HR Director South Africa

Diageo; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 1 200 000 - 1 700 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading premium drinks company is seeking an HR Director for South Africa. This role is crucial for shaping the People and Culture agenda, focusing on talent development, employee experience, and organizational effectiveness. The candidate should have a degree in a relevant field and proven experience in leading people strategies in a multinational environment. Join a team passionate about building iconic brands and delivering outstanding performance.

Qualifications

• Degree in a relevant field.
• Experience in leading people and culture strategies in multinational environments.
• Strategic leadership with a focus on performance and results.

Responsibilities

• Lead the People and Culture agenda for Diageo Southern Africa.
• Implement strategies for talent development and employee engagement.
• Ensure organizational effectiveness and culture transformation.

Skills

Leading people and culture strategies

Business partnering

Influencing stakeholders

Coaching for performance

Organizational effectiveness

Education

Degree in a relevant field

Job description

Job Description

Job Title: HR Director South Africa

About us

With over 200 brands sold in nearly 180 countries, we’re the world’s leading premium drinks company. Bring your passion and use your curiosity as you explore, collaborate, and innovate to build brands consumers love. Together with passionate people from all over the world, you’ll test new ideas, learn and grow, and unlock a brighter, more exciting future.

Join us to create a career worth celebrating.

About the Function

Our Human Resources (HR) team bring brilliant people together to help us continue building iconic brands. We harness the diverse talents of our people to help them excel. We champion an inclusive and collaborative culture, where all voices and perspectives are celebrated and valued.

HR is at the heart of markets around the world, finding and developing talent that will unearth new ideas and inspire innovation. From creative problem solvers and entrepreneurs to scientists and engineers — whatever your experience and ideas, we’ll help you to harness your talents, empowering you to be the best you can be.

About the team

We are committed to our vision of being ‘the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer goods company’. Diageo Southern Africa is a critical market within the Diageo South, West & Central Africa business unit; our ambition is to be the No 1 premium spirits player in Africa, and an iconic engine of growth for Diageo. Diageo SA's main offices are in Johannesburg with a supply site in Durban. It operates within a complex and competitive local environment with multiple customer segments and routes to market and a volatile macro-economic and social context.

The Southern Africa alcohol market is highly fragmented, with a complex route to market, a combination of direct delivery and services through specialised distributors, wholesalers and bulk breakers. Our extensive portfolio of spirits brands services consumers across this diverse nation and we continuously seek to deliver high performance leveraging our understanding of the fast-changing market trends and consumer insights.

About the role

The HR Director South Africa role shapes and leads the People and Culture agenda for Diageo Southern Africa. It is a thought partner role to the GM Southern Africa and broader executive team and contributes to shaping the growth agenda of the business. The role's key focus areas will include talent development, embedding a high performance culture, building capabilities, strengthening employee experience and engagement, enhancing organisational effectiveness and culture transformation, while ensuring that Diageo Southern Africa remains an inspiring employer of choice where our people thrive and deliver outstanding performance.

Role Responsibilities

Culture: Uses data and insights including from engagement surveys, to shape the culture where our people grow, perform and thrive.

Organisational Effectiveness and Capabilities: Ensure that the operating model is efficiently designed to deliver business strategy and that the right ways of working and capabilities are in place to deliver performance.

Talent: Implement and embed disruptive strategies to identify, assess, grow and retain the best and most diverse talent for Diageo while ensuring that our value proposition is competitive.

Coaching for Performance: Coaches the Diageo South Africa leadership and their team to deliver breakthrough performance, as well as demonstrate rigor in people development approach.

Employee Relations: Work with site leaders and collective bodies to maintain a positive employee relations environment, including shaping strategies for Collective Bargaining.

People Strategy: Co-create, implement and embed robust people strategies in line with Diageo People Strategy and local performance and growth plans.

Experience / skills required

Degree in a relevant field.

Demonstrable experience in leading ambitious people and culture strategies, business partnering with senior leaders to deliver performance in a multinational matrixed-environment.

Brings depth of understanding of market dynamics and functional expertise.

A strategic and visionary leader who is able to make bold strategic choices that deliver for the short and long term impact.

Has an acute focus on performance and results, is highly accountable, problem solver and determined to win.

Demonstrates pace and urgency, responding quickly to emerging threats and opportunities.

Resilient with an ability to maintain emotional balance in the face of pressure and high-performance expectation.

A bold and courageous leader in their thinking about what is possible and has a track record of leading transformation.

Able to build and nurture high performing teams and insightful into what drives performance.

Adept at building relationships with a broad range of external and internal stakeholders and demonstrated ability to influence across a matrix organisation.

Proven ability to influence, persuade, facilitate and build credibility at all levels within the business.

Diversity statement

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a crucial part of this.

We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you’ll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You’ll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more.

Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to the next level and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world.

Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you.

If you require a reasonable adjustment, please ensure that you capture this information when you submit your application.

Worker Type

Regular

Primary Location

Waterfall

Additional Locations

(none listed)

Job Posting Start Date

2025-12-09