Director, Payroll Strategy and Operations

Eliquent Life Sciences, Inc•Remote, US,

7d•$175,000 - $190,000

About The Position

The Director, Payroll Strategy & Operations provides strategic leadership for the governance, transformation, and scalability of ELIQUENT’s global payroll function. The role partners with Human Resources, Finance, Payroll, Technology, and external providers to support organizational growth, operational efficiency, and transaction readiness. It focuses on strengthening governance and controls; defining a practical global operating model; simplifying systems, vendors, data, and processes; and preparing documentation and capabilities for transactions and growth. The Director leads transformation initiatives in partnership with the Sr. Payroll Manager and payroll team, which retain responsibility for day-to-day payroll execution. The position provides strategic leadership to the payroll function and direct leadership to the Sr. Payroll Manager. Payroll specialists continue to report through the Sr. Payroll Manager. The Director helps safeguard daily payroll delivery while building capability through clear expectations, cross-training, succession coverage, process ownership, and continuous improvement, and communicates priorities, progress, risks, decisions, constraints, and resource needs to senior leadership.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
10+ years of progressive payroll experience, including meaningful multi-country or global payroll leadership responsibility.
Demonstrated experience improving payroll governance, controls, operating models, systems, vendors, or processes.
Experience leading focused transformation, implementation, consolidation, or continuous-improvement initiatives while maintaining reliable payroll delivery.
Knowledge of payroll controls, compliance, audit readiness, data privacy, vendor management, and business continuity.
Strong program leadership, prioritization, communication, stakeholder alignment, risk management, and change-management skills.
Ability to translate complex payroll and operational matters into clear, pragmatic recommendations for senior leadership.
Demonstrated people leadership and ability to build capability through an existing payroll team.
Ability to recognize when specialist legal, tax, accounting, technology, or country expertise is required and coordinate that support effectively.

Nice To Haves

Experience with payroll automation, analytics, workflow tools, or responsible AI enablement.
Experience supporting payroll due diligence, M&A integration, divestiture, or transaction-readiness programs.
Certified Payroll Professional (CPP), Global Payroll Management Certificate, PMP, Lean/Six Sigma, or comparable credential.

Responsibilities

Establish and maintain a proportionate global payroll governance and control framework covering decision rights, approvals, reconciliations, audit trails, segregation of duties, issue escalation, evidence retention, and business continuity.
Partner with the Sr. Payroll Manager to identify operational, compliance, data, system, vendor, and key-person risks, and prioritize practical remediation plans.
Create a payroll operating cadence for performance, risks, controls, issues, and decisions, with clear reporting to the Vice President and relevant stakeholders.
Coordinate payroll audits, control reviews, and corrective actions with Finance, Tax, Legal, HR, Technology, and external experts as appropriate.
Assess the current payroll operating model across employee populations, countries, providers, systems, roles, and cross-functional handoffs.
Define and execute a practical future-state global payroll operating model, including responsibilities, service expectations, escalation paths, controls, and partnership requirements.
Develop a phased payroll roadmap that distinguishes immediate stabilization needs from longer-term transformation opportunities.
Ensure the operating model can support geographic growth, integrations, and changing business needs without compromising payroll accuracy or continuity.
Identify opportunities to reduce fragmentation, duplicate work, manual steps, avoidable corrections, and inefficient handoffs.
Evaluate opportunities to simplify or consolidate payroll systems, providers, interfaces, reporting, and processes while preserving local compliance and business continuity.
Partner with HR Operations and Technology to improve payroll-related data flows, integrations, ownership, reconciliations, and reporting visibility.
Lead selected automation and approved AI-enabled improvements when there is a clear business case, appropriate controls, available resources, and measurable benefit.
Establish a manageable set of payroll KPIs covering accuracy, timeliness, adjustments, controls, service, provider performance, risk, and roadmap progress.
Build and maintain due-diligence-ready documentation for payroll processes, controls, systems, providers, country arrangements, dependencies, risks, and business-continuity plans.
Identify capability, documentation, cross-training, succession, and resource gaps that could limit scalability or continuity, and recommend practical solutions.
Support payroll planning for geographic expansion, employee population growth, integrations, acquisitions, and other organizational changes.
Sequence transformation initiatives realistically and transfer them to named operational owners with documented controls and sustainable support.
Provide strategic leadership to the payroll function and direct leadership to the Sr. Payroll Manager.
Partner with the Sr. Payroll Manager to protect day-to-day payroll delivery while creating capacity for controls, documentation, reporting, and improvement work.
Develop payroll capability through clear expectations, cross-training, succession coverage, process ownership, and continuous improvement.
Communicate payroll priorities, progress, risks, decisions, constraints, and resource needs clearly to senior leadership.