Sr. Director of People & Culture

Job Description

Job Description

For over 30 years, SQA Services has been a premier leader in providing managed supplier quality services for audits, assessments, remote surveillance assessments, corrective actions, remediation, inspections, and engineering to manufacturers in quality-critical industries. We deliver services by deploying associates who are located throughout the United States and in 90+ countries around the world to your supplier sites. Our associates are expert quality assurance professionals with broad experience and local knowledge who can represent our clients on-demand and on-site faster than our competitors. Over the past several years, SQA Revenue and both Corporate and Contract employee count have grown significantly, and our ambitions are even greater. We see this as an opportunity to strengthen our foundations and build the team that will lead us into that future. 

This is a newly created role — the first strategic people leader in the company's history. You'll build a function with full executive support and the mandate to shape it from the ground up. 

As the Sr. Director of People & Culture, you will report directly to the CEO and sit on our executive team, leading the people side of that next chapter. You'll partner closely with leadership to build the practices, structure, and culture that let SQA scale without losing what makes it work: performance management, leadership development, and engagement all built for where we're headed, not just where we've been. If you want a seat at the table where that future gets shaped, and the mandate to actually build it, this is that role. 

Key Responsibilities

Build and lead the HR function 

• Lead and develop the Human Resources function across the full employee lifecycle, including talent acquisition, onboarding, employee changes and separations, employee relations, performance management, learning and leadership development, succession and career development, employee engagement and culture, workforce planning, HR operations, systems, and compliance, while partnering closely with Finance, which oversees compensation and benefits. 

• Establish scalable HR policies and guardrails and select and implement HR systems suited to SQA's growth. 

• Own employee relations and maintain compliant and investigative practices across a multi-state and global workforce, including wage and hour, leave, worker classification, employment eligibility and recordkeeping, ITAR and agency matters, partnering with counsel on employment risk for the employees and contractor population. 

• Establish and oversee scalable HR practices for SQA's large, distributed workforce, addressing employee relations, compliance, workforce administration, and client/supplier-site requirements across multiple jurisdictions. 

• Serve as a credible, approachable resource for employees at every level, not only a strategic partner to the executive team, building the trust that gives culture and engagement initiatives real traction on the ground. 

Implement and sustain talent development, performance management, and rewards practices 

• Design a performance management process that clarifies expectations and supports fair, consistent decisions. 

• Own the job leveling framework and connect it to career paths and succession planning. 

• Lead SQA's global talent acquisition approach, including workforce priorities, recruiting processes, selection standards, candidate experience, offer practices, and measures of recruiting effectiveness for both corporate and contractor population. 

• Lead workforce planning with Finance and business leaders to align hiring with growth priorities. 

• Own employee learning and development, building the training, upskilling, and reskilling programs that keep both corporate staff and contractors qualified, current, and ready for evolving client and role demands. 

• Build manager development focused on coaching, feedback, and accountability. 

• Help leaders translate TRADE values (Trust, Respect, Accountability, Dedication, Excellence) into consistent, observable practices. 

• Build connection and engagement practices suited to SQA's hybrid environment, including the Chairman's Roundtable (a recurring, rotating forum that gives employees direct influence over cultural and organizational change) and pulse surveys. 

Partner with the CEO and executive team to strengthen leadership effectiveness 

• Report directly to the CEO and actively participate in the executive committee. 

• Advise the CEO on organization, leadership, talent, and culture with candid, evidence-based counsel. 

• Partner on organization design, workforce priorities, and major initiatives with clear decision rights. 

Lead change and turn insight into action 

• Guide organizational change with clear communication, manager preparation, and defined escalation paths. 

• Own survey, exit, and reputation signals as ongoing inputs to action, not static reports. 

• Use people and business data to shape decisions and connect HR priorities to business performance. 

• Assess organizational culture, surface underlying challenges, and lead the changes needed to strengthen trust, accountability, and engagement across the workforce. 

What Success Looks Like in Year One

• A performance management framework is in place and managers understand how to use it. 

• The talent acquisition function is running consistently across corporate and contractor hiring, with clear measures of effectiveness. 

• The CEO and executive team have a trusted people partner in the room for major decisions. 

Skills and Competencies

• Executive presence and courage: earns trust of the executive team and challenges decisions or behavior when needed. 

• Business acumen: ties people decisions to strategy, revenue, and SQA's ability to scale. 

• Broad HR judgment across employee relations, operations, talent, rewards, and compliance. 

• Employee relations judgment: handles concerns and investigations promptly and discreetly. 

• Systems thinking: connects compensation, performance, and workforce planning into one coherent approach. 

• Implementation discipline: turns plans into daily practice and follows through to adoption. 

• Leadership coaching: develops managers directly, not only through training. 

• Change leadership: provides steady direction through ambiguity and communicates with transparency. 

• Data based problem solving: uses data to find root causes and set priorities. 

• Trust building: earns credibility across roles and tenure while helping SQA evolve. 

Required Experience

• Ten or more years of progressive HR leadership, including three or more years building a broad HR function.

• PHR or SPHR certification. 

• Senior level experience across employee relations, talent, compensation, compliance, and organization change, with sound judgment on when to bring in specialists. 

• Direct experience advising a CEO and executive team as a strategic partner. 

• Experience supporting a sizable global contractor or subcontractor population, including worker classification. 

• Track record building people practices in a growing company moving from informal to structured. 

• Strong employee relations and investigation experience, including sensitive issues and partnership with counsel. 

• Experience leading a small HR team and managing outside vendors and partners. 

• Experience supporting a multi-state, distributed, or hybrid workforce. 

• Track record developing managers and turning programs into measurable results. 

Preferred Experience

• Experience in professional services, a technical environment, or another client facing business. 

• Experience working within EOS or a comparable operating system.