Chris Manning

HR and Workforce Transformation Leader, Primark

Chris Manning is an award-winning HR and workforce transformation leader with over a decade of experience operating at board and executive level across complex, large-scale change programmes. Ranked among HR Magazine’s Most Influential Thinkers in 2025, Chris brings a distinctive combination of strategic clarity, commercial discipline, and hands-on delivery expertise to some of the most challenging people and organisational transformation agendas in the UK and internationally.

Chris is presenting at the Workforce Solutions Conference 2026
Designing digital employee journeys end-to-end
Tuesday 6 October, 11:00 – 11:40, Conference Room C

View the Conference programme

Professional background

Today, Chris leads senior advisory and delivery engagements across HR operating model design, digital HR enablement, and workforce transformation. Currently at Primark, his career spans Accenture, Infosys Consulting, Nuffield Health, PA Consulting, and Wipro Digital, where he has partnered with client-side CHROs, CPOs, and executive committees across financial services, healthcare, central government, FMCG, and professional services.

Chris is a recognised authority on employee experience design, applying service design, Lean Six Sigma, Agile, Design Thinking, and systems thinking methodologies to redesign HR services at scale. His work has reached employees across more than 120 countries, and he has led programmes delivering tens of millions in measurable efficiency and workforce productivity gains.

At the Workforce Solutions Conference, Chris will explore the evolving relationship between HR transformation, change management and employee experience, examining how organisations can build HR operating models that are both commercially rigorous and genuinely human-centred.