Independent Food Company is home to some of the region's most recognised hospitality concepts, including SALT, Somewhere, Parker's, Shalwa, Somewhere, and Public. We are a fast-growing organisation with an expanding portfolio of concepts, an active acquisition strategy, and ambitious plans for growth across new and existing markets. As we scale, the quality of our people remains central to everything we build. That is where you come in.
Role Summary:
The Human Resources Director is an executive leadership role responsible for defining and executing the organization's people strategy, organizational transformation agenda, and culture in alignment with the company's long-term business objectives. As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, the Human Resources Director partners closely with the COO and senior leadership to build a high-performing, scalable organization by leading talent strategy, organizational design, leadership development, performance management, total rewards, workforce planning, governance, and HR operations across all business units and geographies.
This role serves as the custodian of the company's culture, leadership capability, organizational effectiveness, and employee experience while ensuring compliance with labor legislation, corporate governance standards, and best HR practices.
Key Responsibilities:
Executive Leadership & People Strategy
- Develop and execute the organization's long-term Human Resources strategy aligned with business growth, transformation, and expansion objectives.
- Serve as a strategic advisor to the COO and Executive Leadership Team on organizational effectiveness, workforce strategy, leadership capability, succession planning, culture, organizational performance, and people-related business decisions.
- Shape executive decisions through workforce analytics, organizational insights, and strategic people recommendations.
- Lead the HR function as a business partner that enables organizational performance rather than a transactional support function.
- Build a future-ready organization capable of supporting rapid regional and international growth.
- Drive a high-performance culture centered around accountability, ownership, agility, and operational excellence.
Organizational Transformation & Change Management
- Lead enterprise-wide transformation initiatives supporting organizational restructuring, business expansion, acquisitions, and strategic change.
- Design and implement comprehensive change management frameworks to maximize adoption and minimize organizational disruption.
- Assess organizational readiness, change impact, and people-related risks across transformation initiatives.
- Develop executive communication strategies and leadership engagement plans during periods of organizational change.
- Establish governance models to monitor transformation progress, employee adoption, and business outcomes.
- Build change management capability across leadership teams.
Organizational Design & Workforce Effectiveness
- Design scalable organizational structures that support business growth and operational efficiency.
- Define organizational governance including reporting structures, spans of control, role clarity, and decision-making authorities.
- Establish company-wide job architecture, grading frameworks, competency models, and career pathways.
- Lead organization-wide workforce planning aligned with future business requirements.
- Continuously assess organizational effectiveness and implement structural improvements where required.
- Develop succession plans for executive, leadership, and business-critical positions.
Organizational Performance & Strategy Execution
- Translate corporate strategy into measurable organizational, departmental, and individual performance objectives.
- Design and oversee enterprise-wide KPI and performance management frameworks.
- Ensure alignment between business objectives, departmental goals, and employee performance.
Talent Acquisition, Workforce Planning & Emiratization
- Develop and oversee the organization's talent acquisition strategy across all business units and geographies.
- Ensure workforce planning supports business expansion, new market entry, and long-term organizational growth.
- Lead executive recruitment and succession planning for strategic leadership positions.
- Strengthen employer branding to position the organization as an employer of choice.
- Develop and lead the organization's Emiratization strategy, ensuring sustainable national talent attraction, development, retention, and compliance with UAE government regulations and nationalization targets.
Leadership Development & Talent Management
- Establish an integrated talent management strategy covering leadership development, succession planning, high-potential identification, and career progression.
- Develop executive leadership programs to strengthen organizational leadership capability.
- Lead succession planning across all critical functions and leadership levels.
- Build internal talent pipelines that reduce dependency on external hiring.
- Promote internal mobility and long-term employee development.
Learning & Organizational Capability
- Develop enterprise-wide learning strategies aligned with business capability requirements.
- Establish leadership academies, management development programs, and functional capability frameworks.
- Lead implementation and continuous enhancement of the Learning Management System (LMS).
- Ensure employees receive structured onboarding, compliance training, leadership development, and technical capability programs.
- Measure organizational capability improvement through learning analytics and performance outcomes.
Compensation, Rewards & Performance
- Develop and oversee the organization's Total Rewards Strategy, ensuring compensation, benefits, incentives, recognition, and wellbeing programs support business objectives, employee engagement, and talent retention.
- Design competitive compensation structures aligned with market benchmarks, internal equity, and organizational sustainability.
- Lead executive compensation reviews, salary structures, grading frameworks, and short- and long-term incentive programs.
- Ensure payroll governance, compensation compliance, and equitable reward practices.
- Oversee annual salary reviews, bonus frameworks, promotion cycles, and workforce budgeting.
Culture, Employee Experience & Engagement
- Champion the organization's culture and employee value proposition.
- Develop strategies that strengthen employee engagement, retention, wellbeing, and organizational commitment.
- Lead organization-wide engagement surveys and action planning initiatives.
- Partner with leadership to reinforce company values and desired leadership behaviours.
Employee Relations, Governance & Compliance
- Establish governance frameworks for HR policies, procedures, and people-related decision making. Ensure full compliance with UAE labor laws, Emiratization regulations, and employment legislation across all entities.
- Lead employee relations matters including disciplinary processes, grievances, investigations, and dispute resolution.
- Develop HR governance standards that ensure consistency, fairness, and legal compliance.
HR Operations, Digital Transformation & Analytics
- Oversee all HR operations, shared services, payroll governance, and employee lifecycle processes.
- Lead digital transformation initiatives through the implementation and optimisation of HR technologies.
- Ensure HR data integrity, confidentiality, cybersecurity, and regulatory compliance.
- Continuously improve HR operational efficiency through automation, process optimization, and data-driven decision-making.
Health, Safety & Employee Wellbeing
- Champion employee wellbeing as a strategic business priority.
- Oversee workplace health, safety and wellbeing initiatives across all business units.
- Promote mental health, work-life balance and employee assistance programmes.
- Ensure compliance with occupational health and safety regulations.
Mergers, Acquisitions & International Expansion
- Lead the people strategy for mergers, acquisitions, restructures, and organisational integrations.
- Develop workforce integration plans during acquisitions and organisational consolidations. Establish HR frameworks for new country entries and international expansion.
- Ensure organisational structures, policies and talent strategies support multi-country operations. Partner with executive leadership during due diligence, integration planning, and organisational transition activities.
HR Governance & Executive Reporting
- Develop and monitor HR governance frameworks aligned with corporate governance standards.
- Present workforce insights, organisational performance, talent risks and HR strategy updates to the Executive Leadership Team and Board when required.
- Develop executive dashboards covering workforce planning, talent metrics, engagement, turnover, succession, organisational effectiveness and people-related business risks.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Psychology, or a related discipline (Master's degree preferred).
- 18+ years of progressive Human Resources experience, including at least 7 years in executive HR leadership roles.
- Proven experience leading HR strategy within large, multi-brand, multi-entity, or regional organisations.
- Demonstrated success leading organisational transformation, restructuring, and business growth initiatives.
- Proven experience developing Total Rewards strategies, organisational design frameworks, and executive talent management programmes.
- Strong knowledge of UAE labour laws, Emiratisation regulations, and international HR best practices. Experience partnering with Executive Leadership Teams and Board-level governance.
- Professional HR certifications such as SHRM-SCP, SPHR, CIPD Level 7, or equivalent are highly desirable.
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