Jen Jaffe is an accomplished executive with over 20 years of experience in strategic HR leadership, nine years as a Chief People Officer. She has demonstrated success in global organizations, ranging from large-scale public environments to high-growth, entrepreneurial environments in diverse industries. Currently, Jen serves as the Chief People Officer at BJ’s Restaurants & Brewhouse, a ~$1.4B casual dining public company with over 200 restaurants nationwide. In this role, she leads the people strategy to drive culture, organizational and leadership development, talent acquisition, total rewards, and team member engagement, all in alignment with BJ’s vision of delivering WOW hospitality and shareholder value creation.
Over the past 20 years in human resources, Jaffe has held many diverse leadership roles in both small, entrepreneurial organizations, as well as large, global organizations. Most recently, Jen served as the Chief People Officer for FIGS. FIGS is a publicly traded, high-growth, direct-to-consumer healthcare apparel that serves current and future generations of healthcare professionals. She was also the Chief People Officer at El Pollo Loco, leading the human resources and training functions for in nearly 500 restaurants. Prior to that role, Jen led human resources and informational technology at Too Faced Cosmetics, an Estée Lauder company.
At DIRECTV, she drove the enterprise-wide approach for leadership and organizational development, as well as talent management as Vice President, Talent Development. In addition, she also led human resources partnership for four areas of the business. As a key HR member of the integration team for the DIRECTV – AT&T merger, Jaffe later became responsible for the human resources partnership for the Marketing, Sales and Services and Strategy and Business Development organizations, approximately 13,000 employees. Before joining DIRECTV, Jaffe held human resources roles at Raytheon Company and Fluor Corporation.
Outside of the CPO world, Jen has been an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University in the Behavioral & Organizational Sciences since 2017. She’s also a board member for Girls Inc. Orange County. GIOC offers research-based programs for girls ages 5 to 18 focusing on STEM, literacy, college and career readiness, and advocacy – serving 5,000 girls in Orange County. Jaffe received a master’s degree in Human Resource Management from Chapman University. She holds bachelor’s degrees in International Studies and Sociology from University of California, Irvine.
