Charlotte Wakeham

Charlotte Wakeham, Chartered MCIPD, is the Head of Future Talent at Royal Mail, leading a team of early talent and apprenticeship specialists. Charlotte partners across the national organisation to build a portfolio of early careers and apprenticeship entry opportunities to hire and develop new talent, whilst also turbo-charging the internal apprenticeship strategy to connect existing colleagues with the opportunity to gain professional qualifications whilst they work. Charlotte also leads proactive outreach activity to connect Royal Mail with schools, work experience candidates and prospective applicants across the UK.

Charlotte joined Royal Mail in 2012 and has gained experience across a number of disciplines including Workforce Planning and HR Business Partnering, working with large teams across the Royal Mail operation. In Charlotte’s last role as Senior HR Business Partner, she was part of a small project team to centralise frontline recruitment at Royal Mail and reduce time to hire by 50%. This initiative was shortlisted for the 2023 CIPD People Management Awards in the ‘Best Resourcing Initiative’ category – outcome pending in September 2023. Charlotte is also a current mentee on the CIPD Trust Aspiring HR Director mentoring programme.

Charlotte is passionate about promoting apprentcieships as an opportunity to access the workplace and education. She also partners closely with the Royal Mail Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to ensure that the Future Talent portfolio can make a positive impact on social mobility.