People Grid
Showcase key team members and contacts
| Date | Update |
| 27.11.25 | Find people: Added new dropdown to filter by location and specialty. Introduced Entity/Acquisitions taxonomy and field. Developed a broker toggle field to tag people as brokers. |
Best practice demo
Meet the team or other brief heading
You can add a line here to introduce the team and expand on your heading, if you like.
RoleAdd a few short lines about their professional experience, skills, and expertise.
You could also mention their role and responsibilities in the team, or their ethos and main motivations.
If you include ways to get in touch or connect they will show at the end, like this:Additional resources
- Role
Use paragraphing to avoid off-putting blocks of copy.
Keep it brief, relevant, and to the point. This helps it stay engaging and informative.
Aim for consistent styling across headshots when it comes to lighting and backdrop.Additional resources
- AccreditationsRole
Option to add a pithy quote here
You'll need to add their name and role, and a headshot. Without these, you won't be able to save your entry.
Other fields are optional. If you're adding a quote, it will appear at the top of this section. Make quotes short and something they would really say.
If you choose ‘hide modal’, this small window won't open for anyone in the grid (see demo below), meaning all biographies will be hidden.Additional resources
Don't want to show biographies?
Here's how it looks (and functions) if you choose ‘hide modal’ for your grid:
Usage guidance
Overview
Showcase key team members and contacts
The People Grid is an engaging way to show information about team members. As well as their name and job title, you can include their:
- Team
- Contact details
- Portrait photo
- Biography
How to use it
Using the People Grid is a two-step process. For the component to work, each person you want on the page must first have an entry in the People Directory – a library of Howden profiles.
Follow steps 1 to 4 to make a new People Directory entry from scratch, repeating this for each stakeholder. If they already have entries, you can skip to step 5.
Step 1: Add a new People Directory entry
To start a new entry, select:
- Content → People Directory → Add people
Step 2: Complete the personal details section
You must provide the stakeholder’s name and role. You can also choose to add further details, including their:
- Team
- Email address
- Telephone number
- LinkedIn profile
Step 3: Add the stakeholder’s biography
The biography should outline the stakeholder’s responsibilities and achievements.
Keep biographies short and avoid large blocks of text. Don’t write more then 100 words.
You can turn off biographies by selecting ‘hide modal’. This turns them off for everyone featured in the grid.
Step 4: Add a headshot of your stakeholder
Make sure the headshot shows your subject matter expert in their best light. That means both their clothes and expression should look professional.
For best results, follow the recommended image requirements:
| Format | Orientation | Dimension | File size |
| JPG | Square | 400px x 400px | <100kb |
Once you’ve added the headshot, choose ‘save’.
Step 5: Select your People Directory entries
Add the People Grid component to your page. Use the search bar to find your stakeholder’s profile. Then select ‘save’.
Optional step: Translate profiles for use in foreign language sites
When using profiles on a foreign language website, they need to have the relevant domain suffix. For example:
- /it-it
- /es-es
- /fr-fr
Without this, they won’t work.
Profiles must also be written in the appropriate language for that country.
Find your profile in the People Directory. Then select:
- Edit → Translate → Add (choose relevant country)
This creates a new profile within the chosen domain, with the required domain suffix. The profile will also be translated into the domain’s language.
Admin-only: Filtering and search
You can filter the People Grid using tags, including:
- Business area
- City
- Job title
This allows you to present profiles in logical groups and reduce clutter. Meanwhile, the search function is helpful for users when there are many profiles displayed.
This is an admin-only feature that requires profiles to be tagged with the appropriate labels. To activate this feature, contact the Collaboration & Client Solutions team.
Recommended image specifications
| Format | Orientation | Dimensions | File size |
| JPG | Square | Width: 400px Height: 400px | <100kb |
For more information on how to use images in the CMS go to the Image Basics page.
Do's and don'ts
Do
Do add a job title
You must add a job title (called 'Role manual') to the People Directory for the entry to be accepted.
Do think about ongoing maintenance
Keep directory entries up to date, including changes to titles and teams. Doing this for lots of people can take more effort than you might expect – another reason to keep to a select few per page.
Don't
Don’t use low-res images
If your image isn’t high quality enough, it will stretch and will look blurry and pixelated. The component won’t adjust to match your image size.
Don’t add too many profiles
Don’t add any more than four profiles per page. You can, but you page will look cluttered (and long), so we don’t recommend it.