Kelly Smallcombe

Kelly Smallcombe is founder of Meliorem HR Consultancy, a practice specialising in HR for defence, GovTech, and other regulated technology sectors. With over a decade of HR experience across major defence primes, she now works as a fractional Chief People Officer for scaling SMEs through her Executive Access Partnership model, alongside board and NED level HR advisory roles. Her thinking draws heavily on behavioural economics, particularly the work of Rory Sutherland, which she applies to how organisations think about people, incentives, and culture. She writes and speaks on HR in high stakes, regulated environments, where the cost of getting people decisions wrong is measured in more than money.