Sr. Director, Global Payroll

Position Summary

The Sr. Director, Global Payroll is responsible for the end-to-end strategy, operations, compliance, controls, funding coordination, vendor governance, and process modernization of payroll across all countries in which the organization operates. This senior leader ensures accurate, timely, compliant, and controlled payroll delivery for a global workforce while partnering closely with HR, HRSS/HRIS, Finance, Accounting, Treasury, Tax, Legal, and external vendors.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and execute the global payroll strategy, aligning payroll operations with HR, Finance, Accounting, Treasury, Tax, and Legal objectives.
• Lead, mentor, and develop a distributed global payroll team, ensuring effective workload management, cross-training, succession planning, and operational continuity.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for payroll-related risks, compliance matters, and operational issues across the organization.
• Oversee payroll processing across all countries, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, compliance, and a positive employee experience.
• Maintain compliance with global payroll regulations, including tax laws, labor requirements, statutory reporting, social security obligations, and country-specific payroll practices.
• Manage relationships with payroll vendors, employer-of-record (EOR) providers, government agencies, and local payroll partners.
• Establish and maintain a controlled global payroll operating model, including payroll calendars, approval workflows, service-level expectations, escalation paths, and process documentation.
• Coordinate payroll funding, cash requirements, payment approvals, and release schedules with Treasury while ensuring accurate reconciliation of payroll outputs.
• Partner with Accounting on payroll journal entries, accruals, reconciliations, close activities, and general ledger mapping.
• Maintain strong payroll governance and SOX-compliant internal controls, including audit readiness, segregation of duties, access reviews, change management, and documentation retention.
• Lead payroll technology initiatives, including system implementations, upgrades, integrations, vendor transitions, and payroll transformation projects.
• Drive process automation, standardization, and continuous improvement efforts to increase efficiency, scalability, and accuracy.
• Partner with HR, HRIS, Finance, Legal, Tax, Treasury, and business leaders to support organizational growth, mergers and acquisitions, workforce expansion, and new country onboarding.
• Deliver payroll reporting, analytics, and workforce insights to support budgeting, forecasting, compensation planning, and executive decision-making.
• Establish and monitor payroll performance metrics, identify recurring issues, and implement root-cause corrective actions.

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive payroll experience, including at least 5 years in a global or multi-country payroll leadership role.
• Demonstrated experience managing payroll operations across 10+ countries spanning multiple regions, including the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.
• Proven leadership experience managing and developing distributed payroll teams and influencing cross-functional stakeholders.
• Deep knowledge of international payroll regulations, statutory compliance requirements, tax obligations, social security programs, and country-specific payroll practices.
• Strong understanding of payroll governance, SOX controls, audit readiness, variance analysis, access management, documentation retention, and segregation of duties.
• Experience coordinating payroll funding, payment approvals, treasury processes, and payroll accounting activities.
• Proven track record leading payroll system implementations, payroll vendor transitions, parallel testing, and process transformation initiatives.
• Advanced analytical and problem-solving skills, including expertise in payroll data analysis and large-scale payroll reconciliations.
• Exceptional communication, stakeholder management, documentation, and escalation management skills.
• Strategic mindset with the ability to balance operational excellence, compliance, risk management, and continuous improvement.
• Ability to lead through ambiguity, create scalable processes, and drive accountability across global teams.
• High attention to detail, strong business judgment, and a commitment to confidentiality and data integrity.

Preferred Qualifications

• Certified Payroll Professional (CPP), Global Payroll Management Certificate (GPMC), or equivalent certification.
• Experience with enterprise payroll and HCM platforms, including Oracle HCM, ADP Workforce Now, ADP Streamline/Celergo, and local payroll solutions.
• Experience with ERP and financial systems integrations, such as NetSuite or Oracle ERP.
• Experience working in a publicly traded company or SOX-regulated environment.
• Experience supporting rapid international expansion, mergers and acquisitions, entity setup, and new country payroll implementations.
• Experience supporting LATAM payroll operations and/or Spanish-language payroll vendor management.