Book a conversation
Latisha Newby at a boardroom table.
For organizations

The decisions that cost you most are made by people who were never taught the rules.

Get executive-level HR strategy, practical employment law guidance, and experienced leadership judgment without the cost of hiring a full-time Chief People Officer.

Book a conversation

Thirty minutes. No pitch. I will tell you if I am not the right fit.

J.D. NC Licensed Attorney

20 years Executive HR, including Chief People & Legal Officer

SHRM-SCP and PHR certified

5.0 on Google

Policies don’t prevent workplace challenges. Better decisions do.

Most organizations already have policies. What they need is experienced guidance when a manager is facing a difficult conversation, a sensitive investigation, a performance issue, or a legal question that doesn’t have an obvious answer.

I bring executive HR leadership, employment law expertise, and two decades of real-world experience to help organizations make confident workplace decisions before they become larger business or legal problems.

Choose the partnership that best fits your organization.

Ongoing

Fractional CHRO

A trusted advisor for your executive team. I partner with leaders to navigate complex people decisions before they become costly organizational or legal problems.

Who it is for. Organizations between 40 and 400 people with an HR generalist or a small team, and no senior HR voice above them.

Book a conversation
  • A set number of days each month, not an on-call arrangement
  • Board and executive reporting on people risk
  • Escalations, investigations and the decisions that cannot wait
  • Policy, classification and compliance reviewed before it becomes a problem
  • Building the HR function as headcount grows
Engagement

HR Compliance

Most compliance problems aren’t discovered during an audit. They’re discovered during a claim, when someone asks for a document you assumed existed, or when a workplace issue exposes a gap. Our work helps organizations identify and address those gaps proactively, before they lead to investigations, litigation, or unnecessary risk.

Who it is for. Organizations that have grown faster than their HR paperwork, or that have just had a complaint expose something.

Book a conversation
  • Independent workplace investigations
  • Policies and handbooks, drafted or reviewed
  • HR audits — records, classification and documentation
  • Scope agreed in writing before anything begins
  • Findings you can act on, not a list of everything imperfect

Workplace Investigations

Some workplace issues are too sensitive, too senior, or too close to the reporting line for the internal team to handle alone. I provide independent support for workplace investigations and other high-risk employee matters, including allegations involving senior leaders, discrimination or harassment concerns, retaliation claims, conflicts of interest, executive conduct, and situations where neutrality may reasonably be questioned. Each engagement is handled with a consistent process, clear documentation, reasoned findings, and a written report or executive summary designed to help leadership act with confidence.

Policies and Handbooks

Liability usually lives in the gap between what your handbook says and what your managers actually do. I draft and review policies so the two match, in language a supervisor can follow at speed — not paragraphs written to be defensible and never read.

HR Audits

A structured review of the records and practices that get requested when something goes wrong: I-9 and work authorization files, personnel file practices, exempt and non-exempt classification, hiring and separation documentation, and whether your handbook still reflects current practice. You get a prioritized findings list — what to fix now, what can wait.

What this is not. This is employment-law-driven HR compliance. It does not cover workplace safety or OSHA — for that you want a safety specialist, and I will happily say so.

Program

The Legally Savvy Leader™

Your managers make decisions with legal consequences most weeks, usually in a corridor, usually fast. This is the training that improves the quality of those decisions rather than the volume of your policy manual.

Who it is for. Managers and directors who supervise people and have never been taught the legal edges of that job.

Book a conversation
  • Cohort-based, delivered live, built around your actual situations
  • Employment law in plain language, with real workplace examples
  • Documentation habits that hold up when someone asks later
  • Manager-level judgment, not a compliance module
What a working relationship looks like

Four steps, and you can stop after any of them.

  1. 01

    A conversation

    Thirty minutes. You tell me what is actually happening. I tell you whether I am the right person, including when the answer is no.

  2. 02

    A written proposal

    Scope, deliverables, timeline and cost in writing. No retainer before we both know what the work is.

  3. 03

    The work

    For fractional engagements, a standing rhythm. For investigations, a defined start and finish. Either way, you always know where it stands.

  4. 04

    A handover

    Documentation you keep, and a clear view of what to do next — whether or not that involves me.

What organizations ask before they call

How is a fractional CHRO different from a consultant?
A consultant delivers a project and leaves. A fractional CHRO holds the seat — attends leadership meetings, carries the people agenda between them, and is accountable for the same things a full-time CHRO would be. The difference is days per month, not depth of responsibility.
Are you acting as our lawyer?
No. I am a licensed attorney, and that background is why my advice is different, but I am engaged as an HR consultant. No attorney-client relationship is created, and nothing I provide is legal advice or covered by privilege. Where a matter needs counsel, I will say so plainly and work alongside yours.
Can you investigate a complaint against a senior executive?
That is the situation independent investigation exists for. When the subject sits above your HR team in the reporting line, an internal process is difficult to defend regardless of how carefully it is run.
Do you handle OSHA and workplace safety?
No. My compliance work is employment-law driven — records, classification, policy, documentation and investigations. Safety is a genuinely different discipline and you are better served by a specialist. I would rather tell you that now than take the engagement.
What does it cost?
It depends entirely on scope, and I would rather quote you accurately than post a number that turns out to be wrong. Every engagement is priced in a written proposal after the first conversation. That conversation is free and carries no obligation.
Do you work outside North Carolina?
Yes. Fractional and advisory work is largely remote, and I travel for investigations and in-person training. Employment law here is federal-first, with state variation flagged where it matters.

Tell me what is happening.

Thirty minutes, no obligation, and a straight answer about whether this is something I should be involved in. If it is not, I will usually know who should be.

Book a conversation

Or email latisha@cultivatehrconsulting.com.