Head of Global HR Digital COE

Positioning

Item

Details

Reports Directly To

GCC – Head of Applications

Reports Indirectly To

CIO Global IT Services

Location

GCC India (Global Capability Center) - Hyderabad

Purpose of the Role

As the Head of the HR Digital Center of Excellence (COE), you will be accountable for the strategy, operations, transformation programs, and people leadership of client global HR technology landscape.

You will lead a multidisciplinary team responsible for supporting, securing, monitoring, and continuously improving both the legacy HR workplace and the future global HR platform, including Workday and associated digital HR solutions.

The is an IT role and acts as the primary bridge between Global IT and the HR leadership, business stakeholders, as well the other IT teams as cybersecurity, architecture teams, and external vendors, ensuring that HR technologies deliver measurable business value, operational excellence, regulatory compliance, and an outstanding employee experience.

Beyond system delivery, the role is expected to build a high-performing and highly engaged HR Digital COE capable of becoming a strategic partner to the business and a key contributor to Clients digital transformation agenda.

Key Responsibilities

1. HR Digital COE Leadership

- Lead and continuously develop the Global HR Digital COE.
- Build, coach and retain a high-performing team of HR technology experts.
- Create a culture of accountability, ownership, innovation and continuous improvement.
- Develop talent, succession plans, career paths and capability-building programs within the COE.
- Drive employee engagement and position the HR Digital COE as an employer of choice.
- Foster collaboration across Europe, Americas, GCC India and other global delivery organizations.

2. Operational Excellence & Service Management

Own the day-to-day performance of the global HR application landscape.

Responsibilities include:

- End-to-end ownership of HR systems operations and support.
- SLA and KPI management.
- ServiceNow governance and service delivery processes.
- Incident, problem and change management.
- System monitoring and platform availability.
- Vendor management and operational performance reviews.
- Application lifecycle management.
- Security, compliance and audit readiness.
- GDPR, SOX, ITGC and HR data governance compliance.
- Continuous improvement of service quality and user experience.

Success will be measured through operational stability, user satisfaction, compliance performance and business adoption.

3. HR Transformation & MasterPlan Ownership





- Define and maintain the Global HR Technology MasterPlan.
- Partner with HR business leaders to identify priorities and business opportunities.
- Build transformation roadmaps aligned with HR strategy.
- Lead execution of strategic HR transformation initiatives.
- Ensure projects deliver measurable business outcomes and value realization.
- Drive process standardization and harmonization globally.
- Support organizational change management and adoption activities.

The role is expected to challenge the status quo and proactively identify simplification, automation and AI opportunities across HR processes.

4. Demand Management, Portfolio & Budget Ownership

- Own the annual HR Digital budget (OPEX, CAPEX and SaaS spend).
- Lead demand management processes across HR functions.
- Prioritize initiatives based on business value, risk reduction and strategic alignment.
- Build business cases and investment proposals.
- Manage vendor contracts and commercial relationships.
- Ensure financial transparency, cost optimization and value realization from technology investments.
- Provide regular portfolio reporting to HR and IT leadership.

5. Business Partnership & Stakeholder Management

- Act as trusted advisor to senior HR executives and business leaders.
- Develop strong relationships with HR leadership teams globally.
- Translate business priorities into technology roadmaps.
- Facilitate governance forums and steering committees.
- Influence executive stakeholders and drive consensus across multiple functions.
- Communicate complex technology topics in business language.

The successful candidate must demonstrate executive presence and the ability to engage effectively with CHRO-level and senior HR stakeholders.

6. Enterprise Architecture & Technology Strategy

- Define the future HR application strategy.
- Ensure alignment with enterprise architecture standards.
- Lead integration strategies between HR platforms and enterprise systems.
- Collaborate with architecture, cybersecurity and data teams.
- Promote SaaS-first, standardization and cloud adoption principles.
- Drive adoption of analytics, AI and automation capabilities.

7. HR Technology Expertise

Preferred experience includes:

Strongly Desired





- Workday HCM
- Workday Recruiting
- Workday Talent & Performance
- Workday Compensation
- Workday Learning
- Workday Integrations
- Workday Reporting & Analytics

Additional Advantage

- SAP HCM
- SAP SuccessFactors
- SAP Payroll
- Legacy HR landscapes and transformation programs
- HR data platforms and analytics

Hands-on experience leading a large-scale migration from legacy HR systems to Workday will be considered a significant advantage.

Leadership Competencies

The ideal candidate combines strong technology expertise with exceptional emotional intelligence.

People Leadership

- Builds trust and psychological safety.
- Coaches and develops future leaders.
- Empowers teams rather than micromanages.
- Creates an inclusive and collaborative culture.
- Manages diverse teams across geographies and cultures.
- Handles conflict constructively and professionally.
- Demonstrates resilience and adaptability during transformation.

Business Leadership

- Strategic thinking.
- Executive communication.
- Stakeholder influence.
- Customer-centric mindset.
- Data-driven decision making.
- Strong ownership and accountability.

Technical Competencies

- Workday ecosystem expertise.
- HR digital transformation leadership.
- Service Management & ITIL.
- ServiceNow.
- Vendor & contract management.
- Cybersecurity and compliance.
- Data governance.
- Cloud and SaaS operating models.
- Portfolio and project management.
- Analytics and AI enablement.

Requirements

- Master's degree in Information Technology, Business Administration, Human Resources or related field.
- 12+ years of experience in HR technology and digital transformation.
- 5+ years leading global teams.
- Proven experience managing large HR application portfolios.
- Demonstrated success leading Workday and HR transformation programs.
- Experience owning budgets, demand management and strategic roadmaps.
- Strong stakeholder management skills with executive-level business leaders.
- Fluent English.

Closing comments:

"The Head of HR Digital COE is accountable not only for managing the team running the HR landscape and delivering HR projects, but for ensuring that HR technology creates measurable business value through operational excellence, process simplification, workforce productivity improvement, data-driven decision making, and accelerated adoption of digital and AI capabilities across HR."

Our ambition is to elevate the role from an operational HRIS Manager to a true strategic Global COE Leader and Business Transformation Partner.

📌 Head of Global HR Digital COE (Hyderabad)
🏢 ARISE TECHGLOBAL PRIVATE
📍 Hyderabad