VP, HR, Americas & Talent Acquisition

At Graphic Packaging International, we produce the paper cup that held your coffee this morning, the basket that transported those bottles of craft beer you enjoyed last weekend, and the microwave tray that heated your gourmet meal last night. We’re one of the largest manufacturers of paperboard and paper-based packaging for some of the world’s most recognized brands of food, beverage, foodservice, household, personal care and pet products. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, we are collaborative, diverse, innovative individuals who create inspired packaging while giving back to our communities.

With over 25,000 employees working in more than 130 locations worldwide, we strive to be environmentally responsible in our industry and in the communities where we operate. We are committed to workplace diversity and offer compensation and benefits programs that are among the industry’s best to reward the talented people who make our company successful.

A World of Difference. Made Possible.

JOB SUMMARY:

ROLE PURPOSE

The Vice President, Human Resources, Americas is the senior strategic HR Business Partner for the Americas Commercial organization and a member of the Global HR Leadership Team. The role shapes and executes the people and organization agenda for a business spanning the United States, Mexico, Brazil, and Canada, representing more than $5 billion in revenue and approximately 500 commercial employees.

Serving as the primary HR partner to the EVP, Americas and as a member of the Americas leadership team, this executive will translate business strategy into clear organization, leadership, workforce, talent, and culture priorities. The role will also serve as a trusted advisor to the EVP & Chief Human Resources Officer and senior enterprise leaders, challenge constructively, bring an enterprise perspective to decisions, and ensure people investments improve business performance, transformation outcomes, and long-term organizational capability.

This is a highly visible succession role for a leader with the potential and aspiration to progress to a CHRO position. Success requires a distinctive combination of commercial judgment, executive influence, deep HR expertise, analytical rigor, global perspective, and a hands‑on operating style.

SCOPE AND PARTNERSHIPS

• Partner closely with the VP, HR Operations, Americas to translate enterprise and business priorities into consistent execution, while maintaining clear distinction between strategic HR partnership and day‑to‑day HR operations.

• Mobilize global HR Centers of Excellence and shared services to deliver integrated solution in talent, rewards, organization effectiveness, workforce planning, change, analytics, and employee experience.
• Represent the Americas Commercial perspective on the Global HR Leadership Team and contribute to enterprise HR strategy, operating model, priorities, and capability building.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Business and enterprise partnership: Serve as a high‑impact advisor to senior leaders on business strategy, organizational performance, leadership effectiveness, talent, and workforce implications. Bring independent judgment, external perspective, and the courage to challenge assumptions and elevate decisions.
• Organization and operating model: Lead organization design, decision‑rights, spans-and-layers, role clarity, and operating‑model work that increases accountability, speed, productivity, and execution effectiveness. Ensure organizational changes are supported by robust talent, communication, and adoption plans.
• Strategic workforce planning: Translate growth, productivity, portfolio, technology, and transformation priorities into multi‑year workforce plans. Identify critical roles and skills, quantify supply‑demand gaps, and shape build, buy, borrow, automate, or redeploy strategies.
• Transformation and change leadership: Act as the people and organization leader for major business transformations. Establish clear sponsorship, stakeholder alignment, change plans, adoption measures, and leadership accountability so new ways of working are embedded and sustained.
• Leadership and succession: Strengthen the leadership bench for critical roles through rigorous succession planning, differentiated development, talent reviews, and decisive action on capability gaps. Advise on executive selection, onboarding, assessment, team effectiveness, and transitions.
• Performance and culture: Build a performance‑driven, people‑powered culture characterized by customer focus, disciplined execution, accountability, continuous improvement, inclusion, and integrity. Embed expected leadership behaviors in selection, goals, performance, development, recognition, and consequences.
• Talent and capability strategy: Define the capabilities and talent investments required to deliver the Americas strategy. Shape targeted strategies for critical‑skill acquisition, internal mobility, career paths, development, engagement, and retention.
• Rewards and performance alignment: Partner with Total Rewards and business leaders to ensure executive, commercial, and broad‑based reward programs reinforce value creation, operational performance, strategic priorities, and differentiated performance.
• People analytics and market intelligence: Use workforce data, predictive insights, benchmarks, and labor‑market intelligence to diagnose issues, evaluate trade‑offs, prioritize investment, and measure impact. Convert analysis into clear executive‑level recommendations and action.
• Risk, governance, and employee relations: Bring strategic oversight to significant people, labor, employee‑relations, and compliance matters. Anticipate enterprise risk, ensure appropriate governance, and partner with HR Operations, Legal, and other experts on resolution and prevention.
• HR effectiveness: Raise the strategic impact of the HRBP function by clarifying priorities, improving decision quality and speed, strengthening business acumen, and focusing HR capacity on the highest‑value enterprise and business outcomes.

MEASURES OF SUCCESS

• Business leaders view HR as a credible, commercially minded partner who improves decisions and accelerates execution.

• Priority transformations have clear organization, talent, leadership, and change plans, with accountable sponsors and measurable adoption.

• Strategic workforce plans identify critical roles, skills, capacity, cost, and risk, and translate those insights into funded actions.

• Organization design improves role clarity, spans and layers, decision speed, productivity, and accountability.

• Succession depth and readiness improve for transformation‑critical roles, with differentiated development and stronger internal pipelines.

• Talent, culture, engagement, and retention actions are explicitly linked to safety, quality, service, productivity, growth, and financial outcomes.

• HR resources and COE solutions are deployed against the highest‑value business priorities with clear ownership, pace, and measurable impact.

Experience

• Senior HR leadership: 15+ years of progressive HR leadership experience, including substantial experience as a senior HR Business Partner to C‑suite or business‑unit executives in a large, complex organization.
• Business scale and complexity: Experience supporting a sizeable, multi‑country, multi‑site, or matrixed business with meaningful operational, commercial, and workforce complexity.
• Transformation track record: Demonstrated success leading organization redesign, operating‑model change, strategic workforce planning, capability building, culture change, and enterprise transformation.
• Commercial and financial acumen: Strong understanding of business models, value drivers, financial performance, productivity, customer and commercial dynamics, and the people levers that influence results.
• Talent and organization depth: Deep expertise in organization effectiveness, succession, executive assessment and coaching, leadership development, performance management, talent acquisition, engagement, retention, and change leadership.
• Rewards experience: Experience partnering on executive, commercial, sales, and broad‑based incentive approaches that connect pay with performance and value creation.
• Global perspective: Meaningful experience operating across countries and cultures, with the judgment to balance enterprise consistency and local business requirements.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree in business, human resources, organization development, or a related field preferred.
• Succession potential: Demonstrated potential and aspiration to progress to the CHRO role.

Critical Leadership Capabilities

• Executive presence and courage to constructively challenge senior leaders and influence enterprise decisions.
• Transformational leadership with a track record of driving change and organizational effectiveness.
• Resourceful and hands‑on leadership style with success operating in lean environments with limited tools and resources.
• Positive, resilient, low‑ego leadership approach that builds trust and engagement.
• Strategic and enterprise mindset with the ability to balance business, talent, and organizational priorities.

Disclaimer

The candidate must be able to perform the essential functions of the position satisfactorily, with or without a reasonable accommodation. Graphic Packaging retains the right to change or assign other duties to this position.

Pay Range: $240,100.00-$320,200.00

Graphic Packaging is an equal opportunity employer and abides by all applicable federal, state provincial and local laws with respect to the recruitment and hiring process. We are committed to an inclusive, barrier‑free recruitment and hiring process free from discrimination or harassment based upon race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status. Should you require an accommodation for a disability, please contact your Human Resources representative or email View email address on click.appcast.io.