Senior Director, Human Resources

URBN•Philadelphia, PA

About The Position

The Senior Director, HR Business Partners is the operating leader of the HRBP function for the entire organization — accountable for the quality, capability, consistency, and strategic impact of a team of HR Business Partners. The Senior Director works to ensure that the entire HRBP team is operating at the highest possible level, continuously improving, and collectively delivering HR partnership that is coherent, consistent, and business-driving across all client groups. The Senior Director also maintains direct business partnership with a diverse executive client group — staying grounded in the actual work of HR partnership, credible in the eyes of the team, and connected to the business dynamics that inform how they lead the function.

Requirements

8–12 years of progressive HR experience, including demonstrated experience as a senior-level HRBP with a strong track record of executive-level business partnership
5-7 years of direct people management experience within HR — with a demonstrated ability to develop HR professionals, build team capability, and hold a team to a high standard of quality
Experience managing HRBPs or HR generalists across multiple client groups or business units, with a track record of improving team consistency and impact
Experience in retail, fashion, lifestyle brand, or consumer-facing industry preferred — with demonstrated understanding of how brand culture and business dynamics shape people strategy
Experience working across a complex HR operating model with COEs and shared services, and a track record of building effective cross-functional HR partnerships
Demonstrated ability to stay credibly connected to business partnership work while also managing a team — not one or the other, but both simultaneously
Strong working knowledge across all major HR domains (talent management, compensation, L&D, ER, HR Ops, organizational design, workforce planning) — sufficient to guide HRBPs through complex, multi-domain situations and to hold COE partners accountable for quality outcomes
HR operating model knowledge: understanding of how HRBP functions are structured and evolved in the context of Systemic HR maturity, including COE integration, pool-based deployment models, and capability-based team design
People leadership skills: ability to coach HR professionals with specificity and care, build team culture deliberately, manage performance with fairness and courage, and develop talent within the function
People analytics: ability to synthesize workforce data across multiple client groups into a coherent enterprise narrative — not just managing individual HRBP dashboards, but seeing the pattern across the portfolio
Employment law and ER judgment: command of ADA, FMLA, Title VII, ADEA, FLSA, and EEO sufficient to guide the team on complex matters and partner effectively with Legal on high-stakes situations
Change management: ability to lead the HRBP team through its own capability evolution — managing resistance, building commitment, and sustaining momentum toward a higher standard of HR partnership
HRIS proficiency (UKG or equivalent); comfort with people analytics platforms and AI-enabled HR tools; willingness to champion adoption within the team

Nice To Haves

Experience in retail, fashion, lifestyle brand, or consumer-facing industry preferred

Responsibilities

Manage and develop a team of 3–6 HR Business Partners at both leadership and individual contributor levels, providing individualized coaching, structured development plans, and deliberate stretch opportunities calibrated to each person's growth trajectory
Build a high-performing team culture defined by intellectual curiosity, strategic ambition, peer learning, and mutual accountability — creating an environment where HRBPs feel challenged, supported, and proud of the work they do
Own the talent plan for the HRBP team — succession, capacity planning, and hiring strategy — partnering with the Executive Director HR and TA to ensure the team is always building toward its next level of capability
Conduct structured performance conversations for all direct reports through URBN Connects, with differentiated feedback grounded in observed business partnership behaviors, not just activity completion
Design and continuously improve how the HRBP function is structured, resourced, and deployed — including client alignment, operating norms, workload management, and how HRBPs collaborate with one another across client group boundaries
Identify opportunities to introduce more agile, flexible resource deployment — enabling HRBPs to work on the highest-priority business challenges across the portfolio, not just serve fixed client groups in isolation
Establish shared frameworks, tools, and standards that ensure every HRBP is operating from a common foundation — from talent calibration and performance coaching to engagement action planning and ER advising
Partner with the Executive Director HR on the long-term maturity trajectory of the HRBP function — identifying when and how to advance the team from efficient service delivery toward truly consultative, problem-oriented HR partnership
Serve as an active, credible HR business partner to a defined set of executive clients within the brand or shared services organization — maintaining the consulting edge and business fluency required to lead the team with credibility and firsthand insight
Serve as the primary escalation point for complex, high-stakes, or cross-brand people situations — including sensitive ER matters, executive-level performance situations, and significant organizational changes — providing sound judgment and appropriate urgency
Use direct client experience to stay current on the business dynamics shaping talent priorities across the portfolio, and share those insights with the Executive Director HR to inform enterprise-level people strategy
Build strong, productive partnerships with COE leaders across Compensation, Benefits, L&D, HR Ops, ER, and Talent Acquisition — ensuring the HRBP team is consistently connecting business leaders to the right solutions, and that COE programs land with quality and consistency across all client groups
Synthesize the people intelligence generated across the HRBP team into a coherent, enterprise-level workforce narrative for the Executive Director HR — identifying cross-cutting themes, shared risks, and systemic opportunities that individual HRBPs cannot see from their individual vantage points
Partner with COE leaders on program design, ensuring that the perspectives of corporate brand and shared services employees are reflected in how COE offerings are built, communicated, and measured
Monitor ER case quality and compliance consistency across the HRBP team — ensuring policy is applied consistently, legal risk is managed appropriately, and the team's ER judgment is continuously improving through coaching and case debrief
Contribute to the Executive Director HR's HR function strategy — including operating model design, HR capability investment, and the evolution of how Shared Services COEs and HRBPs work together to deliver integrated, high-impact HR solutions
Ensure URBN's HR policies are applied consistently across all client groups served by the HRBP team, and identify patterns of inconsistency or risk that require structural rather than individual responses