Director, Human Resources - Global

WELLA COMPANY; London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent beauty company seeks a Global HR Director to lead HR strategy for its corporate functions. You will collaborate with senior leaders to enhance organizational effectiveness and foster a high-performance culture while navigating complex HR priorities. This strategic role requires proven leadership, strong problem-solving skills, and compliance knowledge within UK employment law, while offering an opportunity to impact on a global scale.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as an HR leader in a global, matrixed organization.
• Experience with UK employment law and familiarity with EU law.
• Strong business acumen and the ability to manage strategic priorities.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute a forward-thinking HR strategy aligned with business objectives.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leaders across various corporate functions.
• Optimize organizational structures to ensure alignment with business priorities.

Skills

Strategic HR Leadership

Business Partnership

Organizational Design

Operational Excellence

Project Management

Interpersonal Skills

Job description

Global HR Director - Corporate Functions

Location: UK (London or Leeds)

Travel: 15-20%

Reports to: VP HR, Corp Functions

Direct Reports: 1 HR Business Partner

ABOUT THE WELLA COMPANY

Together, WE enable individuals to look, feel, and be their true selves.

Wella Company is one of the world's leading beauty companies, comprised of a family of iconic brands such as Wella Professionals, Clairol, OPI, Nioxin and ghd. With 6,000 employees globally, presence in over 100 countries, Wella Company and its brands enable consumers to look, feel, and be their true selves. As innovators in the hair and nail industry, Wella Company empowers its people to delight consumers, inspire beauty professionals, engage communities, and deliver sustainable growth to its stakeholders.

For additional information about the Wella Company please visit www.wellacompany.com.

The Role

As part of the Corporate Functions People Team, you're instrumental in helping to discover, develop and continuously improve our organizational talent. We rely on you to understand our business challenges and the needs of Wella Company employees. As a seasoned and strategic Global HR Director, you set and lead the HR agenda for many of Wella Company's Corporate Functions, including Technology, Legal, and key pillars of Corporate Finance. You will have client groups based throughout the globe and will interact with both HR COEs and local HR to ensure those in your client group feel tied to their function and true HR partnership and support regardless of your geographic proximity. This is a high-impact, global role responsible for shaping and executing a people strategy that enables these critical functions to deliver on Wella Company's ambitious growth and transformation goals.

As the primary HR partner to these global client groups, the Global HR Director brings both strategic leadership and hands-on execution to drive organizational effectiveness, talent development, and a high-performance culture. This role supports leaders at all levels-from C-suite executives to early-career professionals-and plays a key role in fostering alignment across global teams and regional business units.

This individual will manage one HR Business Partner and must cultivate strong, collaborative relationships with local HR, business and Legal teams across Wella Company's global operations to ensure successful implementation of people programs, processes, and decisions that are globally consistent, locally compliant and fosters positive employee experiences.

Key areas of responsibility:

• Strategic HR Leadership: Support the development and execute a forward-thinking HR strategy aligned with business objectives across global corporate functions. Experience with organization design for fit-for-purpose structures.
• Business Partnership: Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leaders in Technology, Legal, and Finance (and other Corporate functions as needed - e.g., Communications), providing insight and guidance on organizational effectiveness, talent strategy, and workforce planning.
• Organizational Design: Lead initiatives to optimize organizational structures, ensuring agility, scalability, and alignment with business priorities.
• Operational Excellence: Deliver HR solutions that address real business challenges-whether it's talent development, change management, or performance optimization. Connect regularly with CEO partners to ensure smooth and repeatable processes.
• Leadership: Manage and mentor an HRBP, fostering a culture of collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Culture Champion: Embody and promote Wella Company's values, driving engagement and inclusion across diverse, global teams. Proactively design & deliver ways to bring this to life in your client groups (e.g., Town Halls, goal setting & execution, high potential advisory boards, recognition forums, mentorship programs).
• Global Collaboration: Work cross-functionally and across geographies in the matrixed organizations of all WellaCo companies (e.g. GHD). leveraging best practices and ensuring consistency in HR delivery.
• Communication & Clarity: Navigate ambiguity with confidence, bring simplicity and clarity to the forefront, and cascade clarifying communications effectively across the organization as they relate to our People cycle (goal setting and cascading, mid-year and year end process, engagement action planning).
• Project Management: Demonstrate strong project management skills, with a detail-oriented approach and the ability to move initiatives forward efficiently.
• Compliance & Investigations: Familiarity with UK and European employment laws is highly desired (TUPE, contract best practices, etc.). Must be willing and able to quickly and thoroughly conduct investigations when necessary.

What We're Looking For

1. Strategic and hands-on HR leader with a growth mindset, strong business acumen, and a track record of driving impact through HR in global, matrixed organizations
2. Demonstrated success in organizational design, change management, and building scalable people solutions that support business transformation
3. Demonstrated proactive problem-solver who operates with speed and simplicity to deliver results aligned to the broader goals of the Corporate Functions HR team & overall Wella Company
4. Demonstrated interpersonal, influencing, and stakeholder management skills; able to build trust across all levels of the organization
5. Comfortable navigating both strategic and operational HR priorities in a fast-paced environment
6. Working knowledge of UK employment law and ideally EU law & working with Work Councils
7. Able to travel 15-20%, including some international travel