Executive Director, Head of HR Partnering Americas

Today, Lonza is a global leader in life sciences operating across five continents.

While we work in science, there’s no magic formula to how we do it. Our greatest scientific solution is talented people working together, devising ideas that help businesses to help people. In exchange, we let our people own their careers. Their ideas, big and small, genuinely improve the world. And that’s the kind of work we want to be part of.

At Lonza, we are looking for a Executive Director, Head of HR Partnering Americas to lead our HR Partnering organization across the region and serve as the senior HR leader embedded closest to our business, leaders, and workforce. This strategic leadership role is responsible for translating Lonza's global HR Strategy into local execution, ensuring workforce initiatives, organizational effectiveness, leadership programs, employee experience, and people priorities are successfully implemented across the Americas.

Reporting directly to the CHRO, you will act as the critical link between local business realities and the broader HR ecosystem, partnering closely with Strategic Talent Leaders, People Products & Solutions, and People Services & Delivery to deliver an integrated HR experience. You will lead a high-performing HR Partnering organization while enabling workforce readiness, organizational performance, employee relations excellence, and leadership effectiveness across multiple countries, sites, and business functions.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the Americas HR Partnering organization, building a high-performing, customer-focused team while driving operational excellence, governance, and continuous improvement across the region
• Serve as the trusted HR advisor to business, functional, and site leaders, providing guidance on workforce planning, organizational effectiveness, leadership capability, and people-related business priorities
• Partner closely with Strategic Talent Leaders and Talent teams to effectively deploy the global people strategy and associated people programs across the region, ensuring the successful delivery of leadership development, succession planning, talent reviews, and capability-building initiatives.
• Drive the regional implementation of workforce planning, organizational design, and organizational effectiveness initiatives, translating enterprise priorities into pragmatic local execution and sustainable business outcomes across the region.
• Champion employee engagement, organizational culture, and employee experience, fostering inclusive, high-performing work environments aligned with Lonza's values
• Leverage workforce intelligence and analytics provided through the HR orchestration layer to identify workforce trends, organizational risks, and opportunities while enabling data-driven business decisions
• Act as the key integration point between business leaders and the broader HR ecosystem, orchestrating the delivery of HR products, services, and expertise across People Products & Solutions, Digital HR, and People Services & Delivery
• Lead the successful implementation and adoption of enterprise HR programmes, organizational transformations, and the HR Operating Model across the Americas region
• Provide senior-level Employee Relations leadership by advising business leaders on complex people matters, disciplinary processes, organizational change, and employment practices, ensuring consistency, sound judgment, and compliance with local employment legislation
• Build trusted relationships across the organization while fostering collaboration, leadership effectiveness, workforce readiness, and continuous improvement throughout the People Partnering organization

What We Are Looking For

• Proven experience in HR leadership roles with progressive responsibilities, including regional or global HR Business Partnering, organizational effectiveness, workforce strategy, or People Partnering leadership roles
• Strong expertise in workforce planning, organizational effectiveness, leadership coaching, organizational design, and change implementation within complex organizations
• Demonstrated experience leading Employee Relations across multiple sites or countries, with strong knowledge of employment legislation, complex case management, and leadership advisory
• Proven success leading large, matrixed HR organizations and driving enterprise-wide people initiatives in global environments
• Strong business acumen with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and act as a trusted advisor to executive leadership
• Experience leveraging workforce analytics, employee insights, and organizational data to support strategic decision-making and business outcomes
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, coaching, and influencing skills, with the ability to build strong partnerships across HR and business functions
• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Psychology, or a related field required; Master's degree, MBA, or equivalent advanced qualification preferred
• Experience within life sciences, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, or other highly regulated industries is preferred. Fluency in English is required

Every day, Lonza's products and services have a positive impact on millions of people. For us, this is not only a great privilege, but also a great responsibility. How we achieve our business results is just as important as the achievements themselves. At Lonza, we respect and protect our people and our environment. Any success we achieve is no success at all if not achieved ethically.

People come to Lonza for the challenge and creativity of solving complex problems and developing new ideas in life sciences. In return, we offer the satisfaction that comes with improving lives all around the world — the satisfaction that comes with making a meaningful difference.

Lonza is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a qualified individual with disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by