Senior Director of Global Payroll

Corpay • Atlanta, GA

2d • Onsite

About The Position

Corpay is currently looking to hire a Sr. Director, Global Payroll, within our Corpay Corporate division. This position falls under our Human Resources line of business and is located in Atlanta, GA. In this role, you will be accountable for the strategy, governance, execution, and continuous improvement of payroll across the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. As the executive leader, you will ensure employees are paid accurately and on time, statutory obligations are met, controls are effective, and payroll services scale with business growth. You will report directly to the Senior VP, HR and regularly collaborate with Human Resources, Finance, Accounting, Tax, Treasury, Legal, Compliance, Internal Audit, Information Security, and business leaders.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree and 8+ years of relevant payroll experience, or Master's degree and 6+ years of relevant payroll experience
• Global payroll experience strongly preferred, ideally including at least 1–2 years of direct global or multi-region payroll leadership
• Significant experience leading payroll teams within a complex organization
• Demonstrated experience managing payroll operations across multiple countries, regions, or business units
• Strong knowledge of payroll operations, controls, governance, and regulatory requirements
• Experience leading and developing geographically dispersed teams
• Demonstrated ability to standardize processes while recognizing country-specific payroll requirements
• Strong experience managing organizational change, transformation, or payroll operating-model improvements
• Experience partnering with HR, Finance, Benefits, Compensation, and other cross-functional stakeholders
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and decision-making skills
• Ability to communicate effectively with employees, operational teams, and senior leadership
• Ability to operate strategically while remaining close enough to payroll operations to identify and resolve issues
• Ability to manage competing priorities across multiple regions and time zones

Nice To Haves

• Hands-on experience with Workday and/or Workday Payroll
• Experience leading payroll operations across EMEA, Australia/New Zealand, the United States, and/or Canada
• Experience consolidating multiple payroll teams, systems, processes, or vendors
• Experience supporting payroll integration following mergers and acquisitions
• Experience managing third-party payroll vendors and evaluating opportunities for vendor consolidation
• Experience establishing payroll KPIs, service-level expectations, controls, and operational reporting
• Experience leading payroll transformation within a large, multinational organization

Responsibilities

• Define and execute a multi-year global payroll strategy aligned with enterprise growth, employee experience, risk tolerance, and financial objectives.
• Lead, develop, and retain high-performing regional payroll teams; establish clear accountabilities, service standards, succession plans, and professional development pathways.
• Create a consistent global operating model while preserving the local expertise and market-specific practices required for compliance.
• Chair payroll governance forums and provide executive-level reporting on service performance, control effectiveness, regulatory risk, transformation progress, and material issues.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for critical payroll incidents, directing root-cause analysis, remediation, employee communications, and prevention plans.
• Own end-to-end payroll delivery for regular, supplemental, off-cycle, bonus, commission, equity-related, termination, and other payments within scope.
• Ensure accurate and timely gross-to-net calculations, funding, payments, statutory remittances, reconciliations, year-end processing, and employee tax documentation.
• Establish globally consistent calendars, cutoffs, approvals, data-quality checks, exception management, and service-level agreements.
• Improve the employee and manager experience through clear communications, responsive case management, self-service, and measurable resolution standards.
• Maintain business continuity and disaster-recovery plans for payroll processing, funding, banking, critical vendors, and key-person dependencies.
• Maintain compliance with applicable wage-and-hour, tax withholding, social insurance, pension/superannuation, leave, termination, reporting, record-retention, data privacy, and payment requirements in every country of operation.
• Design and operate a robust payroll control framework, including segregation of duties, approval authorities, access controls, change controls, reconciliations, audit trails, and issue remediation.
• Partner with Legal, Tax, Finance, and local advisers to monitor regulatory change, assess impact, implement requirements, and document decisions.
• Support internal and external audits, statutory inspections, financial-control testing, and remediation activities; ensure evidence is complete, timely, and defensible.
• Protect sensitive employee and payroll data in partnership with Privacy and Information Security, including appropriate cross-border data handling and vendor controls.
• Own the payroll technology and integration roadmap across HRIS, time and attendance, benefits, finance/ERP, treasury, banking, tax, and vendor platforms.
• Lead payroll implementations, country expansions, acquisitions, divestitures, provider transitions, system upgrades, automation initiatives, and process standardization.
• Establish data governance, validation, reconciliation, and monitoring practices that improve accuracy and reduce manual intervention.
• Use analytics to identify error trends, control weaknesses, capacity constraints, cost opportunities, and employee-experience improvements.
• Evaluate responsible uses of automation and AI while maintaining human oversight, auditability, privacy, and regulatory compliance.
• Set the global payroll sourcing strategy and manage payroll providers, tax partners, banking relationships, and other third parties through measurable performance and risk standards.
• Lead contract governance, commercial negotiations, service reviews, renewal decisions, and corrective action plans in partnership with Procurement and Legal.
• Own the global payroll operating budget and identify sustainable opportunities to reduce costs, simplify the landscape, and improve service quality.
• Partner with Accounting and Treasury to ensure payroll funding, cash forecasting, general ledger interfaces, balance-sheet reconciliations, accruals, and financial reporting are accurate and timely.
• Build trusted relationships with senior leaders, regional HR and Finance teams, employee representatives where applicable, and cross-functional transformation teams.
• The role is accountable for the following markets and must maintain appropriate local expertise, controls, vendors, and advisory support. European responsibility spans the 15 countries listed below, each with distinct payroll, employment, tax, social insurance, reporting, and employee-representation requirements.
• Market Leadership focus United States Federal, state, and local payroll tax; wage-and-hour requirements; garnishments; benefits and equity interfaces; year-end reporting; multi-state complexity.
• Canada Federal and provincial requirements; source deductions; taxable benefits; employment standards; pension and insurance programs; year-end reporting.
• Mexico Tax and social security obligations; statutory benefits; profit sharing; termination and severance requirements; electronic payroll documentation and reporting.
• United Kingdom PAYE and National Insurance; statutory payments; pensions auto-enrolment; real-time reporting; benefits and year-end obligations.
• Europe — Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Malta, Netherlands, and Denmark Country-by-country tax, social insurance, collective agreement, works council, leave, termination, reporting, privacy, and payment requirements; coordination with local experts is essential.
• Australia PAYG withholding; superannuation; awards and enterprise agreements; leave and termination obligations; real-time payroll reporting.
• New Zealand PAYE and statutory deductions; KiwiSaver; leave and holiday-pay requirements; termination and reporting obligations.

Benefits

• Medical, Dental & Vision benefits available the 1st month after hire
• Automatic enrollment into our 401(k) plan (subject to eligibility requirements)
• Virtual fitness classes offered company-wide
• Robust PTO offerings including major holidays, vacation, sick, personal, & volunteer time
• Employee discounts with major providers (i.e. wireless, gym, car rental, etc.)
• Philanthropic support with both local and national organizations
• Fun culture with company-wide contests and prizes

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive