Senior People Business Partner - North America

Role Description

The purpose of the role is to lead and deliver a highly visible, strategic, and commercially focused HR partnership in North America, acting as a trusted advisor to senior leaders and managers. The role will provide expert guidance and decision support across the full spectrum of HR generalist activities including employee relations, employment legislation, workforce planning, talent strategy, organisational design, change management, reward, performance, and culture.

This role will play a critical leadership position within the NAM HR team, with accountability for driving people strategy, managing risk, and enabling business performance, while aligning closely with the Global HR function and supporting the wider North American region.

Specific Role Responsibilities

Strategic & Commercial Business Partner

• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders and business heads, influencing decisions through strong commercial judgement, people insights, and risk awareness.

• Own the people agenda for assigned business areas, ensuring alignment with business strategy, growth plans, and transformation initiatives.

• Lead complex and high‑risk Employee Relations matters, providing pragmatic, legally compliant, and commercially sound recommendations.

• Coach and challenge leaders to build effective, inclusive, and high‑performing teams.

• Partner with leadership on organisational design, workforce planning, succession planning, and talent strategies to support medium‑ and long‑term business objectives.

• Drive and sponsor people‑related change initiatives, including restructures, integrations, and business transformations.

• Use people data and insights to proactively identify trends, risks, and opportunities, and to influence decision‑making.

HR Leadership & Management

• Provide functional leadership for HR operations in North America, ensuring consistent, high‑quality service delivery across the employee lifecycle.

• Act as the escalation point for complex ER cases, including disciplinary, grievance, performance management, redundancy, and exit management.

• Ensure full compliance with Canadian and US employment legislation, maintaining deep, up‑to‑date knowledge and proactively advising the business on legal risk and mitigation.

• Lead relationships with external stakeholders, including labour authorities, legal advisors, auditors, and regulatory bodies.

• Own and lead HR audit, compliance, and due diligence activities, identifying gaps and driving sustainable corrective actions.

• Oversee payroll governance, ensuring accuracy, timeliness, and statutory compliance, while partnering effectively with vendors and internal teams.

• Provide strategic oversight of mobility activities, advising on policy, cost, risk, and employee experience for domestic and international moves.

• Champion Health, Safety, and Wellbeing initiatives, ensuring leadership accountability and a strong safety culture.

• Lead the optimisation, adoption, and governance of Workday HRIS, acting as a subject‑matter expert and change leader.

Leadership, Governance & Projects

• Lead cross‑functional HR projects such as engagement surveys, culture initiatives, leadership development programs, and policy harmonisation.

• Translate global HR frameworks into locally effective solutions, balancing consistency with local market realities.

• Act as a culture carrier and role model, reinforcing organisational values and ethical standards.

• Provide strategic input into policy design and review, ensuring relevance, fairness, and legal robustness.

Performance Assessment – Senior Level Expectations

In addition to the existing competencies, the Senior HRBP is expected to demonstrate:

• Strategic judgement and decision‑making – Makes balanced, well‑reasoned decisions in complex and ambiguous situations.

• Executive presence and credibility – Trusted by senior leaders; able to influence without authority.

• Risk management mindset – Proactively identifies people, legal, and reputational risks and drives mitigation.

• Leadership and accountability – Takes full ownership of outcomes; leads through others where required.

• Change leadership – Guides leaders and teams through change with clarity, empathy, and structure.

• Systems thinking – Understands the downstream impact of HR decisions on business performance and employee experience.

Experience required 

• Progressive HR experience, with significant time spent in a Senior HRBP or equivalent leadership role.

• Proven experience operating in complex, fast‑paced, and matrixed organisations, preferably within a multinational or global environment.

• Demonstrated expertise in Employee Relations, including handling high‑risk, sensitive, and complex cases independently.

• Strong experience partnering with senior leaders and business heads, influencing outcomes at a strategic level.

• Track record of leading HR initiatives across talent, engagement, performance, and organisational change.

• Deep working knowledge of Canadian and US employment law, with the ability to apply it pragmatically in commercial contexts.

• Experience working through ambiguity, transformation, and change, with resilience and confidence.

• Strong consulting, facilitation, and coaching skills.

• Highly organised, proactive, and delivery‑focused, with the ability to manage competing priorities.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to engage at all organisational levels.

• Experience supporting regional or global HR agendas is strongly preferred.

About FNZ

FNZ is committed to opening up wealth so that everyone, everywhere can invest in their future on their terms. We know the foundation to do that already exists in the wealth management industry, but complexity holds firms back. 

We created wealth’s growth platform to help. We provide a global, end-to-end wealth management platform that integrates modern technology with business and investment operations. All in a regulated financial institution. 

We partner with the world’s leading financial institutions, with over US$2.5 trillion in assets on platform (AoP).
Together with our clients, we empower nearly 30 million people across all wealth segments to invest in their future.