Vice President, HR Business Partner, Global Commercial

Levi Strauss•San Francisco, CA

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

Levi Strauss & Co. is seeking a strategic, commercially minded Vice President, HR Business Partner, Global Commercial to join its HR Leadership Team and serve as lead HR advisor to the Chief Commercial Officer and Commercial Leadership Team. Reporting to the Chief Human Resources Officer, this executive oversees HR leadership across Commercial clusters and partners with leaders in retail, eCommerce, wholesale, licensing, commercial operations, and regional organizations. The role guides the Commercial organization through growth, transformation, and change, developing the talent, leadership, workforce, culture, and operating model needed to achieve business objectives. It leads a globally dispersed HR team and partners with HR Centers of Excellence to activate the company’s strategic talent pillars across Commercial. The position develops and executes the Commercial people strategy; advises on leadership, talent, organization health, succession, and employee experience; and leads performance, belonging, workforce planning, organizational design, and change initiatives. It strengthens HR service delivery and use of digital and AI-enabled tools, applies workforce and business data to decisions, and oversees complex or high-risk employee matters in partnership with relevant specialists. The role is based at the company’s San Francisco headquarters on a hybrid schedule, typically requiring three days in the office per week, Tuesday through Thursday, with in-office time subject to business needs.

Requirements

15+ years of progressive HR leadership experience, including significant experience in senior HR Business Partner roles and supporting a large frontline/hourly population.
At least five years of experience leading across multiple countries, regions, or culturally diverse geographies.
Demonstrated success as the lead HR advisor to C-suite executives and enterprise leadership teams.
Experience leading the people strategy for a large, complex, geographically dispersed, highly matrixed organization.
Proven experience supporting Commercial, Sales, Retail, eCommerce, or other consumer-facing and revenue-generating organizations.
Experience working at scale in a global consumer, retail, apparel, or product-led company.
Deep experience in organization design, strategic workforce planning, talent management, succession, performance, executive coaching, employee relations, and change leadership.
Demonstrated success leading significant business transformation, organization redesign, or operating model change.
Experience building and leading global, regional, or cluster-based HR teams.
Strong understanding of the complexities of frontline and retail employee populations.
Demonstrated ability to connect talent and organizational strategies to growth, productivity, financial performance, and marketplace outcomes.
Experience navigating local labor, regulatory, cultural, and employee relations considerations across geographies.
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Human Resources, Business, Organizational Development, or a related discipline.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree.

Responsibilities

Serve as the primary HR advisor to the Chief Commercial Officer and Commercial Leadership Team on business, talent, leadership, organization, workforce, and culture priorities.
Co-create and execute a multi-year Commercial people strategy aligned with the company’s growth agenda, commercial priorities, financial commitments, and operating model.
Translate business strategy into talent, capability, workforce, and organizational priorities across Commercial clusters and markets.
Represent Commercial on the HR Leadership Team and help shape enterprise HR priorities.
Define priorities, measures, and governance for the Commercial HR agenda and drive execution across the global HR team.
Partner with leaders to set priorities, expectations, accountability, and performance standards, and build a culture of feedback, coaching, learning, and differentiated performance.
Advise the Chief Commercial Officer on leadership team effectiveness, executive talent, succession, organization health, and leadership transitions.
Lead Commercial talent reviews and succession planning; identify critical roles and capabilities and translate succession plans into development actions and talent strategies.
Coach senior leaders on leadership impact, enterprise decision-making, team effectiveness, organizational choices, and talent; hold leaders accountable for developing talent and leading change.
Embed belonging, trust, and inclusion in leadership practices, talent decisions, team norms, and the employee lifecycle; use employee listening and workforce insights to drive action.
Partner with Centers of Excellence and HR Operations to deliver practical, scalable employee experience solutions and execute core talent, performance, rewards, well-being, engagement, and lifecycle processes.
Identify friction in the employee and manager experience and simplify processes, improve service, and clarify ownership across HR.
Champion digital tools, AI-enabled solutions, manager self-service, and modern HR delivery practices; measure the impact of improvements.
Advise on operating models, organization design, governance, capabilities, decision rights, spans and layers, role clarity, and ways of working.
Lead strategic workforce planning across Commercial clusters and connect business plans to capability, capacity, location, cost, and talent requirements.
Partner with Finance and Commercial leaders on headcount planning, workforce investments, productivity, and organizational tradeoffs.
Lead people and change strategy for Commercial transformation, restructuring, leadership transitions, and operating model changes.
Lead, align, and develop a globally dispersed team of Commercial and cluster HR leaders; establish a unified agenda, accountabilities, governance, and shared ways of working.
Clarify decision rights among global Commercial HR, cluster HR leaders, Centers of Excellence, HR Operations, and local HR teams; foster collaboration while enabling appropriate local autonomy.
Build the capability, succession, development, and mobility of the Commercial HR organization.
Integrate people, workforce, financial, operational, and commercial data to inform decisions; translate analysis into executive narratives and recommended actions.
Establish measures linking the Commercial people strategy to leadership effectiveness, talent readiness, organizational capability, employee experience, productivity, retention, and business performance.
Identify talent, culture, capacity, organizational, employee relations, and execution risks; oversee complex or high-risk employee matters with Employee Relations, Legal, regional HR, and other specialists.
Ensure significant people decisions are fair, consistent, legally compliant, and aligned with company values and standards.
Drive adoption of enterprise HR strategies and ensure programs translate into sustained leadership behavior and measurable business impact.