People & Culture Lead

Icehouseventures; Auckland; On-site; NZD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Icehouse Ventures in Auckland is seeking a senior People & Culture leader to shape the function as it scales. As the first dedicated P&C appointment, you will partner with founders and managers to build practical people processes, culture and leadership foundations across onboarding, performance, and employee relations.

You will balance pace with sound judgement in a fintech scale-up, guiding recruitment, engagement, and leadership capability while ensuring NZ employment obligations are

Qualifications

• Senior, 10+ years generalist People & Culture experience.
• Strong generalist capability across culture, engagement, leadership support, employee relations, recruitment, onboarding and performance.
• Sound understanding of New Zealand employment obligations.

Responsibilities

• Partner with the senior leadership team, founders and managers to build practical people, culture and leadership foundations.
• Lead culture, engagement and employee listening initiatives that keep the business connected as it grows.
• Coach and support managers around feedback, performance, communication and accountability.
• Design and embed simple, scalable people processes across onboarding, performance, employee relations and people operations.
• Support managers with hiring priorities, workforce planning and talent needs as the business continues to scale.

Skills

Senior leadership experience

People & culture generalist

Stakeholder management

Change management

Job description

DescriptionShape the people, culture and leadership foundations for one of New Zealand’s most ambitious fintech scale-ups.

• Join a fast-growing fintech with real momentum
• Step into a newly created senior People & Culture role
• Shape the P&C function in a scaling business from the ground up

Emerge is a fast-growing New Zealand fintech reshaping what modern banking can look like. Built at the intersection of technology, product, engineering and regulated financial services, the business is creating smart, scalable financial products for people, families and businesses.

As Emerge moves from startup to scale-up, the team is ready to strengthen the people, leadership and culture foundations that will support its scale-up journey. This is a rare opportunity to step into a highly influential role where you can build something meaningful from the ground up.

About the role

As the first dedicated Senior People & Culture appointment, you will working closely with the founders and people managers to shape the systems, rhythms, culture and habits that will help Emerge scale well.

This is a senior, hands-on and genuinely influential role. You will contribute at leadership level, act as a trusted partner across the business, and also stay close enough to the detail to build, implement and improve practical people processes that make a real difference.

You will:

• Partner with the senior leadership team, founders and managers to build practical people, culture and leadership foundations.
• Lead culture, engagement and employee listening initiatives that keep the business connected as it grows.
• Coach and support managers around feedback, performance, communication and accountability.
• Design and embed simple, scalable people processes across onboarding, performance, employee relations and people operations.
• Support managers with hiring priorities, workforce planning and talent needs as the business continues to scale.

About you

You’ll bring senior (10+ years) generalist People & Culture experience and the confidence to work closely with founders, executives and managers.

Ideally you will have come from a startup, scale-up, technology business, agency, fintech or another fast-moving environment where you have had to balance pace, sound judgement and good people practice.

You are commercially minded, practical and credible. You know how to build people practices that are clear and useful, rather than overly corporate. You are comfortable moving between strategic conversations and hands‑on delivery, and you bring warmth, judgement and backbone to sensitive people matters.

You will bring

• Experience building or improving people processes in a growing business either as a sole contributor or part of a small P&C team.
• Senior, 10+ years experience across people, culture, HR or people operations.
• Strong generalist capability across culture, engagement, leadership support, employee relations, recruitment, onboarding and performance.
• Sound understanding of New Zealand employment obligations.
• Confidence working with technical, product, engineering, finance or highly analytical teams would be helpful.

Why join Emerge?

• Be the first senior People & Culture hire and shape the function from the ground up.
• Work closely with founders and senior leaders in a business where your voice will matter.
• Join a high-growth fintech doing ambitious, product-led work in a complex and exciting market.
• Make a visible impact on leadership capability, employee experience, culture and ways of working.
• Enjoy the pace, ownership and variety of scale‑up life, without unnecessary corporate layers.