About Ellie
Ellie Lancaster has spent her career doing the thing most organizations say they value but rarely invest in properly: building cultures where people actually want to show up.
With a background spanning strategic HR leadership, recruitment, compensation & benefits, performance management, and people operations, she has seen how quickly the foundations of a business shift when the humans inside it are engaged, recognized, and given room to grow. She has also seen what happens when they are not. That experience informs everything she does.
Before joining CovertSwarm, Ellie built and led people functions across a range of organizations, growing teams by as much as 400% while keeping culture coherent and momentum intact. That kind of growth does not happen by accident. It requires rigour in hiring, clarity in how the organization communicates its values, and a relentless focus on the day-to-day moments that either build trust or erode it.
As a CIPD Associate, she brings both the professional grounding and the practical instinct needed to translate HR strategy into programmes people actually engage with.
Ellie joined CovertSwarm in April 2024 as Head of People and Culture. Her focus is on shaping and scaling the people strategy as the company grows, building the high-performance culture CovertSwarm’s mission demands, and making sure the environment supports the exceptional talent the Hive attracts. In 2026, that means a particular emphasis on internal training programmes: raising standards, embedding quality, and investing in the team’s development in ways that have real impact.
When she is not at work, you will find her travelling, hunting for interesting architecture, watching films, or eating something good.
Appearances
Ellie has hosted three episodes of CovertSwarm’s podcast, You Deserve to be Hacked and appeared as a panelist on a webinar:
- Episode 25: SwarmCon 7 at Bletchley Park (April 2024) – Ellie’s debut as host, exploring highlights from CovertSwarm’s 7th SwarmCon event, held at the home of the Enigma codebreakers
- Episode 28: DEF CON Badge Life (July 2024) – Behind the scenes on the CovertSwarm badge project ahead of DEF CON 32
- Episode 29: DEF CON: Las Vegas Special (August 2024) – Live from DEF CON 32 in Las Vegas, interviewing Swarm members on standout talks, villages, and experiences
- Thriving Minds, Thriving Teams: Supporting Mental Health in Remote Work – Webinar panellist, hosted by SafetyWing’s Remote Health platform
