Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) | City of Surrey, BC
Search Overview
Organization:
City of Surrey
Sector:
Government and Public Sector
Location:
British Columbia, Canada
Mandate Type:
Executive Search
Leadership Function:
Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO)
Search Scope:
Provincial and Targeted Executive Search
Engagement Focus:
Executive Leadership Appointment
Confidentiality:
Open Executive Search Process
The Context
As one of Canada’s fastest growing municipalities, the City of Surrey continues to navigate significant organizational growth, evolving workforce demands, and increasing operational complexity across multiple departments and service areas.
Given the scale of the organization and the importance of people leadership within a large public sector environment, the City identified the need for a strong executive leader capable of supporting workforce strategy, organizational development, leadership alignment, and long term human capital planning.
The CHRO role represented a critical leadership appointment requiring an experienced executive who could operate strategically across a highly visible municipal environment while supporting organizational transformation, workforce sustainability, and leadership development initiatives.
The mandate required a disciplined and objective executive search process focused on identifying the strongest long term leadership fit for the organization.
The Leadership Need
The City was seeking a senior human resources executive with experience leading workforce strategy, organizational development, labour relations, leadership support, culture initiatives, and HR operations within complex public sector environments.
The ideal candidate required the ability to operate at both strategic and operational levels while supporting executive leadership across a rapidly evolving municipal organization.
Equally important was the need for a collaborative and people focused leader capable of aligning workforce priorities with broader organizational objectives while strengthening leadership continuity and organizational effectiveness.
The role demanded executive level judgment, stakeholder management capability, and a strong understanding of large scale workforce environments.
The Assignment
KIRAH was engaged to conduct an executive search for the City’s Chief Human Resources Officer role.
The assignment involved a broad market search and executive level recruitment process designed to assess both external market talent and internal leadership capability through a structured and consistent evaluation framework.
The mandate focused on identifying the strongest leadership fit for the organization based on executive capability, leadership presence, strategic thinking, organizational alignment, and long term potential.
Given the visibility and importance of the role, the process emphasized fairness, transparency, and rigor throughout every stage of the search.
The Search Approach
KIRAH conducted extensive outreach and market engagement efforts across British Columbia targeting senior HR executives with experience in large scale public sector and organizational leadership environments.
The search process generated more than 300 applicant and market sourced profiles for consideration.
A targeted executive outreach strategy was implemented across the province engaging senior human resources leaders from municipalities, crown corporations, public sector organizations, and operationally complex environments.
The outreach focused on identifying leaders with strong expertise in workforce strategy, organizational transformation, labour relations, and executive HR leadership.
A comprehensive and structured evaluation process was conducted to assess leadership capability, executive presence, communication style, strategic thinking, stakeholder engagement, and organizational alignment.
Following multiple stages of assessment, approximately 9 senior level interviews were conducted involving both external and internal leadership candidates.
All candidates progressed through the same structured evaluation framework to ensure fairness, objectivity, and consistency throughout the search process.
Throughout the engagement, close collaboration was maintained with the City’s leadership team to ensure alignment on organizational priorities, leadership expectations, and long term workforce objectives.
The process emphasized identifying the candidate best positioned to support the City’s evolving organizational and people leadership needs.
The Appointment
Following the completion of the search and evaluation process, Anita Sanghera was appointed as Chief Human Resources Officer for the City of Surrey.
Anita successfully progressed through a highly competitive and rigorous executive evaluation process involving multiple stages of assessment and leadership interviews.
Her leadership capability, organizational understanding, collaborative leadership style, and alignment with the City’s long term vision distinguished her throughout the process.
The appointment reflected both the strength of the overall candidate pool and the importance of conducting a disciplined and objective executive search process focused on identifying the strongest leadership fit for the organization.