Regional Payroll Lead, APME

Job Purpose

The Regional Payroll Lead is a senior individual contributor responsible for leading operational payroll delivery, quality, and consistency across the APME region, supporting the Regional Payroll Manager in overall service accountability.

This role acts as the primary subject matter expert for complex payroll matters, providing functional leadership to payroll specialists across countries, and ensuring the consistent application of payroll standards, governance, and controls.

The role partners closely with Payroll Manager, HRBPs, Finance, and external vendors to drive accurate, compliant, and efficient payroll operations, while playing a key role in regional transformation, standardization, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Job Description

Regional Payroll Operations & Service Delivery:

• Lead and coordinate payroll processing activities across assigned countries, ensuring consistent execution aligned with regional/global standards, payroll calendars, and service levels.
• Drive payroll accuracy, timeliness, and compliance through strong operational oversight, validation, and issue resolution.
• Lead regional payroll review processes, ensuring quality, consistency, and adherence to defined controls.
• Act as the primary escalation point for complex payroll issues, driving root cause resolution and partnering with the Regional Payroll Manager on critical escalations.

Functional Leadership (Individual Contributor):

• Provide technical guidance and functional leadership to payroll specialists across countries.
• Define and promote consistent payroll practices, standards, and ways of working across the region.
• Serve as the go-to SME for multi-country payroll matters, supporting knowledge sharing and capability uplift within the payroll function.

Governance, Risk and Compliance:

• Drive consistent application of payroll governance, controls, and compliance practices across the region.
• Identify operational payroll risks and implement mitigation actions to strengthen control effectiveness and audit readiness, in partnership with the Regional Payroll Manager.
• Support audit activities by ensuring quality documentation, data integrity, and timely resolution of audit queries.
• Always safeguard confidentiality and accuracy of payroll data.

Stakeholder & Vendor Management:

• Partner with HRBPs, Finance, and external vendors to resolve complex issues and improve payroll service delivery quality.
• Act as a key operational interface between internal stakeholders and payroll providers.
• Support vendor performance management through issue resolution, operational oversight, and continuous service improvement initiatives.

Transformation & Continuous Improvement:

• Play a key role in payroll transformation initiatives (e.g., system implementations, vendor transitions, process standardization).
• Drive process improvements, simplification, and harmonization across countries to enhance efficiency and reduce manual work.
• Support transition of new processes into BAU operations with minimal disruption and strong adoption.

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Skills