Senior Manager, Payroll

Who are we?

This position is part of the APAC Regional Payroll organization and leads multi-country payroll delivery across assigned APAC markets. The Senior Manager provides regional payroll leadership, ensures consistent controls and documentation, and supports scalable operating practices across payroll operations, projects, and vendor delivery.

The role applies expert regional payroll knowledge in decision making and represents payroll in regional or global cross-functional meetings and projects. The Senior Manager is accountable for team delivery, complex escalation resolution, vendor performance, audit readiness, budget discipline, and standardization of payroll processes across the scope.

Success in this role requires strong people leadership, sound judgment, clear ownership, and the ability to balance payroll operations, compliance, transformation, stakeholder management, and continuous improvement in a dynamic multi-country environment.

Key Responsibilities:

Payroll expertise and governance

·       Apply expert payroll knowledge across multiple countries to guide operational decisions, resolve complex matters, and represent payroll in regional or global cross-functional forums.

·       Provide authoritative payroll guidance to stakeholders and senior employees, using regional payroll expertise to support compliant and practical outcomes.

·       Translate complex statutory, policy, and system requirements into clear payroll actions, process updates, and stakeholder guidance.

Payroll operations, controls, and vendor delivery

·       Implement consistent payroll processes across the team, with standardized controls, documentation, calendars, hand-offs, and approval points.

·       Ensure adherence to established process maps, SOPs, work instructions, payroll calendars, SOX controls, and audit requirements.

·       Lead payroll vendor performance discussions and monthly operational reviews, addressing service issues and supporting team members on vendor interactions.

·       Approve payroll bank files, checklists, configuration changes, and other payroll outputs within delegated authority.

·       Optimize resource allocation and manage business continuity planning for the team.

People leadership and stakeholder management

·       Lead and develop managers, senior specialists, and team members through workload planning, coaching, performance management, and succession planning.

·       Manage team assignments based on business priorities, skill sets, development needs, and capacity.

·       Build strong partnerships with HR, Finance, Stock Services, global payroll teams, external vendors, and other stakeholders across APAC.

·       Set clear expectations on task ownership, approvals, escalation discipline, decision authority, and stakeholder accountability. 

Issue management and risk ownership

·       Manage escalation resolution decisions for the regional team, ensuring alignment with internal stakeholders, external vendors, and compliance requirements.

·       Ensure sustainable resolution and control enhancement for payroll issues and recurring service gaps.

·       Assess employee impact, compliance risk, reputational risk, and operational dependencies when resolving complex payroll, HR, Finance, and vendor issues.

·       Drive ServiceNow metric discussions and set accountability with stakeholders where payroll ticket trends require action.

Documentation, audit readiness, and budget management

·       Drive standardization of payroll processes, controls, SOPs, process maps, work instructions, and documentation across the team.

·       Ensure documentation is current, version-controlled, audit-ready, and updated for regulatory, vendor, and system changes.

·       Manage and communicate budget requirements for the team, including vendor budgets, purchase orders, cost controls, budget risks, and change requests within approved limits.

·       Review and participate in vendor contract and SLA negotiations, challenging vendor pricing and contract scope where needed to support cost control and value optimization.

Transformation, projects, and continuous improvement

·       Lead payroll transformation and standardization initiatives across assigned APAC markets, ensuring improvements align with risk, compliance, audit expectations, and enterprise priorities.

·       Identify automation-ready work and coordinate implementation across the region, while balancing project commitments with business-as-usual payroll requirements.

·       Prioritize improvement opportunities based on enterprise value, compliance risk, employee impact, and implementation complexity.

·       Represent payroll in cross-functional forums and support change management for process, system, vendor, and operating model changes. 

Qualifications 

·       Bachelor’s degree or equivalent required.

·       Minimum 10 years payroll/stock experience (5 years people leadership experience) supporting payroll operations, projects, or payroll/stock services in a multinational environment.

·       Demonstrated people leadership experience, including coaching, workload management, performance management, succession planning, and development of managers or senior payroll professionals.

·       Expert understanding of regional payroll processes, statutory requirements, payroll controls, vendor governance, audit readiness, and multi-country operating models.

·       Experience leading payroll transformation, system implementation, process standardization, continuous improvement, or vendor transition initiatives across APAC or other multi-country environments.

·       Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence HR, Finance, Legal, IT, vendors, global payroll teams, and senior business leaders.

·       Experience managing vendor performance, budgets, purchase orders, cost controls, change requests, and contract or SLA discussions preferred.

·       Strong understanding of compliance frameworks including SOX controls, internal audit expectations, data confidentiality, and payroll documentation standards.

·       Familiarity with payroll systems and tools such as ADP GlobalView, ADP Celergo, SAP Payroll, Workday, Kronos, ServiceNow or Salesforce Service Cloud preferred.

·       Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English, with high cultural awareness and the ability to lead across diverse markets.

·       Strong analytical, decision-making, issue management, and risk assessment skills.

·       Knowledge of Lean, Six Sigma, automation, or continuous improvement methods preferred.

Equinix is committed to ensuring that our employment process is open to all individuals, including those with a disability.  If you are a qualified candidate and need assistance or an accommodation, please let us know by completing this form.

Equinix is an Equal Employment Opportunity and, in the U.S., an Affirmative Action employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to unlawful consideration of race, color, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, place of birth, citizenship, sex, pregnancy / childbirth or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic partnership status, age, veteran or military status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, political / organizational affiliation, status as a victim or family member of a victim of crime or abuse, or any other status protected by applicable law. 

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