separated real signal from noise in the existing survey data
  • Audited the HR basics (policies, compliance, pay, performance, hiring) to see if broken structures were part of the problem
  • Ran confidential focus groups across the company so people could speak candidly
  • Built a culture survey comparing where things stood with where leadership wanted them
  • Prepared leaders to hear tough feedback openly, not defensively
  • Turned it all into a root-cause analysis and a clear action plan.

The result

Leadership went from “something’s off” to knowing exactly what was driving disengagement, and what to do about it.