Head of People Experience & Engagement

OhioX; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 191,000 - 265,000; Full time

Job summary

Upstart seeks a Director of People Experience to lead strategy and execution for enterprise People programs, including performance cycles, engagement, and GenAI acceleration. You will collaborate with senior leaders, shape the employee experience, and build scalable processes across a distributed workforce.

The ideal candidate offers 10+ years in employee experience or related fields, with proven ability to drive large, cross-functional programs and translate insights into action.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience across employee experience, internal communications, enterprise program management, People/HR programs, organizational change, or a related field.
• Experience owning complex, enterprise-wide programs that affect a broad employee population and require alignment across senior, cross-functional stakeholders.
• Excellent written and verbal communication. You can present a well-supported point of view to senior leaders.
• Strong influence and relationship-building skills, including the confidence to challenge a partner or negotiate tradeoffs.
• Ability to use quantitative and qualitative data to identify patterns, test assumptions, and recommend action.

Responsibilities

• Own the strategy, design, and end-to-end delivery of Upstart’s mid-year and year-end performance cycles, creating a clear and effective experience for employees and managers.
• Lead Upstart’s employee listening strategy and Pulse program, partnering with People Analytics and HRBPs to move from survey data to organizational insight and action.
• Drive the employee program for GenAI acceleration, helping employees adopt new tools through change strategy, communications, learning, experimentation, and measurement.
• Build and govern a dynamic enterprise employee engagement calendar for the People Team and senior leaders.
• Partner with functional owners to improve timing, sequencing, messaging, and delivery of major company-wide employee asks.
• Strengthen employee resource groups by defining a clear operating model, standards, and self-service tools for volunteers.
• Identify employee-facing needs, develop a point of view, and build scalable practical approaches.
• Translate program insights into concise recommendations for People and business leaders, with strong judgement.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Communication

Influence & relationship building

Data-driven decision making

Change management

Job description

Upstart seeks a Director of People Experience to lead strategy and execution for enterprise People programs, including performance cycles, engagement, and GenAI acceleration. You will collaborate with senior leaders, shape the employee experience, and build scalable processes across a distributed workforce.

The ideal candidate offers 10+ years in employee experience or related fields, with proven ability to drive large, cross-functional programs and translate insights into action.