HR Lead, Francophone

What you would be expected to do

• Regional HR leadership: Coach and develop the in-country HR team across the Francophone markets, setting a consistent standard of delivery and building regional HR capability, bench strength and succession.
  
• Talent acquisition: Own talent acquisition for the region end-to-end on Pinpoint, holding a 30-day turnaround for roles at or below manager grade and 60 days above, closing at least 90% of positions through direct sourcing, and running documented intake discussions, structured panels and competency-based assessment on every role.
  
• Inclusive hiring: Drive inclusive hiring through gender-decoded, template-compliant job descriptions, gender blinding on Pinpoint, diversified interview panels, reference and background checks completed before offer, and timely, respectful feedback to every applicant, while lifting gender representation across the region’s teams, particularly in pay-as-you-go sales.
  
• Onboarding: Deliver an onboarding experience that shortens the learning curve: pre-planned inductions, an onboarding buddy for every joiner, complete joining documentation on HiBob, goals set within 45 days, 30-day and 60-to-90-day pulse checks, and probation evaluations completed within defined timelines.
  
• Engagement and inclusion: Foster inclusion, belonging and engagement through quarterly story circles and Culture Champion sessions in each country, HR-led skip-level dialogues that turn employee feedback into tracked action plans, Gallup survey action planning with managers, a monthly engagement calendar, and quarterly well-being sessions with our Employee Assistance Programme partners.
  
• Learning: Build a culture of learning by identifying capability needs, running skill-share sessions in every market, driving adoption of Sun King Center for Leadership programmes, and keeping completion of mandatory e-learning, particularly the Sexual Harassment and Personal Safety modules, above 90%.
  
• Performance management: Raise the quality of performance management, with 100% completion of review cycles within timelines, quarterly manager capability sessions on feedback, coaching and difficult conversations, and performance outcomes that inform pay, promotion, succession and mobility outcomes.
  
• Employee relations: Act as the senior employee relations authority for the region: lead fact-finding and investigations alongside a designated second, chair disciplinary and appeal hearings, drive cases to closure within 30 days, consult the Head of Employee Relations from the outset on gross misconduct and potential terminations, and secure the required approvals before any termination.
  
• Health, safety and compliance: Safeguard health, safety and statutory compliance across all Francophone markets, with accurate recording of occupational incidents and illnesses on HiBob, work injury benefit claims progressed for every eligible case, serious workplace incidents escalated within 24 hours, and full compliance with local labour legislation and statutory reporting.
  
• Talent management: Own the region’s talent agenda by maintaining a current view of top talent and high-potential employees by function, holding career conversations with key talent, building succession for critical roles, identifying retention risks early, and reporting progress through a quarterly talent dashboard.
  
• HR operations, payroll and analytics: Ensure accurate and compliant payroll in every market, including those managed directly by HR; optimise and automate employee lifecycle workflows on HiBob; maintain standardised dashboards covering headcount, attrition, hiring, performance and engagement; and use AI tools to surface insight faster and lift the team’s productivity.
  
• Offboarding: Make offboarding a priority: exit interviews for every voluntary leaver with insights fed back to managers and acted on, clean handovers and clearance, full and final settlements within 30 days, and attrition reviews that lead to targeted retention action.
  
• Cross-functional partnership: Collaborate with sales, operations, finance, logistics and other teams so that people decisions support commercial delivery, and travel regularly across the region to spend time with field, warehouse and retail teams.

You might be a strong candidate if you

• At least 8 years of progressive HR experience, including 3 or more years supporting multiple countries, and a track record of leading and developing an HR team.
• A degree in human resources, business, psychology, law or a related field; CIPD, SHRM or an equivalent professional qualification is an advantage.
• Working knowledge of labour law and statutory practice in West or Central Africa, with the confidence to get up to speed quickly on new jurisdictions. Familiarity with the labour codes of Togo, Cameroon or Benin is a strong plus.
• Deep employee relations experience: fact-finding and investigations, disciplinary and appeal hearings, terminations, and exposure to labour tribunals or labour inspectorate processes, with the judgment to know when to escalate and the discipline to document properly.
• Hands-on experience with an HRIS and an applicant tracking system (HiBob and Pinpoint, or comparable platforms), the ability to build and act on people dashboards rather than relying on assumption, and comfort using AI tools to work faster and better.
• Experience supporting large, distributed, field-based workforces in sales, logistics, retail or a similar high-volume environment, not head-office populations alone.
• Experience overseeing multi-country payroll and HR operations, including the selection and management of outsourced providers and statutory compliance.
• Fluent in both English and French (written and spoken) and outstanding communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to engage effectively with diverse stakeholders across cultures and seniority levels. 
• A genuine commitment to fairness: the instinct to evaluate every case on its merits, advocate for what is right, and hold the line even when it is uncomfortable.
• Willingness to travel regularly across the region and to be based in one of Sun King’s Francophone markets.

What Sun King offer

• Professional growth in a dynamic, rapidly expanding, high-social-impact industry
• An open-minded, collaborative culture with enthusiastic colleagues driven by the challenge of innovation and making a profound impact on people and the planet.
•  A truly multicultural experience: you will have the chance to work with and learn from people from different geographies, nationalities, and backgrounds.
•  Structured, tailored learning and development programs that help you become a better leader, manager, and professional through the Sun King Center for Leadership.

About
Sun King is the world’s leading off-grid solar energy company, combining cutting-edge product design, fintech, and field operations to deliver energy access for the 1.8 billion people who live without an affordable and reliable electric-grid connection.Sun King has built a new kind of energy utility: distributed, green, customer-centric, and affordable. We bring clean, reliable, decentralized energy directly into people’s lives — from solar kits that provide first-time energy access to multi-kilowatt systems that serve both off-grid users and grid-connected customers powering larger homes, schools, hospitals, farms, offices, and light manufacturing.Already, 25 million homes and businesses rely on Sun King for electricity supply and the appliances and services it enables: lighting, televisions, fans, refrigeration, and smartphones. Sun King combines energy generation, energy-efficient appliances, installation, and financing into one seamless offering. Think of it as a distributed utility, designed for wherever energy is needed and designed to scale with its users as incomes and energy needs grow.Sun King makes solar products affordable to low-income households and businesses via ‘pay-as-you-go’ (PAYG) purchase financing. Sun King installs solar after customers pay a small deposit. Customers then make small, manageable payments of as little as US $0.14 a day via mobile money or cash.Instead of paying for expensive, polluting, and health-damaging kerosene for lighting or diesel for power, customers unlock savings through accessing solar power and after one to two years of payments, customers own their solar equipment outright.Sun King collects payments digitally through mobile money systems and its 35,000 field agents — over 1 million payments each day. To date, Sun King has extended more than $1.4 billion in PAYG loans to customers.Sun King began by powering homes and businesses with solar systems delivered through PAYG financing. Now, we’re using the same model to make smartphones and clean cooking equipment affordable: helping households connect to the digital economy and transition from wood-based fuels to modern, sustainable alternatives.Sun King employs 3,500 full-time staff in 14 countries, with specialties spanning product design, data science, logistics, customer service, sales, software, operations, and more — all with a passion to serve off-grid families. Sun King is committed to gender diversity in the workplace. Women represent 42% of Sun King’s workforce.