Yvonne Akinmodun

Career development is a leadership discipline — not an HR initiative. Most organisations don’t lose talent because people lack ambition or resilience. They lose it because career development is quietly deprioritised long before disengagement shows up in data. Career conversations happen. Ownership doesn’t. When responsibility for progression sits vaguely between HR, leaders, and systems, development becomes inconsistent. High performers drift. Internal mobility becomes accidental. Retention turns reactive. I advise organisations, HR leaders, and senior leaders on leadership-owned career development — building the capability, accountability, and structure required to make progression visible and credible over time. My work focuses on: Embedding career development as a leadership responsibility Strengthening progression and internal mobility Equipping leaders to sponsor and sustain development, not delegate it I am the creator of the SOAR framework — a structured approach that exposes where career development breaks down and repositions it as core leadership work, not a standalone initiative. With a background spanning the UK public, not-for-profit, and commercial sectors, and as a Fellow of the CIPD (FCIPD), I bring a governance-led, system-level perspective to career development and progression. This work sits at the intersection of leadership capability, retention, and organisational risk.