Senior Payroll Manager EMEA

We are looking for an experienced Senior Payroll Manager EMEA to lead and evolve our payroll operations across the region. In this role, you will provide strategic leadership and operational oversight to ensure payroll is delivered accurately, on time, and in full compliance with local regulations. As a trusted regional partner to HR, Finance, IT, and business leaders, you will play a key role in driving corporate initiatives, strengthening payroll processes, and enabling continuous improvement across the HR function. Your work will directly support business continuity while enhancing the overall employee experience across the EMEA region.

The work model for the role is: hybrid; #LI-Hybrid

The role is located within Europe, preferably in Poland or Spain.  

Your responsibilities:

• Leadership & Operational Oversight: Lead the EMEA Payroll Operations team, ensuring timely and accurate payroll delivery aligned with KPIs and SLAs, including review and approval of payroll processing and incident management with root-cause analysis and remediation.
• Strategic Stakeholder Partnership: Act as a key regional partner to HR, Finance, IT, and business leaders on initiatives impacting payroll (e.g., system enhancements, general ledger standardization), ensuring effective resource allocation and end-to-end execution.
• Process Standardization & Continuous Improvement: Drive regional payroll standardization and process optimization across systems and practices, support benchmarking activities, and contribute to global payroll governance and vendor management forums.
• Compliance, Governance & Documentation: Ensure compliance with payroll legislation across EMEA, maintain standard operating procedures, segregation-of-duties frameworks, and operational controls.
• Business Continuity & Global Collaboration: Strengthen operational resilience through cross-training, documentation, and contingency planning, while partnering with global payroll teams and external providers to support a global payroll outsourcing model and enhance employee experience.

Your background:

• Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, or a related field, and at least six years of experience managing payroll operations across multiple EMEA countries, including leading geographically distributed teams.
• Proven experience operating in both in-house and outsourced payroll environments, including payroll vendor or system implementations.
• Experience in transitioning payroll processes and teams into HR Services operating models.
• Hands-on experience with Workday and familiarity with ServiceNow or similar service management platforms.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, high accountability, and strong attention to detail with a proactive, partnership-oriented approach.
• Fluency in English and willingness to travel as required for operational oversight, stakeholder engagement, and workshops.

What’s in it for you?

We empower you to take initiative, challenge ideas, and lead with confidence. You’ll grow through meaningful work, continuous learning, and support that’s tailored to your goals. Every idea you share and every action you take contributes to something bigger.