Associate Director - People Success Partner

Zinnov · Chennai

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Why Globalisation Excellence (GE)  

Zinnov’s Globalisation Excellence (GE) practice helps enterprises build and scale Global Capability Centers (GCCs) end-to-end — from Design & Discovery to Build, Scale, and Run. 

In GE, you don’t work in silos. You: 

• Own complex, end-to-end client journeys 

• Work across GCC advisory, managed services, and BOT / outsourcing models 
• Influence leadership decisions that shape long-term talent and operating strategies 

This is where strategy meets execution — and where people leadership plays a defining role. 

About the Role 

As Director – HR Business Partnerships, you will lead the HR Business Partnering function for a Global Operations organization, serving as a strategic advisor to senior leadership and driving high-impact people strategies across India and global teams. 

You will partner closely with the Global Head of Operations and the broader Operations leadership team to translate business priorities into effective workforce, talent, leadership, organizational, and culture strategies. 

This is a hands-on leadership role that requires the ability to move seamlessly between enterprise-level strategy, executive partnership, team leadership, and practical execution. You will lead and develop a high-performing HRBP team while strengthening the function’s strategic influence, operating model, and effectiveness. 

What You’ll Do 

HRBP Leadership & Capability Building 

• Lead, coach, develop, and hold accountable the HRBP team supporting Global Operations. 

• Establish a consistent HRBP operating model focused on strategic partnership, business acumen, proactive problem-solving, and measurable impact. 

• Build strong partnership cadences between HRBPs and the business leaders they support. 

• Review HRBP priorities, workloads, business coverage, and effectiveness to ensure resources remain aligned with organizational needs. 

• Establish clear individual and team goals across strategic partnership, talent management, engagement, leadership development, people analytics, and cross-functional collaboration. 

• Identify capability gaps and create targeted development plans to strengthen HRBP effectiveness and strategic contribution. 

• Build a culture where HRBPs operate as proactive people strategists and trusted advisors rather than transactional or reactive HR resources. 

Executive Partnership & Business Advisory 

• Serve as the primary HR Business Partner and trusted advisor to the Global Head of Operations and broader Operations leadership team. 

• Develop a deep understanding of business strategy, financial and performance objectives, operating metrics, workforce model, client commitments, and future growth requirements. 

• Translate business priorities into integrated people strategies covering organization design, workforce capacity, leadership capability, talent, engagement, retention, change, and culture. 

• Participate in leadership meetings, business reviews, planning discussions, and major organizational decisions. 

• Provide candid, thoughtful, and evidence-based counsel, including challenging assumptions and proposed decisions when required. 

• Anticipate workforce, talent, leadership, and organizational risks before they impact business performance. 

• Coach senior leaders on leadership effectiveness, accountability, communication, performance, team health, and organizational change. 

Organization Design & Workforce Planning 

• Lead organization design and workforce planning in partnership with business leadership, Finance, Talent Acquisition, and other key stakeholders. 

• Assess organizational structures, reporting relationships, spans of control, decision rights, roles, and capabilities against business strategy. 

• Identify organizational gaps, role duplication, unnecessary complexity, unclear accountability, and barriers to effective decision-making. 

• Support reorganizations, integrations, growth initiatives, operating-model changes, and workforce transitions from diagnosis through implementation and stabilization. 

• Develop workforce plans that anticipate future volume, capacity, skills, locations, technology, and leadership requirements. 

• Use business forecasts, attrition data, productivity information, and talent insights to identify future workforce needs. 

• Help leaders determine whether business needs should be addressed through hiring, development, process improvement, technology, restructuring, or changes in work allocation. 

Talent Management & Succession Planning 

• Lead consistent talent-review and succession-planning practices across the organization. 

• Partner with leaders to identify critical roles, high-potential talent, succession risks, readiness gaps, and development priorities. 

• Facilitate objective and evidence-based talent calibration discussions while challenging bias and inconsistent standards. 

• Ensure succession plans translate into meaningful development actions, stretch assignments, mentoring, and measurable follow-through. 

• Partner with Learning & Development to address leadership and capability needs identified through talent reviews and business planning. 

• Monitor bench strength and talent readiness for critical roles. 

• Support career paths and talent movement across geographies, functions, and operational teams. 

• Help leaders distinguish between performance, potential, readiness, and role fit when making talent decisions. 

Leadership Coaching & Capability Building 

• Serve as a coach and advisor to senior leaders, strengthening self-awareness, judgment, communication, accountability, team effectiveness, and people leadership. 

• Build leader capability to independently manage people, performance, engagement, and organizational challenges. 

• Establish coaching approaches that create leader ownership rather than dependence on HR. 

• Identify recurring leadership capability gaps and partner with Learning & Development to develop practical solutions. 

• Support onboarding and integration of new senior leaders and leaders moving into expanded roles. 

• Facilitate leadership discussions, talent conversations, team-effectiveness sessions, and development experiences. 

• Reinforce learning through coaching, action planning, and accountability, with a focus on demonstrated behavior change and business impact. 

Engagement, Culture & Organizational Health 

• Translate Zinnov’s purpose and values into everyday leadership practices, decisions, and behaviors. 

• Serve as a visible culture champion and ensure consistent reinforcement of organizational values. 

• Analyze engagement surveys, employee feedback, retention information, and other listening data to identify meaningful themes and opportunities. 

• Guide leaders in developing focused and measurable engagement and organizational-health action plans. 

• Coach leaders through difficult feedback and help move conversations from explanation to ownership and action. 

• Monitor differences in employee experience across locations, teams, leaders, and workforce populations. 

• Identify gaps between stated values and actual leadership behaviors and address them directly and constructively. 

• Promote recognition, inclusion, psychological safety, collaboration, and meaningful connection across a global and geographically dispersed workforce. 

People Analytics & Business Insights 

• Use people data to identify patterns, explain business impact, forecast risk, and influence leadership decisions. 

• Integrate insights from HR systems, engagement surveys, performance processes, productivity information, attrition, employee relations, and other relevant sources. 

• Translate people data into clear, decision-ready narratives covering what is happening, why it matters, what may happen next, and what action is required. 

• Monitor key workforce indicators including turnover, retention, vacancies, attendance, performance, leadership effectiveness, engagement, employee relations, internal movement, and talent readiness. 

• Establish consistent monthly and quarterly people reporting and review routines. 

• Identify predictive trends and early warning signals before they become larger talent, engagement, capacity, or performance concerns. 

• Ensure people data is handled appropriately, ethically, objectively, and confidentially. 

Change Leadership 

• Lead the people agenda for major organizational, operational, workforce, technology, and cultural changes. 

• Assess people impact, stakeholder needs, leadership readiness, risks, and communication requirements associated with significant change. 

• Apply structured change-management approaches to support adoption and sustained behavior change. 

• Coach leaders to communicate change clearly, consistently, and empathetically. 

• Identify resistance, capability gaps, confusion, and adoption barriers and develop appropriate interventions. 

• Ensure HRBP involvement begins early in changes affecting the workforce. 

• Establish feedback loops and measures to evaluate change readiness, adoption, employee sentiment, and reinforcement. 

Cross-Functional HR Leadership 

• Act as the primary connector between business leaders, HRBPs, and HR Centers of Excellence. 

• Partner closely with Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, Total Rewards, People Operations, Employee Experience, Compliance, Legal, Finance, and other functions. 

• Ensure leaders experience HR as one coordinated and aligned team. 

• Translate business needs into clear priorities for HR Centers of Excellence. 

• Provide feedback on business needs, implementation challenges, and program effectiveness. 

• Support enterprise HR initiatives and contribute to the continued development of Zinnov’s people strategy. 

• Promote consistency in global people practices while recognizing appropriate local cultural, legal, and workforce considerations. 

• Escalate material business, people, compliance, or employee-relations risks appropriately and in a timely manner. 

What You Bring 

Qualifications & Experience 

• 15+ years of progressive Human Resources experience, including substantial experience as a strategic HR Business Partner supporting senior executives. 

• 5+ years of experience in a leadership role, including direct leadership and development of HR Business Partners. 

• Experience supporting a large, complex, high-volume, or service-oriented business environment. 

• Demonstrated success partnering with senior leaders on organization design, workforce planning, talent management, succession planning, engagement, leadership development, and change. 

• Strong business and financial acumen, with the ability to understand operating strategies, performance measures, workforce economics, and organizational trade-offs. 

• Strong experience using people analytics and business data to identify trends, generate insights, and influence decisions. 

• Strong leadership coaching and consultative capabilities. 

• Demonstrated ability to influence senior leaders, build trust, navigate ambiguity, and communicate difficult messages with courage and professionalism. 

• Experience working across multiple geographies, cultures, or time zones. 

• Strong written and verbal communication, facilitation, and executive-presentation skills. 

• Sound judgment with the ability to balance business performance, employee impact, organizational values, legal requirements, and risk. 

• Ability to work independently, establish priorities, and operate effectively in a fast-paced and evolving environment. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Master’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, Psychology, or a related discipline. 

• HR certification such as SHRM-SCP, SPHR, GPHR, or an equivalent credential. 

• Experience supporting global teams across India and international geographies. 

• Experience in healthcare services, business-process operations, shared services, or another complex people-intensive environment. 

• Formal training or certification in leadership coaching, organization design, change management, or talent assessment. 

• Experience applying structured change-management methodologies such as ADKAR. 

• Experience facilitating talent reviews, succession planning, 9-Box calibration, leadership assessments, and team-effectiveness sessions. 

• Familiarity with leadership and development assessment tools or comparable instruments. 

• Experience operating within a private-equity-backed or rapidly growing organization. 

Leadership Capabilities 

The successful candidate will demonstrate the following: 

Enterprise Thinking 
Looks beyond individual teams or immediate concerns to identify patterns, dependencies, and solutions that support the broader organization. 

Business Acumen 
Understands how the organization operates, how it creates value, and how workforce decisions affect financial, operational, client, and employee outcomes. 

Strategic Influence 
Earns credibility through insight, preparation, judgment, and follow-through. Shapes decisions without relying solely on authority. 

Leadership Coaching 
Builds the capability of leaders and HRBPs by asking thoughtful questions, providing candid feedback, and creating accountability for action. 

Courage and Judgment 
Raises difficult issues, challenges assumptions, and speaks truth to power while maintaining trust and constructive partnership. 

Data-Informed Decision-Making 
Uses data to generate insight and action rather than simply reporting metrics. 

Global and Cultural Agility 
Works effectively across geographies and cultures while balancing global consistency with local context. 

Change Leadership 
Helps leaders and employees understand, adopt, and sustain organizational change. 

Collaboration and Integration 
Connects people, functions, and ideas and works without ego to create shared success. 

People-First Leadership 
Balances empathy and employee impact with the needs and performance expectations of the business. 

What Success Looks Like – Global Excellence (GE) 

• A strategic HRBP function that translates business priorities into clear, scalable, and measurable people strategies. 

• High credibility and trust with senior leadership, driven by strong business acumen, sound judgment, and proactive partnership. 

• A high-performing HRBP team with strong strategic capability, clear accountability, and consistent operating rhythms. 

• Effective workforce planning and organization design that support business growth, operational performance, and long-term organizational health. 

• Strong talent pipelines, succession plans, bench strength, and leadership readiness for critical roles. 

• Improved leadership effectiveness through sustained coaching, capability building, and measurable behavior change. 

• Meaningful progress across engagement, retention, culture, employee experience, and organizational-health priorities. 

• Early identification and mitigation of workforce, talent, leadership, and organizational risks. 

• People analytics translated into actionable insights that influence business and leadership decisions. 

• Successful adoption of organizational and operational changes with strong leadership alignment and employee engagement. 

• Seamless collaboration across HR Business Partners and Centers of Excellence, creating a coordinated and high-impact HR experience for the business. 

• An HRBP team that spends the majority of its time on proactive, strategic work rather than transactional activity. 

If you enjoy partnering with senior leaders to solve complex people and organizational challenges, using data and business insight to shape decisions, and building a high-performing HRBP function that creates measurable business impact — this role offers both influence and growth. 

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