Dola Akinniranye

Dola joined Challenge Partners in January 2025 and leads on all things HR. She works across the organisation to drive inclusive and values-led people practices.

She is a CIPD qualified HR professional with over eight years of generalist HR experience across diverse sectors including education, healthcare, social care, consulting, and real estate. Throughout her career, she has built HR functions from the ground up in start-up environments and contributed to complex people projects in fast-paced consulting firms.

Her specialisms span learning and development, performance management, strategic HR, recruitment, change management, and EDI. She holds a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management from the University of Hertfordshire and a PhD in Human Resources from Bournemouth University, where her research focused on the influence of subcultures on work-related ethical values, behaviours, and decision-making.

She believes strongly in the power of empathy as a core HR leadership skill, especially in supporting teams through workplace challenges. 

Outside of work, Dola is passionate about cultural learning, travelling, and learning new languages. She lives by the motto: work hard, play hard.