About the Role
We are seeking a dynamic Employee Relations Leader who will leverage deep experience in handling complex employee relations matters within fast-growing international organizations. The ideal candidate will expertly balance pace, fairness, consistency, and risk in a post-IPO business environment. This role requires strong international employee relations and employment law expertise combined with commercial judgment and excellent stakeholder management capabilities. You will guide leaders through sensitive people issues with clarity and confidence, advising across multiple jurisdictions including Africa and Asia, and leading large-scale workforce optimization programs to enable business and organizational change. Your coaching and upskilling efforts will foster a culture of engaged and empowered managers.
Ready to apply for roles like this?
Unlock the company name and direct application link. Subscribers get instant access to fresh jobs across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, many with visa support.
Unlock employer & apply directly
Candidate Profile
- A credible, commercially minded Employee Relations leader who can operate as a trusted adviser to senior leaders and stakeholders while maintaining excellent operational grip on high-risk and sensitive casework.
- Comfortable working in a fast-paced, matrixed, multicultural business where priorities shift quickly, local market requirements vary, and balanced judgment is required on high-impact people matters.
- Passionate about building fair, scalable, and well-governed employee relations and people practices that protect the business, support growth, strengthen leadership capability, and create consistency across markets.
Key Responsibilities
- Act as the lead adviser on complex employee relations matters across relevant markets, including disciplinaries, grievances, investigations, performance concerns, misconduct issues, appeals, sensitive exits, and broader people risk matters.
- Partner with HR, Legal, Compliance, and business leaders to assess people risk, determine appropriate approaches, and deliver timely, fair, and well-documented outcomes.
- Support organizational change activity, including workforce change and optimization programs, operating model changes, consultation processes, and communication planning and execution across relevant markets.
- Advise and coach managers and senior stakeholders on case handling, documentation quality, investigation standards, policy application, and risk-aware decision-making.
- Conduct or guide complex investigations, ensuring processes are followed appropriately, and recommendations are clear, practical, and defensible.
- Partner with the Operations team to identify, design, and deploy AI and automation to improve process efficiency.
- Use people data, case trends, and business insights to identify risk themes, diagnose organizational issues, and recommend practical actions to improve consistency, reduce risk, and strengthen leadership decision-making.
- Develop and continuously improve ER and people-focused frameworks, policies, templates, toolkits, and other manager resources to support consistency and scalability across markets.
- Deliver global people projects that improve employee relations capability, governance, manager effectiveness, policy consistency, and the overall employee experience.
- Ensure local practices remain aligned with employment legislation, internal policy, and organizational values across the markets within scope.
Requirements
- Significant direct experience (8+ years) leading employee relations delivery including at a regional level, with experience of business partnering preferred.
- Extensive employee relations experience in international, high-growth, regulated, or complex business environments in Asia and Africa.
- Experience dealing with complex M&A, assessment & integration projects.
- Demonstrated capability in handling complex investigations, conduct matters, performance cases, grievances, redundancies, and other sensitive employee relations issues from initial assessment to resolution.
- Strong experience operating across multiple countries, with practical understanding of employee relations risk, employment practices, and the need to balance consistency with local compliance.
- Strong knowledge of employee relations risk, process discipline, and the importance of clear documentation, consistency, and defensible decision-making.
- Data-informed, pragmatic, and business-oriented approach to solving people risk and workplace issues.
- Proven ability to build effective working relationships with senior leaders and cross-functional stakeholders including Legal and Compliance teams.
- Strong coaching and influencing skills, with the ability to constructively challenge and raise the quality of people decisions.
- High levels of integrity, professionalism, discretion, and resilience when handling complex or high-pressure situations.
- Ability to plan and prioritize work under tight deadlines, work independently, and collaboratively as part of a team.
Why Join Us?
The company is a high-growth, AI-powered financial infrastructure platform serving over 432 million users in emerging markets across Africa and Asia. We empower our team members by offering unique employee experiences and support individual careers by prioritizing well-being and embracing flexibility.
Benefits
- Flexible remote working
- Competitive remuneration package
- Extra day off on your birthday
- Performance-based bonus scheme
- Comprehensive private healthcare insurance
- All the tech gear you need to work smart
Join us in shaping the future of the company as we grow together.
