Executive Director, Human Resources

Job Description:

POLITICO is seeking a strategic, consultative, and data-driven Executive Director of Human Resources to lead HR across North America. Reporting to the COO, this leader will serve as a trusted advisor to executive leadership, providing insights, recommendations, and counsel that connect talent strategy to business priorities. 

The ideal candidate brings strong business acumen, sound judgment, and the ability to influence effectively at all levels. They will use workforce data, including attrition trends and employee insights, to identify organizational challenges, inform recommendations, and develop strategies that strengthen retention, leadership effectiveness, and business performance. 

This role requires a balance of strategic advisory leadership and hands-on execution, along with a commitment to developing the HR team and fostering a high-performing, accountable, and engaged workforce. 

Who You Are: 

• You are a strategic HR leader who operates as a trusted advisor and consultant, challenging assumptions, offering thoughtful recommendations, and influencing decisions that support business outcomes. 

• You build credibility with senior leaders by combining sound judgment, strong relationships, business acumen, and data-backed insights. 

• You translate complex workforce trends and organizational challenges into clear, actionable recommendations and measurable strategies. 

• You are comfortable navigating ambiguity, advising leaders through difficult decisions, and balancing employee needs with business priorities. 

• You are a strong people leader who coaches, mentors, and develops your team while promoting accountability, continuous improvement, and a solutions-oriented approach. 

• You work collaboratively with your colleagues globally from talent acquisition, total rewards, HRIS, legal and finance to ensure seamless support for your key business stakeholders. 

What You’ll Do: 

• Strategic Advisory & Business Partnership: Serve as a trusted advisor to the COO and senior leaders, providing consultative guidance on organizational strategy, workforce planning, organizational design, leadership effectiveness, and talent priorities. Influence decisions through sound analysis, business context, and actionable recommendations. 

• Data, Analytics & Workforce Insights: Lead the analysis and reporting of workforce trends, including attrition, retention, turnover drivers, engagement, headcount, and talent movement. Translate findings into clear insights and recommendations that inform leadership decisions and shape people strategies. 

• Attrition & Retention Strategy: Produce regular attrition reporting and insights, identifying trends, patterns, and potential root causes across teams and populations. Partner with leaders to develop targeted retention strategies, monitor outcomes, and assess the effectiveness of interventions. 

• Leadership Coaching & Influence: Advise and coach executives and managers on leadership effectiveness, team dynamics, performance, accountability, employee development, and complex people decisions. Build leaders’ capability to manage and develop their teams effectively. 

• Performance & Talent Management: Lead performance management, talent reviews, succession planning, talent mapping, career development, and internal mobility initiatives. Use data and organizational insights to identify talent risks, capability gaps, and opportunities to strengthen performance and retention. 

• Organizational Effectiveness & Change: Consult with leaders on organizational structure, workforce capabilities, resource allocation, and change management. Provide recommendations that improve collaboration, clarify accountability, and align people and resources with business objectives. 

• Learning & Development: Identify leadership and workforce capability gaps and establish development strategies, training programs, and learning opportunities that support current and future business needs. 

• Employee Relations & Engagement: Provide guidance on complex employee relations matters, investigations, performance concerns, and sensitive leadership decisions. Promote a culture of trust, inclusion, accountability, and respect while balancing risk and business needs. 

• HR Team Leadership: Lead, mentor, and develop the North American HRBP team, establishing clear priorities, strengthening advisory and analytical capabilities, and fostering a proactive, consultative, and commercially minded approach. 

• Global HR Collaboration & Compliance: Partner with international HR colleagues to align global people strategies while addressing North American business needs and applicable employment requirements. Ensure HR practices are effective, consistent, and compliant. 

What You’ll Need: 

• Significant progressive HR leadership experience, including senior-level HR business partnership and broad HR functional responsibility. 

• Demonstrated experience serving as a strategic advisor to C-suite executives and influencing business decisions through sound judgment, consultation, and evidence-based recommendations. 

• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to interpret workforce data, identify trends and root causes, and translate findings into practical business and people strategies. 

• Demonstrated experience producing and presenting HR reporting, particularly attrition, retention, and workforce insights, to inform leadership decisions and measure the impact of interventions. 

• Expertise in organizational effectiveness, workforce planning, talent management, performance management, leadership development, and employee relations. 

• Proven ability to coach and influence senior leaders, navigate challenging conversations, and provide candid, balanced advice on complex people matters. 

• Experience leading organizational change, managing employee relations issues and investigations, and advising on risk and compliance. 

• Proven ability to lead, mentor, and develop HR professionals and build a high-performing, consultative team. 

• Knowledge of U.S. employment laws and multi-state HR practices; Canadian HR experience is a plus. 

• Experience with compensation, HR systems, workforce planning, and people analytics. 

• Excellent communication, presentation, relationship-building, and influencing skills, including the ability to communicate complex data and recommendations clearly to executive audiences. 

• Ability to balance strategic thinking and advisory responsibilities with hands-on execution in a fast-paced, evolving environment. 

• A bachelor’s degree in human resources, business, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience. 

What Success Looks Like: 

• Senior leaders view HR as a credible, consultative partner that strengthens decision-making and business outcomes. 

• Workforce reporting and attrition insights consistently inform leadership discussions and targeted retention strategies. 

• Talent recommendations are supported by data, aligned with business priorities, and evaluated against measurable outcomes. 

• Leaders are better equipped to manage performance, develop talent, and build accountable, effective teams. 

• The HR team operates proactively, delivers meaningful business insights, and provides consistent, high-quality support across North America. 
  

Compensation: $190-215k Annual Base. The final salary offered will be based on factors including relevant experience, skills, and qualifications.

We value our people. Click here for more on what we offer and what it’s like to work for POLITICO. 

Let’s keep in touch. You can view our list of open positions here and email us [email protected]. We hope to see your application soon! 

About Us. 

POLITICO illuminates the forces shaping global power. Since 2007, we have delivered intelligence that anticipates tomorrow's headlines, not reports on yesterday's news. As politics has increasingly become the defining force of our era, our work has never been more vital. 

Cabinet secretaries and Ministers start their mornings with our analysis. CEOs shape strategy around our reporting. Advocacy leaders rely on our insights to move policy. We deliver the straightforward facts and clear-eyed analysis they need to navigate the most complex political landscape of our lifetimes. 

Our 1,100+ publishing professionals across the world's key democratic capitals—Washington, Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin, Sacramento, and New York—form the world's premier politics and policy newsroom. We tell the story of how power really works by explaining who wields it and how they plan to exercise it, connecting dots others miss and delivering scoops from sources others don't even know exist. 

Innovation has always been a core tenet of our story. At launch, we bet that depth would trump scale, that talent would trump traffic, and that politics would become central to modern life. In 2011, we made another bet and launched POLITICO Pro to help decision-makers understand the business of government, transforming both how they shape government action and the business of journalism itself. 

These bets have made POLITICO the most successful digital news startup of its generation and the indispensable resource for leaders who shape the future. Today, we are a rarity in media: a growing, profitable, and sustainable news organization. 

POLITICO is a subsidiary of Axel Springer SE, a family-owned transatlantic media company headquartered in Berlin and New York. Axel Springer is dedicated to shaping the future of journalism in the free world, believing that a free and informed society is essential to democracy. The company’s guiding principles - first articulated as  The Essentials by founder Axel Springer in the aftermath of World War II - remain a cornerstone of the company’s foundation today. Learn more about Axel Springer. 

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