Senior Human Resources Manager

with kinna private limited; Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive base salary

Equity participation

Medical and wellness coverage

Flexible work arrangements

Clear progression paths

Job summary

with kinna private limited is seeking a Senior HR Manager to lead a two-person HR team in Singapore. The role combines strategic HR leadership with hands-on delivery, and a mandate to embed AI capabilities across the organization, starting with HR and extending to the wider workforce.

The ideal candidate blends advisory credibility with operational rigour, and will partner with founders and engineers to drive talent strategy, governance, and scalable people processes in a fast-moving tech

Qualifications

• 12+ years of progressive HR experience, incl. 3+ years leading an HR team.
• Experience in high-growth technology/startup environments preferred.
• Familiarity with AI/HR tech tools and adoption/change management.

Responsibilities

• Partner with founders and leaders to shape the people agenda and growth plan.
• Lead headcount planning, org design, and people processes for rapid scaling.
• Drive AI capability-building and governance within HR and across functions.
• Oversee HR operations: payroll, work passes, onboarding, records and compliance.
• Develop and execute talent attraction, retention, and succession strategies.
• Champion AI literacy and adoption programmes for the wider workforce.

Skills

Strategic HR Leadership

Talent Acquisition

People Analytics

Regulatory Knowledge

Stakeholder Management

Change Management

Job description

About the Client

Our client is a fast-growing technology firm making aggressive inroads into the AI space. Backed by strong commercial momentum and scaling rapidly, the company is building AI products and embedding AI into how it operates. The culture is fast-moving, engineering-led, and unusually ambitious — and the people function needs to match it. They are seeking a seasoned, commercially minded Senior HR Manager to lead HR in Singapore, scale the organization through its next growth phase, and shape how AI is adopted across the business.

Role Overview

Acting as a trusted advisor to founders and functional leaders, the Senior HR Manager leads a team of two — an HR Assistant Manager and an HR Executive — and owns the full people agenda: strategic partnering, talent attraction, organizational design, and HR operations. In a company doubling in size and building AI products, this role carries a clear second mandate: identify, build, and embed AI capabilities across the organization, starting within HR and extending to the wider workforce. The ideal candidate blends strategic advisory capability with hands‑on operational rigor, people-leadership experience, and genuine fluency in how AI changes the way work gets done — someone credible with engineers and founders alike.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Business Partnering: Partner closely with founders, engineering, product, and commercial leaders to diagnose organizational needs, design targeted talent strategies, and support aggressive growth plans.
• Scaling & Workforce Planning: Own headcount planning and organizational design through rapid growth — building structures, levelling frameworks, and career paths that hold up as teams double, without importing bureaucracy the business doesn't need yet.
• Tech Talent Attraction & Retention: Work with hiring managers to win AI, engineering, and product talent in one of the most competitive markets in the region — sharpening employer brand, hiring bars, interview processes, and offer strategy.
• Team Leadership & Development: Lead, coach, and develop the HR Assistant Manager and HR Executive — setting priorities, delegating operational HR delivery (payroll liaison, work passes, onboarding, employee records), reviewing quality, and building both individuals' capability so the function scales ahead of headcount.
• AI Capability Building: Own the organization's AI-in-people agenda end to end — work with business leaders to identify and prioritize high-value use cases, pilot and roll out tools inside HR first as proof of value (people analytics, recruitment automation, employee self-service, knowledge assistants), then scale what works across other functions.
• AI Literacy & Adoption: Design and drive AI enablement programmes for the wider workforce — training, playbooks, and internal champions — so adoption is real rather than nominal, and manage the change and communications that come with it.
• AI Governance & People Analytics: Establish guardrails for responsible use — PDPA compliance, fairness in AI-assisted hiring and assessment, human-in-the-loop review of decisions affecting employees, and clear data-handling standards. Use HR metrics and AI-assisted analysis to deliver actionable insight to leadership on attrition, headcount movement, productivity, and hiring trends.
• Talent Management & Succession Planning: Lead performance cycles, high-potential identification, and succession frameworks to build a leadership pipeline that keeps pace with the company's growth.
• Employee Relations & Engagement: Act as the senior escalation point for employee grievances, disciplinary matters, and performance improvement plans, protecting a high-performance culture as the team grows.
• Compensation & Equity: Work with leadership and regional/global HR on benchmarking, annual merit cycles, and equity/ESOP‑inclusive packages that are competitive against both established tech firms and well‑funded AI startups.
• Organizational Development & Change Management: Lead restructuring, team integration, and workflow optimization during periods of rapid business and technology change.
• Compliance & Governance: Ensure strict adherence to the Singapore Employment Act, Ministry of Manpower (MOM) regulations, Fair Consideration Framework (FCF), Tripartite Guidelines, and PDPA — including the work pass and COMPASS implications of hiring international technical talent at pace.

Requirements

• Experience: Minimum 12 years of progressive HR experience, including at least 3 years directly leading and developing an HR team. Experience in a high‑growth technology, startup, or scale‑up enviris strongly preferred.
• AI & Technology: Demonstrated track record of evaluating, piloting, or implementing AI and HR‑tech tools — and, critically, of leading the adoption and change management around them. Technical or engineering skills are not required; the ability to spot a good use case, run a pilot, and hold your own in a room full of engineers is.
• Regulatory Knowledge: In‑depth familiarity with Singapore labor laws, MOM guidelines, CPF administration, PDPA, and work pass processes (EP/S Pass/COMPASS framework).
• Stakeholder Management: Exceptional interpersonal and negotiation skills, with proven ars and senior technical stakeholders and secure buy‑in for new ways of working.
• Problem‑solving & Adaptability: Strong analytical mindset with a solution‑oriented, pragmatic approach — comfortable operating with ambiguity and shifting priorities.

What's on Offer

• Competitive base salary with performance bonus and equity participation.
• A genuine mandate — the authority and budget to define and build the organization's AI‑cute someone else's.
• A front‑row seat in a company scaling fast in the AI space, with scope that grows with it.
• Comprehensive medical, outpatient, and wellness coverage.
• Flexible work arrangements.
• Clear internal progression pathways within a growing team.