Vice President, Total Rewards
As a highly valued member of the HR leadership team, the Vice President of Total Rewards will provide strategic direction and hands-on leadership for J.S. Held ’s global compensation, benefits, and payroll programs. This leader will continue to build and scale a modern Total Rewards function that supports a high-growth, private equity-backed professional services organization expanding through both organic growth and M&A. The role will serve as a trusted advisor to senior leadership, HR, Finance, Legal, and business leaders on pay strategy, market competitiveness, benefits design, payroll governance, compliance, and reward programs attract, retain, and engage top talent.
The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in compensation, strong knowledge of benefits and payroll operations, and the ability to design scalable programs, processes, governance, and analytics in a fast-paced, global environment. This individual will be both strategic and execution-oriented, comfortable partnering with executives while also expanding the infrastructure, team capability, and operating discipline needed to support continued growth. This is a remote role with minimal travel expected for leadership meetings.
Job Responsibilities
- Advance and lead a global Total Rewards strategy that aligns compensation, benefits, payroll, and recognition programs with business objectives, talent strategy, financial discipline, and market competitiveness.
- Serve as a strategic advisor to executive leadership, HR, Finance, Legal, and business leaders on compensation philosophy, pay decisions, incentive design, retention strategies, benefits strategy, payroll governance, and Total Rewards-related business issues.
- Lead the enhancement, implementation, and governance of global compensation programs, including salary structures, job architecture, job leveling, pay ranges, annual merit and bonus processes, incentive plans, market pricing, and compensation benchmarking.
- Build and maintain scalable global job architecture, including job families, levels, bands, and career frameworks that support consistency, internal equity, business growth, and integration of acquired companies.
- Oversee global benefits strategy and program design, partnering with brokers, consultants, vendors, and regional stakeholders to ensure offerings are competitive, compliant, cost-effective, and aligned with employee needs across geographies.
- Provide strategic oversight of payroll operations globally, ensuring accurate and timely processing, effective controls, regulatory compliance, clear ownership, and alignment with compensation and benefits programs.
- Support M&A activity by leading Total Rewards due diligence, risk assessment, retention analysis, harmonization planning, employee communications, and post-acquisition integration of compensation, benefits, payroll, and related programs.
- Develop Total Rewards analytics, dashboards, reporting, and insights to support executive decision-making, workforce planning, pay equity analysis, cost modeling, program effectiveness, and quarterly business reviews.
- Monitor external market trends, pay transparency requirements, regulatory changes, and competitive practices to ensure Total Rewards programs remain compliant, equitable, financially sustainable, and positioned to attract and retain talent.
- Partner with Finance to model the financial impact of compensation, benefits, payroll, and incentive programs, ensuring alignment with budgets, growth plans, and long-term business objectives.
- Lead vendor, broker, consultant, and platform relationships across compensation, benefits, payroll, and Total Rewards, including performance management, contract review, service quality, and cost effectiveness.
- Drive process improvement, automation, governance, documentation, and controls across Total Rewards to improve efficiency, accuracy, scalability, compliance, and the employee experience.
- Lead, develop, and scale a globally distr