Senior Director, Regional People Business Partner (APAC & EMEA)

Summary

The Senior Director, Regional People Business Partner (APAC & EMEA) is the strategic People leader responsible for enabling business performance and organizational health across the company’s International markets.

Reporting to the VP of People Business Partners, Talent Management, Development, and People Relations, this role serves as a trusted advisor to regional executives and a key connector across the global People organization. The Senior Director partners closely with regional leadership teams to align talent strategy, organizational capability, and workforce planning with business priorities that drive growth, operational excellence, and long-term market success.

Operating in a highly matrixed global environment, this leader works in close partnership with global functional People Business Partner leaders and Centers of Excellence (COEs) — including Total Rewards, Talent Development, Talent Acquisition, Employee Relations, and People Operations — to ensure the International regions both benefit from enterprise People strategies and actively shape their evolution. The role ensures strong alignment between global frameworks and regional execution while adapting solutions to diverse cultural, regulatory, and market conditions.

This leader also builds and leads a high-performing team of People Business Partners across EMEA and APAC, fostering strong collaboration across regions and functions to deliver a consistent, high-impact leadership and employee experience.

Job Description

This role plays a critical part in enabling the company’s international growth strategy across EMEA and APAC. By aligning leadership capability, organizational design, and talent strategy with regional business priorities, the Senior Director ensures the organization can scale effectively in complex global markets while maintaining strong culture, leadership capability, and operational discipline.

Success in this role directly contributes to business growth, leadership effectiveness, organizational agility, and long-term talent sustainability across international operations.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Partnership & Regional Leadership

• Define and lead the People strategy for EMEA and APAC, ensuring alignment with enterprise priorities and regional business goals.
• Serve as a core member of the International leadership team, contributing to business strategy, operational planning, and long-term organizational capability.
• Act as a trusted advisor to regional executives, providing guidance on leadership capability, workforce strategy, organizational design, and scaling teams to support growth.
• Establish governance mechanisms and leadership forums that align regional priorities with global People strategies.
• Ensure regional insights and workforce trends inform enterprise-level People strategies and planning.
• Quarterly travel across the region.
  
  

Enterprise Alignment & Partnership Across the People Organization

• Partner closely with functional People Business Partner leaders to ensure regional People strategies align with global functional priorities and organizational capability requirements.
• Collaborate with Centers of Excellence (COEs) to translate enterprise programs into effective regional execution across talent management, leadership development, total rewards, employee experience, and talent acquisition.
• Act as a strategic connector across the People ecosystem, ensuring regional perspectives, challenges, and opportunities are represented in global planning.
• Drive alignment across regional HRBPs, functional HRBPs, and COEs to deliver integrated, business-aligned People solutions.
  
  

Organizational Effectiveness & Talent Strategy

• Partner with regional executives to ensure regional organizational design structures and workforce strategies support long-term growth and operational excellence.
• Provide insights on regional talent processes including performance management, talent reviews, succession planning, and leadership development to strengthen the leadership pipeline aligned to the global process and COE’s.
• Partner with PERA succession process to coach senior leaders on leadership impact, culture, and talent development for the regions and in partnership with the local Sr. People Business Partners.
  
  

Leadership Advisory & Change Leadership

• Serve as a strategic advisor and change partner to senior leaders navigating growth, transformation, restructuring, or evolving market dynamics.
• Guide leaders through complex cross-border organizational challenges, balancing enterprise consistency with local market realities.
• Partner with functional HRBP leaders to support global functional change initiatives impacting EMEA and APAC teams.
• Lead regional change efforts, ensuring strong communication, engagement, and adoption across markets.
  
  

Compliance & Risk Management

• Partner closely with Employee Relations COE to ensure adherence to regional labor laws and regulatory frameworks.
• Ensure consistent application of global policies while accounting for local legal and cultural considerations.
  
  

Talent Lifecycle & Operational Excellence

• Ensure effective regional execution of core talent lifecycle processes, including hiring, onboarding, promotions, mobility, and offboarding.
• Partner with Talent Acquisition and Total Rewards COEs to maintain competitive positioning in diverse international talent markets.
• Drive initiatives to improve employee engagement, retention, and leadership capability.
• Utilize people analytics and workforce insights to inform talent decisions and measure People impact on business outcomes.
  
  

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Team Leadership & Capability Building

• Develop a distributed team of People Business Partners across EMEA and APAC in partnership with the global leaders.
• Foster collaboration across geographies and ensure the team operates as a strategic partner to both business leaders and the broader People organization.
• Attract, develop, and retain top HR talent while building strong succession pipelines within the regional People team.
• Promote a culture of partnership, accountability, and business impact within the PERA organization.
  
  

Qualifications

• 12+ years of progressive HR leadership experience, including significant experience supporting international or multi-country environments.
• 7+ years of experience leading HR teams, including leaders of leaders.
• Demonstrated success partnering with senior executives in complex, high-growth global organizations.
• Deep knowledge of EMEA and APAC labor markets, cultural dynamics, and employment legislation.
• Strong business and financial acumen, with the ability to link People strategies to business outcomes.
• Proven ability to influence across matrixed organizations and drive alignment across regional and global stakeholders.
• Experience working closely with Centers of Excellence and global HRBP organizations to deliver integrated solutions.
• Strong analytical mindset with experience leveraging data and workforce insights.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills across diverse cultural contexts.
  
  

About Guidewire

Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. More than 540+ insurers in 40 countries, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, run on Guidewire.

As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation track record with 1600+ successful projects, supported by the largest R&D team and partner ecosystem in the industry. Our Marketplace provides hundreds of applications that accelerate integration, localization, and innovation.

For more information, please visit www.guidewire.com and follow us on Twitter: @Guidewire_PandC.

Guidewire Software, Inc. is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. We are committed to an inclusive workplace, and believe that a diversity of perspectives, abilities, and cultures is a key to our success. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, marital status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, or disability. All offers are contingent upon passing a criminal history and other background checks where it's applicable to the position.