GiveDirectly is seeking an experienced, business-oriented Head of People to design and run the human systems that power their mission of delivering cash grants directly to the world’s poorest. This role will serve as both architect and hands-on operator across talent acquisition, org design, leadership development, performance, rewards, HR operations, and employee relations in a global, distributed, and lean environment.
What You'll Do
- Make talent a competitive advantage by raising the hiring bar and building a repeatable 'hiring machine' including calibration, principles/values assessment, structured loops, and quality-at-30/90 days
- Build a proactive network and bench for executive and scarce roles
- Design performance + rewards systems that are lightweight, high-signal, tied to development and consequences
- Refresh compensation and total rewards to attract and retain top talent while preserving a lean model and economic efficiency
- Be the steady employee relations advisor: lead on sensitive personnel matters with discretion and fairness
- Support investigations, safeguarding, crisis response, and change communications
- Coach and level up leadership by partnering with CEO/COO and executives on org design, succession, and leadership effectiveness
- Intervene early to raise or replace leadership when needed
- Build scalable global people operations by improving HRIS/workforce tools and standardizing core processes
- Ensure compliant, efficient operations across countries (subsidiaries, contractors, EOR/PEO) in close partnership with Finance and Legal
- Strengthen culture and engagement by ensuring values are lived across the organization and staff are supported to be at their best
- Foster inclusive practices that build growth, trust, belonging, creativity, and execution speed
- Own people analytics by shipping leadership dashboards (headcount, hiring velocity/quality, retention, eNPS/voice, performance distribution) to inform decisions and accountability
- Operate with leverage: keep the People team small, senior, and high-output; set SLAs, clarify ownership, and continuously remove friction for program and fundraising teams
What We're Looking For
- Strong business acumen with a track record of treating the People function as a driver of organizational outcomes (talent density, speed, quality, reliability)
- Demonstrated success building simple, scalable systems (hiring, performance, rewards, workforce models, HRIS) across multiple countries and regulatory contexts
- High judgment on tradeoffs under tight constraints
- Depth in sensitive employee relations, risk management, and safeguarding across diverse cultural settings
- Calm, discreet, and principled approach to employee relations
- Proven ability to recruit, calibrate, and develop senior talent
- Sets a high bar for leadership and team performance
- Builds a small, high-leverage team and operating cadence that scales
- Structured, analytical thinker who disaggregates problems, designs from first principles, iterates quickly, and measures results
- Comfort moving between private sector and NGO settings and between different org sizes
Team & Environment
- Global team of ~150, country operations teams of ~650
- Non-hierarchical, distributed across 21 countries and 69 languages
- Reports to Chief Operating Officer
- Culture: Candid, Analytical, Agile, Non-hierarchical, Center the people we serve in decision-making, Ambitious, Dynamic, High-performing environment, High ownership, Flexibility, Support each other, Have fun, Create professional growth opportunities
Benefits & Compensation
- Robust health benefits plan (exact details vary by country)
- Flexible paid time off that staff are encouraged to take
- Allowances for desk set-up
- Allowances for learning and development
- Annual benefits stipend (amount varies by country)
- Travel ~3-4 times per year to countries of operation for team retreats or field visits
- United States: $154,500 – $200,000; United Kingdom: £106,374 – £127,761; Kenya: $120,000 – $145,000; other countries: estimated salary benchmark shared during hiring process
- Bonus at target performance: 15% (~$23,175 – $30,000 in US, ~£15,956 – £19,164 in UK, ~$18,000 – $21,750 in Kenya), with potential for upside
- Annual benefits stipend: $21,393 (US), £2,760 (UK), $8,453 (Kenya)
Work Mode
- Remote with strong preference for candidates in East Africa Time (EAT) timezone or in any of GiveDirectly’s countries of operation
- If outside EAT, must overlap at least 3 hours with EAT
- Fully remote; high ownership and flexibility supported
GiveDirectly is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
