Associate Director - People Success Partner

About Zinnov

Zinnov is a global management consulting firm that helps organizations make decisions that actually get used — and deliver results that matter. For over two decades, we’ve partnered with leading enterprises, high-growth technology companies, and investors to answer some of the toughest questions they face:

• Where should we invest?

• How do we scale globally?

• What capabilities will win in the next decade?

Our work shapes market entry strategies, global operating models, M&A decisions, and long-term growth bets. We’re known for being data-led, execution-focused, and outcome-driven — not opinion-heavy slideware.

At Zinnov, how you work matters as much as what you deliver. We value independent thinking, crisp communication, and early ownership. With 450+ professionals across 10 global offices, we work across industries including Digital Services, ER&D, Enterprise Software, Semiconductors, Healthcare, BFSI, Automotive, Media & Telecom, and Private Equity.

Zinnov isn’t for everyone. It’s for people who want steep learning curves, honest feedback, and the chance to see their work influence real business decisions — not just presentations.

Why Globalization Excellence (GE)

Zinnov’s Globalization 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 talent plays a defining role.

About the Role

As Associate Director People & Organization Advisory, you will own the full spectrum of people strategy and execution for a large, high-velocity operations environment (1000+ employee scale). This role is designed for a strategic, results-oriented HR leader who can independently drive people interventions that improve talent outcomes, culture, engagement, and operational performance — while serving as a trusted advisor to senior leadership.

You will blend strategic influence with hands-on execution, using data, diagnostics, and strong stakeholder partnership to drive measurable improvements across attrition, productivity, employee experience, and capability building.

What You’ll Do

People Strategy & Design

•    Design and propose best-in-class people & strategy solutions for the client based on their scale, complexity and business problems – with the end goal of facilitating the GCC to achieve maturity faster.
•    Create AI enabled transformation interventions that enables the client to move forward faster in their goals to achieve capability building on the site with effectiveness.
•    Actively partner with the stakeholders to design and track core metrics that will enable AI adoption faster and achieve the strategic focus areas for the particular GCC.
•    Own end to end execution of the proposed solutions with the teams on the ground with minimal defects or delays.
•    Integrate people strategy with business priorities to enable growth, operational efficiency, and talent scalability.
•    Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders, shaping people decisions with context, clarity, and strong judgment.
•    Drive org-wide HR priorities with tight governance, ownership, and predictable execution.

People Experience & Culture

•    Design and deliver on interventions that support best-in-class candidate and new joiner experience.
•    Collaborate with the global stakeholders and local leadership to design and implement cutting edge interventions that promote faster cultural and values assimilation for the GCC.
•    Initiate processes that measure core metrics of success – employee engagement-net promoter scores, Pulse sessions, Attrition, Culture assimilation scores, Leadership advocacy scores, organization culture and climate scores. End to end programme and project management of all people interventions on the ground.
•    Design and deliver on Recognition frameworks, Culture reinforcement, and Engagement best practices.

Workforce Strategy & HR Analytics

•    Design organization design and effectiveness strategy for the GCC considering its strategic purpose.
•    Use advanced analytics to consistently track progress against the desired workforce strategy- including pyramids, hiring patterns, internal capability building speed, manager span of control, metrics to measure progress towards making the GCC independent and autonomous in delivering to core goals.
•    Drive outcomes such as reduced attrition, improved productivity, and higher employee satisfaction through insight-led interventions.
•    Build and communicate decision-ready dashboards and people and operations metrics for executive forums.

Building High Performing Teams

•    Design thoughtful, relevant, scalable Performance Assessment methodologies to identify early performance cases in complete alignment with the global processes.
•    Lead the end-to-end implementation of all Performance Management Processes locally in partnership with on-ground leaders, global COEs and stakeholders.
•    Partner with leaders to implement high-impact performance management systems and continuous feedback rhythms.
•    Design and deliver on targeted learning interventions to close skill gaps and elevate performance.
•    Create and deliver well thought out programmes that enable managers to strengthen coaching quality, ability to manage performance effectively, and career development conversations.

Compensation & Benefits Strategy

•    Consistently provide detailed insights to the leadership teams on internal and external equity of existing employees on compensation levels and provide detailed and clear recommendations on fixing gaps, if any.
•    Consistently provide detailed insights on Benefits practices and provide clear recommendations on fixing gaps, if any.
•    Provide guidance on designing compensation structures in line with the local labour and wage codes.
•    Support strategic compensation reviews using external benchmarks and internal analytics.
•    Drive initiatives that clearly link rewards to performance and organizational impact.
•    Partner with stakeholders to strengthen pay competitiveness and retention outcomes.

HR Guidelines, Employee Relations & Compliance

•    Review, design and put in place best-in-class HR guidelines that are clearly drafted and easily made available for employees in alignment with Global Guidelines. Consistently track gaps and provide gap recommendations to leadership proactively.
•    Handle complex employee relations cases with maturity, discretion, and consistent documentation hygiene.
•    Maintain a strong working understanding of HR compliance requirements and proactively mitigate risk.
•    Preserve culture and integrity through fair, firm, and people-first resolution approaches.

What You Bring

Qualifications & Experience

•    Deep understanding of Human Resources, Organization Design and Development Concepts.
•    14+ years blended experience in Consulting & Organization Development along with HR Business Partnering experience in global technology organizations global technology organizations.
•    Full time MBA in HR from top tier B schools – SCMHRD, MDI, XLRI, TISS as examples Demonstrated experience influencing senior stakeholders and driving enterprise-wide people initiatives.
•    Strong exposure to operating rhythms in dynamic, fast-changing organizations (growth, transformation, scale).

Key Skills

•    Strategic influence: strong advisory presence with senior leaders; able to shape decisions, not just execute.
•    Operational excellence: balances strategic programs with day-to-day people execution without losing rigor.
•    Analytical strength: translates HR data into actionable insights and outcome-driven interventions.
•    Culture leadership: builds engagement and high-performance programs that leaders adopt and sustain.
•    Change leadership leads organizations through transformation with strong communication and adoption discipline.
•    High ownership, responsiveness, and the ability to operate independently in stakeholder-heavy environments.

What Success Looks Like

•    Enterprise people strategy & business alignment
•    Executive stakeholder advisory & influence
•    Talent, leadership & succession management
•    Org design & change management
•    Culture, engagement & employee experience
•    Performance, rewards & talent governance
•    People analytics & workforce intelligence
•    Risk management, ethics & compliance
•    HR transformation
•    HR leadership, capability & succession planning

Zinnov is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to building an inclusive workplace. We welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds, communities, and experiences.