Steve Hessel
VP of People @Splash Damage
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WORK HISTORY
VP of People @Splash Damage
Bromley, GB
As part of Splash Damage\'s senior leadership team, I lead the culture, systems, and people practices that help our teams deliver their best work. My role focuses on aligning human experience with business strategy and supporting the studio\'s goals through intentional design of how we work together. I\'ve guided the organisation through several periods of uncertainty and significant change, with a focus on empathy, calm leadership, and measured judgement.At its height, the People function included specialists across talent acquisition, internal communications, and HR operations. Following later studio changes, I oversaw its consolidation while maintaining stability and clarity for teams.Key contributions:• Steered the People function through the challenges of COVID-19, two acquisitions, and several restructures, keeping teams informed and supported throughout.• Led the studio\'s \'return to office\' project for more than 300 people, grounded in proactive risk analysis, clear communication, and a focus on rebuilding alignment and connection.• Drove a cross-functional effort to design and deliver a four-day work week trial that improved rest and job satisfaction across the studio.• Championed a cultural refresh that refined studio values, policies, and everyday rituals in collaboration with people from across the business.• Partnered with craft leaders to clarify roles, leadership expectations, and ways of working across disciplines.• Oversaw talent acquisition until the function was discontinued in a restructure.• Established internal communications as a dedicated function to ensure clear, consistent, and well-paced communication across teams.• Introduced AI tools across the department to streamline analysis, accelerate drafting, and improve the quality of internal communications and policy design.
SKILLS
ABOUT STEVE HESSEL
I like figuring out what makes people and teams work, and then helping them do it better.Across two decades in games and technology, I’ve helped teams grow, adapt, and evolve without losing focus on bringing people along, even when not everyone moves at the same pace. Most of that time has been at Splash Damage, where I’ve seen the company move through every stage of its lifecycle, from rapid expansion to reinvention, and learned what it takes to sustain culture through change. My approach blends curiosity about human behaviour with a designer’s mindset: understand what drives people, build systems that support them, and keep refining as we learn.As VP of People, I support the studio’s broader strategy by leading the culture, systems, and practices that help our teams deliver their best work. That’s included translating business priorities into clear, people-focused action, from finding a working model that fits our culture and products, to leading our return to office for over 300 people, to launching a four-day work week trial and introducing AI tools that make our People team more effective.Outside of work, you can usually find me lifting heavy things, reading about psychology, or using my endless Star Trek trivia knowledge for good.
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