Aimed at senior HR professionals with multi-country European/Middle East experience who thrive in a builder mentality and matrixed collaboration environment.
Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.
Original posting from DDN via Ashby
We’re looking for a Senior People Business Partner to help build and deliver the People agenda across our growing EMEA organization.
This person will be based out of our Madrid office and will help drive the People and Organizational agenda across all business units across Europe and the Middle East. You’ll partner closely with regional leadership, and work cross functionally with Global HRBP'S to translate global talent organizational priorities across the region.
The role is best suited for strategic operator who identifies as a builder. Our future People operating model is still taking shape, and particularly at first, this person will move between strategic partnership and hands-on execution. They’ll help solve today’s problems while building the practices that mean we don’t have to solve them the same way tomorrow.
The best person for this role knows how to navigate complexity without creating more of it. They understand the realities of operating across multiple European markets, have exceptional doer energy, and are equally comfortable advising a leader and figuring out how something actually needs to work on the ground.
What You’ll Do
- Partner across EMEA. Support leaders and teams across G&A, Sales and Engineering, working closely with Global HRBPs and People leadership to translate global talent and organizational strategies into the EMEA context.
- Bring real multi-country expertise. Help navigate the realities of operating across many many different European employment environments, cultures and ways of working. Know when a global approach works, when local adaptation is necessary, and when specialist expertise needs to come into the room. Advise on benefits, contracts, and regional nuances.
- Own performance and employee relations across the region. Coach managers through performance issues, investigations and complex employee situations from early diagnosis through resolution, partnering with Legal and local counsel where needed.
- Help build DDN’s People playbook. You won’t just consume People programs—this role will help create them. Partner across the People team to build and continuously improve global practices like performance management, onboarding, manager enablement, talent reviews and other foundational People programs. Bring what you learn from the business back into how DDN operates globally.
- Help execute the talent agenda. Support talent reviews, succession, performance management, engagement, leadership development and organizational effectiveness across EMEA. Bring regional insight into global talent conversations rather than simply executing decisions made elsewhere.
- Build as you go. Help establish the processes and infrastructure required to support a growing EMEA organization—from onboarding and employee lifecycle practices to new locations, employment models and other operational needs.
- Turn strategy into execution. Take global People priorities and make them actually work across the region. Build the plan, identify dependencies, coordinate stakeholders and drive through to completion.
- Be an exceptional cross-functional partner. Work closely with People Operations, Compensation, Talent Acquisition, Finance, Legal, IT and regional leaders. In a matrixed global company, getting the right answer often requires connecting a lot of dots—and people.
What You Bring
You’re comfortable being both a trusted People partner and someone who gets things done and more importantly, you don’t need every problem to fit neatly into a job description before taking ownership of it.
- Significant HRBP experience in a genuinely multi-country European/Middle East environment.
- Broad knowledge of European and Middle East employment practices and experience navigating complex employee and employment matters across multiple jurisdictions.
- Experience supporting multiple functions—ideally some combination of Sales, G&A and technical organizations—in a matrixed global company.
- Strong grounding across performance management, employee relations, talent management, organizational effectiveness and change.
- A builder mentality in a truly 0->1 or 1->2 organization. You’ve worked in environments where processes were evolving, ownership wasn't always obvious and sometimes the first step was simply figuring out what needed to happen.
- Exceptional execution skills. You create structure around ambiguity, love a good project plan, keep track of the details and reliably close loops.
- Strong cross-functional instincts. You know how to bring together Legal, Finance, Operations, regional expertise and business leaders rather than trying to solve everything yourself. You’re an exceptional partner to your People Team counterparts
- Strategic range to understand the broader business and talent implications of the work—not simply execute the task in front of you.
- Comfortable being hands-on. Particularly as we build, there will be work that eventually belongs somewhere else but for now, you might need to roll your sleeves up! “That’s not my job” doesn't belong at DDN!
- Strong judgment, curiosity and the ability to operate independently while knowing when to pull others in.
Source: DDN careers (Ashby)