Principal, Talent & Leadership Development

How will you contribute?

Build the talent and leadership foundation.

Assess current leadership capability and talent practices and build a multi-year talent roadmap tied to business priorities.

Diagnose organizational design issues that limit leadership and talent effectiveness and lead the change management work needed to roll out new structures, roles, and processes successfully.

Refine the leadership model so it defines what great leadership looks like, and uses it as the backbone for hiring, assessment, development, performance, and promotion.

Build core talent programs and processes, starting with the highest impact of needs.

Design programs and content for a global, multicultural workforce across our 10 countries, building cultural awareness and planning for translation and localization from the start rather than retrofitting it later.

Raise the bar on talent.

Build a culture where leaders consistently recognize, hire, and reward strong talent.

Equip leaders to assess talent well, through structured behavioral interviewing, clear success profiles, and calibrated talent discussions.

Introduce best practice, multi-method assessment (360 feedback, personality and cognitive measures, business simulations, and structured interviews) for hiring development and promotion decisions.

Partner with Talent Acquisition to attract and select the strongest candidates for critical roles.

Attract, identify, develop, and promote high potentials.

Set clear, evidence-based criteria for identifying high-potential talent across the organization.

Build accelerated development paths: stretch assignments, rotations, coaching, mentoring, and executive exposure.

Run talent reviews and succession planning for critical roles, with ready-now and ready-later candidates identified.

Track and improve promotion readiness, time-to-promotion, and retention for high-potential and critical talent.

Elevate leadership across the organization.

Design, build and personally facilitate leadership programs end to end, from first-time managers to senior leaders.

Build and facilitate programs that strengthen the executive team's effectiveness as a team and offer coaching support to senior leaders as needed.

Support new leaders onboarding and integration so leaders become effective quickly.

Partners on performance management and calibration so development and promotion reinforce each other.

Select, implement, and manage AI-driven talent practices.

Identify and introduce AI-driven talent practices that move the organization beyond basic tool use, drawing on deep fluency in the AI talent-tech landscape rather than building the underlying models.

Select and implement AI and people-analytics platforms, whether vendor or in-house, for predictive talent forecasting, to anticipate leadership pipeline gaps, readiness, and retention risk.

Bring AI-driven insights into talent reviews, succession, assessment, and development decisions.

Scout the market for proven AI talent solutions, run pilots, and select and manage the right vendors to scale what works.

Put the governance in place with Legal, Security and Privacy, so AI in talent decisions is responsible, transparent, and checked for bias.

Partners, measurement, and team

Work through HR business partners and business leaders, so talent practices are owned and used across the organization.

Bring deep knowledge of industry best practices and where the market is headed to inform build-vs-partner conversations with the broader cross-functional team, and help identify, evaluate, and manage the strongest vendors, assessment providers, and coaches to build with.

Report impact with clear measures: leadership capability, internal fill rate for leadership roles, promotion speed, high-potential retention, and engagement.

Manage the talent development budget day-to-day — prioritizing spend, tracking ROI, and directing contracted vendors, coaches, and project-based contributors — partnering with the budget owner on formal approval.

What will you bring?

10+ years in talent management, leadership development, or organizational development, including 5+ years leading enterprise-wide programs or initiatives (people-management experience not required).
Experience in organizational design and change management, with a record of leading large-scale change efforts that stick.
A record of building talent and leadership programs from the ground up.
Deep experience with best-practice assessment methods and leadership models, and using them in hiring, development, and promotion.
Experience designing high-potential and succession programs that accelerate internal promotion.
Experience designing and personally facilitating leadership programs and coaching senior leaders.
A track record of evaluating, selecting, and implementing AI-driven talent and people-analytics platforms, whether vendor or in-house (this role chooses and deploys AI tools; it does not require building AI/ML models from scratch), including predictive insights, with a clear view on responsible use.
Experience selecting and managing vendors, assessment providers, and talent platforms.
Strong consulting and influencing skills with senior leaders, and comfort both setting strategy and doing the work.
Experience building talent or leadership content for a global, multicultural workforce, including planning for translation and localization, and adapting content so it lands well across diverse cultural contexts.
Nice to have.
Advanced degree in I-O psychology, organizational development, HR, or related field.
Accreditation in leadership assessments (e.g., Hogan, DiSC) or coaching certification (ICF).

What do we offer?

Healthcare insurance: We provide medical, dental, and vision insurance, and a flexible spending account that allows you to set aside pre-tax dollars to pay for eligible out-of-pocket expenses.
Stock options.
Personal time off: A healthy work-life balance is critical to your success at the office. Smarsh offers a “take-what-you-need” time off policy as well as flexible work arrangements.
401K Match: Smarsh provides a 4% 401K match for which employees are fully vested on day one.
Sabbatical: The Smarsh sabbatical programme provides a time to recharge, study or simply do something you are passionate about away from the workplace. Employees are eligible after six years of service.
Recognition: We’re big on kudos for a job well done. Our employee-recognition programme enables co-workers to nominate their peers who best embody our core values for recognition.