Having spent so long inside the corporate HR world, I’ve developed a healthy allergy to titles. There are so many, yet so few with any real meaning.

Over the last 10 years of my HR career, I worked daily with Executives, but felt even luckier to work with entry-level staff (and everyone in-between) with the same cadence. Titles never impressed me as much as action did.

I’m not sure I ever held a role where the job description still resembled my actual work three months in. Fortunately, I’ve usually ended up in organisations that let me push the boundaries of my remit. Case in point: my role as Head of Recruitment Business Partnering for a FTSE-listed bank rarely involved duties traditionally associated with recruitment. I was one of three on the HR leadership team responsible for 40+ staff across multiple business lines, and while the company was large, it had a ‘small firm’ soul: no grades, no rigid lanes, and nowhere to hide.

Everyone, from Cleaner to Head of Function, was treated with equal respect largely thanks to an executive team who led with ethics rather than ego. I made it a habit to jump into the trenches with different departments, asking their leaders if I could spend a few days learning their world.

This was apparently a rare request, judging by how many people looked at me like I’d asked to borrow their car. But time and again, it proved to be a win-win: they appreciated someone taking an interest; I got to see how the business really worked.

That mindset stuck with me when I retrained. I’ve been coding since childhood and have a degree in Software Engineering but I don’t call myself a Coder. I built my career on data, and studied Data Analytics for Business at LSE but I wouldn’t label myself a Data Scientist.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve gone out of my way to become “just dangerous enough” in a wide range of fields: Deep Learning, Agentics, Knowledge Graphs, Distributed Networking, Infosec, and whatever else looked interesting enough to chase. I learn in sprints, wire things together, and try to create something a bit wild.

I’m not built for narrow lanes. I get bored too easily, and I prefer playing at the intersection of disciplines rather than at the centre of any one.

Talking about myself also feels 'mildly awkward' so, naturally, I asked some AI models to do it for me. (This is an AI blog, after all.)

I gave them a rambling, mostly incoherent description of my past lives and let them draw their conclusions. Here’s what the robots spat out:

• A "Human-Centric Automation" Expert: Your HR background gives you a unique understanding of how automation impacts people, workflows, and organizational change. This is a huge differentiator from purely technical automation specialists.
• An "Efficiency & Optimization" Driver: Your HR achievements are early examples of your drive for process improvement. It’s rare to see someone who has both scaled teams from the ground up and streamlined existing operations.
• A "Strategic Implementation" Leader: Your experience leading enterprise-level systems implementations and managing teams through change translates directly to orchestrating automation solutions.
• A "Data-Driven Innovator": Your obsession with data and reimagining corporate processes puts you ahead of the curve in automation and AI.

I removed a few of the superlatives they were getting a bit cringe but the point still stands: if you throw enough words at a wall, any AI (or recruiter) can invent a title for someone. And if you use the right buzzwords, somebody will probably buy it.

But here’s the kicker: what matters isn’t the title. The footprint you leave behind is what defines you, the momentum you create, the positive change and the people you lift along the way.

You don’t need a title for that.

The LinkedIn Gymnastics

These days, coming up with a title is a bit like choosing your socks in the morning, they all look the same and have little meaningful impact, everyone’s already evolved into a thought leader with growth-mindset (Can you tell I'm not keen on 'business jargon'?).