People & Culture Lead

Emerge Group; Auckland; Hybrid; NZD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Emerge Group in Auckland is seeking a Senior People & Culture leader to partner with founders and managers, shaping systems, rhythms, culture and habits to support sustainable scale. You will design pragmatic people processes for onboarding, performance, employee relations and recruitment while staying hands-on and strategically credible in a fast-moving fintech.

This senior, influential role will drive leadership capability and employee experience during rapid growth, with the autonomy to build

Qualifications

• Senior, 10+ years experience across people, culture, HR or people operations.
• Experience building or improving people processes in a growing business.
• Sound understanding of New Zealand employment obligations.
• Commercially minded, practical and credible in navigating both strategic and hands-on work.
• Ability to work with founders, executives and managers in a fast-moving fintech/scale-up.
• Be the first senior People & Culture hire and shape the function from the ground up.

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 scales.

Skills

People & Culture

Leadership

Employee relations

Recruitment

Onboarding

Performance

Job description

Shape 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.
• 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.