Hillwood

Doug Dureau is the CHRO at Hillwood and the Perot Companies, a multi-industry private company operating across real estate, oil and gas, investments and a family office. In his role, he works closely with business leaders to align people strategy with business strategy, strengthen leadership capability, support organizational design, reduce operational friction and preserve Hillwood’s values-led culture across its diverse businesses.

Aligning People Strategy with Business Strategy

Hillwood is a multi-industry private company with businesses across real estate, oil and gas, investments and a family office. Each business has its own rhythm, risk profile and talent requirements, so HR must understand each group’s needs while maintaining a unified culture. Hillwood is grounded in shared values as part of the Perot Companies, including ethics, long-term thinking, an entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to our teams, customers and communities.

For HR, the role is not to function as a separate support team, but to stay integrated with how the business operates. That means helping leaders align people, processes, systems, incentives and organizational design with business priorities while reducing operational friction and preserving the cultural foundation that holds the organization together.

Scaling Leadership without Losing Agility

In any growing organization, the key question is whether the right people are in the right roles, particularly in leadership. It’s also essential to plan succession for various stages of the business lifecycle.

When an organization is smaller, centralized decision-making can work well. As it grows, that model can create friction. With growth, structures, systems and processes must evolve to support scale without hampering the speed of decision-making.

At Hillwood, we take pride in making decisions quickly, especially in complex work such as public-private partnerships, where we often align with city governments, customers and internal stakeholders. Preserving that speed requires strong leadership alignment, particularly as organizations grow more complex.

“In complex, multi-business environments, that discipline strengthens accountability and enables the business to move with speed and consistency.”

Leaders are often highly skilled technically, but people introduce unpredictability into every business. HR helps leaders navigate that complexity while reducing organizational friction.

Incentives and investment discipline play an important role in reinforcing performance. If rewards are not aligned with the behaviors the business wants to drive, performance can move in the wrong direction. HR also has to demonstrate clear value as the business grows. When that value is visible, HR can grow in step with the business rather than being viewed as only as a cost center.

Preserving Culture through Entrepreneurial Growth

Our leadership philosophy is centered on the long term. We focus on building lasting relationships and maintaining our reputation, rather than seeking quick gains. In our B2B business, much of our growth comes from trust, strong networks and long-term partnerships. These include our relationships with customers, cities we work with and our partners, including long-standing ties with subcontractors and operating partners.

Hillwood has been shaped by leaders who have built profitable, values-based and ethical organizations. We are expected to uphold those values both at work and in how we represent the organization externally.

We are also highly entrepreneurial. Our executives operate as business owners, and each business reflects the leader driving it. That flexibility is a strength, but it also makes a shared cultural foundation essential. Common values create consistency, while entrepreneurial leadership gives businesses flexibility to move with the market.

Balancing Long-Term Planning with Market Flexibility

That balance between structure and entrepreneurship also shapes how we approach workforce planning in a changing market. In the industries we operate in, long-term planning and flexibility have to work together.

Workforce planning also requires balancing quality, cost discipline and innovation. While we may not always compete on price alone, we remain firmly committed to quality and continuously seek innovative solutions to improve our work.

One of the more underappreciated advantages of our model is cross-business visibility. Entrepreneurial businesses can easily become siloed, but there is significant value in sharing insights across the organization. Insights from various businesses like real estate, aviation and logistics often inform decisions across other parts of the business.

This need for balance also changes what leadership requires. It is no longer enough for leaders to be technically strong. They must manage people, processes, technology and data, while also understanding broader workforce expectations and needs.

Employers are increasingly expected to support associates holistically, including their professional, personal and wellness needs. HR prepares leaders by supporting them through people, systems and technology. High-impact HR starts with business outcomes, not a program that needs to be applied later.

Making HR a Strategic Business Partner

High-impact HR begins with business outcomes. It cannot start with an HR program and then look for a place to apply it. We have to understand what the business is trying to achieve and build the people strategy around that.

That requires business acumen. HR leaders need to understand the language of business, finance and operations. They need to know the businesses they support well enough to act as consultants and coaches, not just administrators.

There will always be essential HR processes such as recruiting, leave management and compliance. But our larger role is to help leaders reduce friction, align behavior, develop talent and build systems that support performance.

Often, the best HR work is almost invisible, happening through coaching, alignment and better decision-making long before issues require formal intervention. From bringing the right people into the organization to developing them for success, HR can influence the business in a strategic and measurable way.

Building Resilience Through People, Values and Alignment

Hillwood’s resilience comes from diversification, private ownership, long-term thinking and people focus. As a private company, we can remain nimble, respond selectively as markets shift and avoid reacting purely to short-term pressure. This approach allows us to allocate resources to the right places at the right time and decide where to pull back when conditions change.

This ability to move with the market is strengthened by diversification across businesses. Different industries move through different cycles, which allows us to take a broader view rather than react only to short-term pressure.

The same long-term lens guides our talent decisions. In a downturn, we do not look only at cutting for short-term results. If we believe a market cycle will shift, we can retain key talent and even bring in strong people when others are pulling back.

We also value the balance between tenured employees and new talent. Experienced people bring institutional knowledge and perspective from past cycles, while new talent brings fresh ideas and innovation. That balance also reinforces a culture of continuous improvement, where new perspectives are encouraged rather than resisted. Together, that balance helps us avoid complacency while preserving what has made the organization strong.

That commitment to employee well-being also extends to family, which remains a major part of our culture. This includes both the Hillwood and Perot family culture and the families of our associates. We want to take care of our people in a way that supports long-term sustainability, including health, wellness and financial well-being.

As expectations around people, work and business execution continue to evolve, HR’s role will only become broader and more integrated. HR leaders will be expected to understand business strategy, workforce dynamics, technology, predictive analytics, retention signals and the whole person. They will also lead more cross-functional work involving IT, finance, legal, security and operations to create seamless workflows.

Resilience comes from consistent alignment across leadership, systems and incentives. In complex, multi-business environments, that discipline strengthens accountability and enables the business to move with speed and consistency.