Payroll & Rewards Lead – APAC / Global

Join the revolution in hospitality tech!

Liven is a leading global data, technology, and customer experience provider for the hospitality industry. From humble beginnings, we have grown to serve over 6,000 venues and millions of diners across Australia, the USA, and Southeast Asia, processing over 120 million transactions worth more than $3 billion (AUD) annually.

At Liven, our platform is built to help hospitality businesses save more and work smarter by seamlessly integrating every aspect of their operations — from ordering and payments to back-of-house management.

Driven by a deep passion for the hospitality industry, we continuously innovate to elevate the experience for both venues and their guests. Our solutions are powered by AI-enriched insights and automated workflows, enabling smarter decision-making and smoother operations at scale.

We’re proud to be an AI-first organisation. By automating repetitive tasks, we free up space for our teams — and our customers — to focus on what truly matters: solving complex problems, delighting guests, and driving meaningful growth.
Key Milestones:

• Expansion: Acquired OrderUp, Abacus, Zeemart, Copper and Nomnie forming Asia Pacific’s largest end-to-end group in hospitality technology.
• Global Reach: From Melbourne to New York, Singapore to Jakarta, and all the way to Chennai, our presence spans major cities across the globe.

If you're someone who thrives on creativity, bold thinking, and using technology to make things better, faster, and smarter — you’ll feel right at home here.

Here’s a quick glimpse of Liven: 

• You can visit Career 
• You can visit LinkedIn 
• You can Visit Blog
• Acquisition News

About the role

Liven is seeking a hands-on, commercially sharp Global Payroll & Total Rewards Lead to own how we pay, reward, and scale talent across Southeast Asia and APAC. As Liven continues its rapid growth, payroll accuracy, regulatory compliance, and structured remuneration frameworks are mission-critical to enabling speed without sacrificing governance.

Reporting to the Chief People Officer, this role will act as the central owner for global payroll execution and total rewards operations. You will design scalable compensation frameworks, ensure full statutory compliance across markets, and partner closely with Finance and Talent to embed financial discipline into every hiring and remuneration decision.

This is a builder role suited to a strong individual contributor or emerging leader ready to take end-to-end ownership of payroll and rewards in a high-growth SaaS environment, with the opportunity to evolve the function as the company scales.

What you'll do

• Own end-to-end global payroll execution across Indonesia, Australia, India, Singapore, and EOR markets
• Ensure 100% payroll accuracy, compliance, and audit readiness across all jurisdictions
• Govern employment tax, superannuation, statutory benefits, and regulatory obligations
• Own and optimise payroll systems (Rippling), controls, SOPs, and reconciliations
• Design and maintain global salary bands, job architecture, and leveling frameworks
• Lead market benchmarking using tools such as Pave, Mercer, Radford, or equivalent
• Design and operate short-term incentives, sales commission structures, and bonus plans
• Build and manage long-term incentive programs and employee equity/share plans
• Act as final approver for offers, promotions, and salary adjustments
• Lead annual and ad-hoc salary review cycles aligned to performance outcomes
• Partner with Finance on workforce planning, headcount cost governance, and margin discipline
• Build dashboards and reporting for compensation, equity exposure, and remuneration analytics
• Establish governance frameworks that ensure pay-for-performance is transparent, consistent, and scalable
• Build and scale a high-performing payroll and rewards capability as the company grows

Qualifications

• 6–10 years’ experience in global payroll and/or total rewards
• Strong hands-on payroll execution experience across Southeast Asia and APAC
• Deep knowledge of employment tax, statutory compliance, and multi-country payroll governance
• Experience designing variable compensation, sales incentives, and equity plans
• Proven ability to build scalable compensation frameworks in high-growth environments
• Strong financial acumen with ability to partner closely with Finance
• Experience with payroll systems such as Rippling (or similar platforms)
• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, or related field
• CPA / CA qualification or strong employment tax expertise highly regarded
• Experience in SaaS, technology, or high-growth businesses

Good to Have

• Experience scaling total rewards in a multi-entity, cross-border structure
• Advanced compensation analytics and BI dashboard development experience
• Exposure to ESOP structuring and global equity governance
• Experience implementing or transforming payroll systems across regions