The Role
Lead and scale Upways People function as a leadership team member: build pragmatic HR foundations, own end-to-end talent acquisition, manage employee relations and compliance (France/multi-country), enable managers, deploy HR systems, and drive people analytics and operational processes to support fast growth and international expansion.
Summary Generated by Built In
Upway is looking for its first Head of People, someone who will partner with the Co-founders and the rest of the leadership team to build and scale the People function. This role sits on the leadership team and participates in company-level strategic decision-making.
This role is not about building “perfect” HR systems. It is about bringing clarity, judgment, and leadership on people and organizational topics in an environment where things evolve quickly and are not always fully defined.
The Head of People role will be a highly strategic position within Upway, a founder-led scale-up, and therefore the candidate will be someone who is pacy, action orientated, pragmatic and results driven.
Key Responsibilities
Partner with founders & leaders
- Act as a close partner to the founders on People, org design, and leadership topics
- Bring structure and perspective to people decisions as the company scales
- Create a pragmatic People operating rhythm (cadence, prioritization, leadership alignment, communication)
- Challenge assumptions when needed, always in the interest of the company’s long-term health
Build simple, scalable people foundations
- Translate business priorities into a clear HR roadmap (6–12 months) and execute with speed.
- Own the TA strategy and delivery end-to-end: workforce planning, role definition, sourcing strategy, interview design, hiring manager enablement, and offer approach.
- Personally drive critical hires and raise hiring standards while maintaining speed.
- Build scalable recruiting infrastructure (tools, playbooks, metrics, partner management).
- Coach leaders on hiring discipline and set clear measures of success (quality, time-to-hire, funnel health).
- Avoid over-engineering: bring “just enough process” to strengthen accountability and execution without slowing the company down.
Handle sensitive topics with judgment
- Personally handle complex employee relations and sensitive situations
- Step into difficult conversations directly, balancing empathy and firmness
- Support organizational changes and transitions with clarity and calm
Enable managers and leaders
- Help managers grow into their roles by setting clear expectations
- Build lightweight people analytics to steer decisions (headcount, attrition, hiring velocity, performance signals).
- Raise the overall quality of people management across the company
- Model strong leadership behaviors: clarity, accountability, and courage
Operations, systems & employee relations
- Build and run the operational backbone of People in all the regions: contracts, onboarding, policies, payroll/benefits coordination, and scalable employee experience for both office and frontline populations.
- Select and deploy systems that scale (HRIS, ATS, onboarding tools) with a bias toward simplicity and adoption.
- Ensure strong compliance and risk management across geographies (France as the anchor, multi-country exposure valued).
- Be hands-on on employee relations: performance/disciplinary processes, conflict management, exits, sensitive cases, and partnership with external counsel/advisors.
- In France, lead constructive social dialogue (CSE/employee representation) with rigor and pragmatism
Skills, Knowledge and Expertise
What we're looking for
- Built and scaled a People function from scratch or through a major inflection point (hypergrowth, international expansion, new sites/regions), including structuring the team, operating model, and priorities
- Partnered directly with founders/executives in high-intensity contexts and handled sensitive decisions (org changes, underperformance, leadership transitions, restructurings when applicable) with rigor and pace
- Operated across multiple countries (Europe and/or U.S.), balancing global principles with local compliance and execution realities.
- Demonstrated a low-bureaucracy approach: shipped “minimum viable” People processes quickly, iterated based on feedback, and protected business agility while reducing risk.
- Hands-on experience with employee relations (e.g. CSE/Works Council) and labor law (incl. France required)
- Natural authority and assertiveness, without being rigid or dogmatic
- Fluent in English (French is a plus)
About
At Upway, we are making electric mobility accessible to everyone. We are looking for high intelligence, high energy and high integrity people to join us on an exciting journey and reshape mobility with us.Our mission is to make e-bikes the norm, redefining how the world moves. As the global leading platform for certified pre-owned and refurbished e-bikes, we proudly serve customers across nine countries, including France, Germany and the US.We are an international company and operate from Paris, Antwerp, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Los Angeles, Amsterdam and New York. In just three years, we achieved a fast paced growth, ambitious expansion and secured $120M+ from leading investors, including Sequoia, Exor Seed, Korelya Capital & GFC.
Skills Required
- Built and scaled a People function from scratch or through a major inflection (hypergrowth or international expansion)
- Partnered directly with founders/executives and handled sensitive organizational decisions (restructurings, leadership transitions, underperformance)
- Operated across multiple countries (Europe and/or U.S.), balancing global principles with local compliance and execution
- Hands-on experience with employee relations, CSE/Works Council engagement and labor law (France experience required)
- Select, deploy and operate HR systems (HRIS, ATS, onboarding tools) and manage payroll/benefits coordination
- Designed and executed pragmatic, minimum-viable People processes and recruiting infrastructure (playbooks, metrics, interview design)
- Strong leadership presence: ability to coach managers, lead difficult conversations, and influence at executive level
- Fluent in English
- French language ability
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The Company
What We Do
Upway is a leading international marketplace for certified pre-owned electric bikes. Founded in 2021, the company specializes in the refurbishment and resale of e-bikes, aiming to make sustainable electric mobility accessible and affordable. Upway operates an extensive circular mobility network, partnering with retailers and individuals to recondition bikes and provide them with a one-year warranty across multiple countries, including the US and Europe.
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