Senior Director, Human Resources

URBN (Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie Group, Free People & Nuuly); Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); On-site; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits

Generous employee discounts

Retirement savings

Paid time off (PTO)

Job summary

URBN is seeking a Senior Director, HR Business Partners, to lead and develop the HRBP function across the organization. This role is accountable for the team's strategic impact and partnership quality with executive clients.

The ideal candidate will have extensive HR experience, demonstrated leadership skills, and a strong understanding of complex HR dynamics in a retail or consumer-facing industry. Comprehensive perks and benefits are offered.

Qualifications

• 8–12 years of progressive HR experience, including senior-level HRBP.
• 5–7 years of direct people-management experience within HR.
• Experience managing HRBPs or HR generalists across multiple client groups.
• Experience working across a complex HR operating model.
• Experience in retail or consumer-facing industries preferred.
• Ability to stay connected to business partnership work while managing a team.

Responsibilities

• Manage and develop a team of 3–6 HR Business Partners.
• Build a high-performing team culture defined by curiosity and accountability.
• Own the talent plan for the HRBP team, including succession planning.
• Design and improve how the HRBP function is structured and deployed.
• Serve as an active, credible HR business partner to executive clients.
• Build strong partnerships with COE leaders across different HR domains.

Skills

Strong working knowledge across all major HR domains

HR operating model knowledge

People-leadership skills

People analytics

Employment law and ER judgement

Change management

HRIS proficiency

Job description

The Senior Director, HR Business Partners is the operating leader of the HRBP function for the entire organization — accountable for the quality, capability, consistency, and strategic impact of a team of HR Business Partners.

The Senior Director works to ensure that the entire HRBP team is operating at the highest possible level, continuously improving, and collectively delivering HR partnership that is coherent, consistent, and business‑driving across all client groups.

The Senior Director also maintains direct business partnership with a diverse executive client group — staying grounded in the actual work of HR partnership, credible in the eyes of the team, and connected to the business dynamics that inform how they lead the function.

Role Responsibilities

Leading & Developing the HRBP Team

• Manage and develop a team of 3–6 HR Business Partners at both leadership and individual contributor levels, providing individualized coaching, structured development plans, and deliberate stretch opportunities calibrated to each person’s growth trajectory.
• Build a high‑performing team culture defined by intellectual curiosity, strategic ambition, peer learning, and mutual accountability — creating an environment where HRBPs feel challenged, supported, and proud of the work they do.
• Own the talent plan for the HRBP team — succession, capacity planning, and hiring strategy — partnering with the Executive Director HR and TA to ensure the team is always building toward its next level of capability.
• Conduct structured performance conversations for all direct reports through URBN Connects, with differentiated feedback grounded in observed business partnership behaviours, not just activity completion.

Building & Evolving the HRBP Operating Model

• Design and continuously improve how the HRBP function is structured, resourced, and deployed — including client alignment, operating norms, workload management, and how HRBPs collaborate across client group boundaries.
• Identify opportunities to introduce more agile, flexible resource deployment — enabling HRBPs to work on the highest‑priority business challenges across the portfolio, not just serve fixed client groups in isolation.
• Establish shared frameworks, tools, and standards that ensure every HRBP is operating from a common foundation — from talent calibration and performance coaching to engagement action planning and ER advising.
• Partner with the Executive Director HR on the long‑term maturity trajectory of the HRBP function — identifying when and how to advance the team from efficient service delivery toward truly consultative, problem‑oriented HR partnership.

Maintaining Direct Business Partnership

• Serve as an active, credible HR business partner to a defined set of executive clients within the brand or shared services organization — maintaining the consulting edge and business fluency required to lead the team with credibility and firsthand insight.
• Serve as the primary escalation point for complex, high‑stakes, or cross‑brand people situations — including sensitive ER matters, executive‑level performance situations, and significant organisational changes — providing sound judgement and appropriate urgency.
• Use direct client experience to stay current on the business dynamics shaping talent priorities across the portfolio, and share those insights with the Executive Director HR to inform enterprise‑level people strategy.

Integrating the HRBP Team with the Broader HR Function

• Build strong, productive partnerships with COE leaders across Compensation, Benefits, L&D, HR Ops, ER, and Talent Acquisition — ensuring the HRBP team consistently connects business leaders to the right solutions, and that COE programmes land with quality and consistency across all client groups.
• Synthesise the people intelligence generated across the HRBP team into a coherent, enterprise‑level workforce narrative for the Executive Director HR — identifying cross‑cutting themes, shared risks, and systemic opportunities that individual HRBPs cannot see from their individual vantages.
• Partner with COE leaders on programme design, ensuring that the perspectives of corporate brand and shared services employees are reflected in how COE offerings are built, communicated, and measured.

HR Function Strategy & Governance

• Monitor ER case quality and compliance consistency across the HRBP team — ensuring policy is applied consistently, legal risk is managed appropriately, and the team’s ER judgement is continuously improving through coaching and case debrief.
• Contribute to the Executive Director HR’s HR function strategy — including operating model design, HR capability investment, and the evolution of how Shared Services COEs and HRBPs work together to deliver integrated, high‑impact HR solutions.
• Ensure URBN’s HR policies are applied consistently across all client groups served by the HRBP team, and identify patterns of inconsistency or risk that require structural rather than individual responses.

Role Qualifications

Experience

• 8–12 years of progressive HR experience, including demonstrated experience as a senior‑level HRBP with a strong track record of executive‑level business partnership.
• 5–7 years of direct people‑management experience within HR — with a demonstrated ability to develop HR professionals, build team capability, and hold a team to a high standard of quality.
• Experience managing HRBPs or HR generalists across multiple client groups or business units, with a track record of improving team consistency and impact.
• Experience working across a complex HR operating model with COEs and shared services, with a track record of building effective cross‑functional HR partnerships.
• Experience in retail, fashion, lifestyle brand, or consumer‑facing industry preferred — with a demonstrated understanding of how brand culture and business dynamics shape people strategy.
• Demonstrated ability to stay credibly connected to business partnership work while also managing a team — not one or the other, but both simultaneously.

Knowledge & Skills

• Strong working knowledge across all major HR domains (talent management, compensation, L&D, ER, HR Ops, organisational design, workforce planning) — sufficient to guide HRBPs through complex, multi‑domain situations and to hold COE partners accountable for quality outcomes.
• HR operating model knowledge: understanding of how HRBP functions are structured and evolved in the context of systemic HR maturity, including COE integration, pool‑based deployment models, and capability‑based team design.
• People‑leadership skills: ability to coach HR professionals with specificity and care, build team culture deliberately, manage performance with fairness and courage, and develop talent within the function.
• People analytics: ability to synthesise workforce data across multiple client groups into a coherent enterprise narrative — not just managing individual HRBP dashboards, but seeing the pattern across the portfolio.
• Employment law and ER judgement: command of ADA, FMLA, Title VII, ADEA, FLSA, and EEO sufficient to guide the team on complex matters and partner effectively with legal on high‑stakes situations.
• Change management: ability to lead the HRBP team through its own capability evolution — managing resistance, building commitment, and sustaining momentum toward a higher standard of HR partnership.
• HRIS proficiency (UKG or equivalent); comfort with people analytics platforms and AI‑enabled HR tools; willingness to champion adoption within the team.

The Perks

URBN offers comprehensive Perks & Benefits to employees. Availability and eligibility to specific benefits may be subject to your location and employment status. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, PTO, generous employee discounts, retirement savings and much more! For additional information visit www.urbn.com/work-with-us/benefits

EEO Statement

URBN celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We are proud to provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, colour, sex (including gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression), religion, creed, age, physical or mental disability, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, citizenship, service in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic as established by law. We believe strongly in fostering a safe, fair and respectful work environment. To ensure compliance with our non‑discrimination and anti‑harassment policies, we offer anti‑harassment training to managers and employees.