Director, People Experience, Technology & AI Transformation

About Us At Fogo de Chão, we strive to give our guests an unforgettable dining experience of discovery while showcasing the Culinary Art of Churrasco. Our mission is to ignite fire and joy to care for our team, our guests, and our communities. We believe better futures start when we bring our best to the table every day to Feed a Purposeful Future – starting with our team members. We feed our teams with fulfilling job opportunities, making space around the table so everyone feels welcome. At Fogo, we’ll provide you with a fulfilling career with professional and personal growth opportunities at every level. Our values of teamwork, integrity, excellence, humility, and Deixa Comigo (we’ve got you!) are more than just words, it’s how we do things every day. We are hiring a Director, People Experience, Technology, & AI Transformation to simplify how HR work gets done, leverage automation and AI responsibly, and build people technology that enables leaders to focus on developing teams and delivering exceptional Guest Experiences. This individual contributor role operates as a department of one with broad enterprise influence across HR, Operations, IT, Enterprise Data & Analytics, Finance, Legal/Compliance, vendors, and field leadership. The ideal candidate brings deep HR domain expertise, technology fluency, AI curiosity, change enablement capability, and the discipline to translate people needs into scalable, data-informed products, workflows, and adoption plans. What You Will Own Simplify Work to Elevate Hospitality Redesign HR processes to enable connection, recognition, and high standards. Eliminate redundant approvals, manual data entry, and low-impact reporting. Ensure solutions increase time spent with Guests and Teams. Scope current-state HR processes and workflows to identify friction points, manual workarounds, duplication, and areas prone to human error; use findings to design simplified, future-state workflows that are scalable, intuitive, and adoption-ready. Eliminate Low-Value Work at Scale Conduct time studies across Above Restaurant Operations Leadership, Restaurant Managers, and HRBPs. Identify top operational inefficiencies Drive elimination, automation, or self-service adoption Deploy Practical AI & Workforce Technology Implement high-impact use cases: Hourly “human in the loop” hiring automation Automated onboarding workflows Team Member self-service Manager support/coaching tools Partner with IT while owning prioritization and adoption. Partner with HR Centers of Excellence, Operations, Enterprise Data & Analytics, and IT to translate restaurant and people pain points into AI-enabled use cases, product requirements, workflows, data requirements, integration needs, governance inputs, and adoption plans. Evaluate emerging people technology, automation, and AI capabilities through a practical lens for risk, usability, data quality, compliance, security scalability, and Team Member experience. Own the Enterprise People Technology Project Map Own and maintain the full people technology transformation project map, including active initiatives, future-state opportunities, owners, milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions needed, sequencing, resourcing assumptions, and expected value. Establish clear governance, intake, prioritization, status reporting, and escalation routines so leaders can make informed tradeoffs, and the work remains aligned, visible, and actionable. Translate a complex roadmap into simple executive updates, field-ready communications, vendor priorities, and cross-functional action plans. Productize HR Programs Consult with HR leaders and cross-functional partners to simplify performance, engagement, and development programs so they are scalable, practical, and easy for restaurant teams to adopt. Minimize and/or eliminate corporate-heavy processes that do not translate to restaurants. Drive Adoption Through Trust and Simplicity Partner with Above Restaurant Operations Leadership and General Managers. Pilot, refine, and scale solutions. Address resistance to change and inconsistency by leaning into the ADKAR model Build change enablement plans that include stakeholder alignment, communications, training, behavior reinforcement, adoption measurement, and field feedback loops. Serve as a credible translator across HR, Operations, IT, Enterprise Data & Analytics, vendors, and Restaurant Leaders so solutions are technically sound, data-informed, operationally simple, secure, scalable, and human-centered. What You Bring Experience 8–12+ years in HR transformation, workforce tech, or operations. Multi-unit, high-volume environment experience preferred. Proven ability to implement change at scale. Demonstrated HR domain expertise across multiple functions, including talent acquisition, onboarding, learning, performance, engagement, total rewards, HR operations, workforce analytics, and compliance-sensitive people processes. Capabilities Process simplification expertise. Business process optimization expertise, including design thinking, current-state assessment, future-state workflow design, root-cause analysis, error-proofing, simplification, and adoption-ready process documentation. Strong data orientation. Field-first mindset. Hands-on people technology fluency across HRIS, ATS, LMS/LXP, workforce management, case management, analytics, automation, and AI-enabled productivity tools; able to define requirements, assess vendors, partner with technical teams, and guide implementation decisions. Comfort working with Enterprise Data & Analytics and IT on data governance, system integrations, reporting logic, analytics use cases, AI enablement, security, architecture, and roadmap prioritization. Enterprise roadmap and portfolio ownership; able to manage workstreams, dependencies, milestones, risks, vendors, decisions, and tradeoffs without relying on a large team or formal project management office. High-influence individual contributor with a people-experience design mindset; able to set direction, create structure, drive alignment, and hold workstreams accountable through credibility, clarity, and disciplined follow-through. Mindset Challenges legacy work constructively. Moves quickly and iterates. Makes decisions with imperfect data. Curious and responsible AI mindset; understands where AI can create value, where human judgment must remain central, and how to build confidence through transparency, governance, and practical outcomes. Operating Model Reports to the Chief People Officer. Dotted-line partnership with the VP, Enterprise Data & Analytics and the VP, IT. Individual contributor role; operates as a department of one with broad influence across HR, Operations, IT, Enterprise Data & Analytics, Finance, Legal/Compliance, vendors, and field leadership. Self-funding transformation through efficiency gains. Serves as the HR business owner and transformation integrator for people technology priorities, leading the roadmap, operating rhythm, executive updates, vendor coordination, dependency management, adoption planning, and benefits tracking in partnership with technical and functional leaders. This role partners across the Human Capital portfolio to inform investment recommendations, roadmap priorities, vendor requirements, business cases, and value realization for all people-related technology products under the Chief People Officer’s scope. Deixa Comigo: Role Clarity & Collaboration This role connects business needs, people experience, technology design, data enablement, and adoption into one clear, actionable roadmap while preserving clear accountability across partner functions. This role leads: the people technology roadmap, HR business requirements, prioritization recommendations, user experience design, AI-enabled HR use case development, project-map visibility, adoption planning, and benefits tracking in partnership with accountable functional leaders, including the VP, HR Operations. With Enterprise Data & Analytics: co-creates people data requirements, reporting standards, analytics use cases, dashboard needs, data quality priorities, governance inputs, and responsible AI enablement. With IT: co-creates architecture alignment, integration requirements, security and access considerations, implementation feasibility, vendor technical due diligence, and deployment planning. With HR Operations: ensures redesigned processes are operationally sound, scalable, compliant, and service-delivery ready; HR Operations retains day-to-day process execution accountability and owns the HR technology budget, with this role informing prioritization, business cases, vendor needs, and benefits tracking. With Organizational Enablement & PMO: aligns change strategy, project governance, communications, training, sequencing, stakeholder engagement, and enterprise project standards; PMO retains enterprise methodology and broader portfolio governance. With Field HR: validates restaurant pain points, pilots solutions, supports field adoption, and ensures tools and processes work in restaurants; Field HR retains field-facing HR leadership and issue escalation. Cultural Expectations Balance hospitality and performance Preserve personal connection while improving consistency Modernize without losing brand identity. First 90 Days First 90 Days Conduct an HR friction audit across restaurants. Identify the top three time drains. Complete a current-state business process assessment, including workflow mapping, friction-point identification, human-error risk areas, manual workaround inventory, and prioritized optimization opportunities. Map the current HR technology ecosystem, data flows, vendor dependencies, user pain points, and priority AI or automation opportunities. Build a consolidated people technology transformation project map with active and proposed initiatives, owners, dependencies, risks, decisions needed, timing, value case, and adoption requirements. Launch one to two pilot solutions and build credibility through quick wins. Success Scorecard (First 12 Months) Efficiency & Capacity Reduce manager administrative time by 20–30% Reduce HR transactional workload by 65%+ Talent Outcomes Reduce time-to-fill by 20% Achieve 90%+ onboarding completion within 14 days Improve 90-day retention Adoption & Experience Increase self-service adoption Improve Restaurant Manager satisfaction with HR processes Program Effectiveness 95%+ performance review completion 85%+ engagement survey participation Transformation Impact Eliminate 5–7 low-value processes Deliver 18-month transformation roadmap. Roadmap, Governance & Execution Discipline Deliver and maintain an enterprise-visible people technology project map with clear priorities, owners, dependencies, risks, decision points, sequencing. Create a practical governance cadence that enables faster decisions, tighter alignment, and consistent visibility across HR, Operations, IT, Enterprise Data & Analytics, Finance, Legal/Compliance, vendors, and field leadership. Track adoption, efficiency gains, experience improvements, and benefits realization so transformation progress is measured by business value, not activity alone. This role is designed for a builder who can rethink how work happens, eliminate inefficiencies, and deliver practical solutions that restaurant teams embrace. This position is fully on-site at our Addison, TX office. Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance are available for full-time Team Members on the first of the month following their start date. Additionally, company-paid Life Insurance and Short-Term Disability are provided where allowed. We offer a comprehensive voluntary benefits package including Critical Illness, Hospital Indemnity, and Accident Coverage. Fogo de Chão is an Equal Opportunity & E-Verify Employer At Fogo de Chão, we strive to give our guests an unforgettable dining experience of discovery while showcasing the Culinary Art of Churrasco. Our mission is to ignite fire and joy to care for our team, our guests, and our communities. We believe better futures start when we bring our best to the table every day to Feed a Purposeful Future – starting with our team members. We feed our teams with fulfilling job opportunities, making space around the table so everyone feels welcome. At Fogo, we’ll provide you with a fulfilling career with professional and personal growth opportunities at every level. Our values of teamwork, integrity, excellence, humility and Deixa Comigo (we’ve got you!) are more than just words, it’s how we do things every day. #J-18808-Ljbffr Fogo de Chão