Regional Payroll Lead - EMEA Food ingredients

IFF is a global leader in flavors, fragrances, food ingredients and health & biosciences. We deliver sustainable innovations that elevate everyday products.

Food Ingredients: Innovating improved nutritional profiles, better taste and texture, and greater cost efficiency to meet the needs of global food and beverage manufacturers.

What's your next big career move?

If it involves helping build and stabilize payroll operations across one of the world's most complex and diverse regions, we should talk.

The Regional Payroll Lead, EMEA will lead the execution, implementation, and stabilization of payroll operations across the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region as the Food Ingredients business transitions to a standalone organization.

Reporting to the Senior Director, Global Payroll, this role is responsible for translating global payroll strategy into local execution across the region, ensuring payroll readiness, implementation success, operational compliance, and service delivery excellence across multiple countries. Working closely with ADP, TMF, local payroll teams, and key regional stakeholders, this leader will oversee payroll delivery, vendor performance, compliance, controls, and issue resolution while supporting the successful stand-up of a new global payroll organization. The Regional Payroll Manager will lead regional payroll resources and serve as the primary point of accountability for payroll performance and service delivery across EMEA.

The Regional Payroll Manager, EMEA will play a critical role in supporting the Food Ingredients business as it transitions to a standalone organization. This role will lead payroll implementation, vendor coordination, service delivery, and operational readiness activities across the EMEA region. With the global payroll strategy and vendor model already established, this leader will be responsible for ensuring successful regional execution—driving country readiness activities, supporting payroll implementations, managing vendors, overseeing local payroll resources, and ensuring a compliant and stable payroll operation across all countries within the region.

This role requires strong multi-country payroll expertise, vendor management capability, stakeholder partnership, and the ability to operate effectively within a fast-moving transformation environment. Following implementation, the role will continue to lead payroll operations across the region while driving service excellence, compliance, and continuous improvement.

The preferred location for the role would be Asturias (Spain), but other locations can be potentially considered as well.

Where You'll Make a Difference

• Lead the execution, implementation, and stabilization of payroll operations across the EMEA region as the Food Ingredients business transitions to a standalone organization. Own regional payroll delivery against the global payroll project plan, ensuring country readiness activities, testing, risks, dependencies, and implementation milestones are actively managed.
• Drive payroll readiness and successful transition activities across all countries within scope, partnering closely with global payroll leadership, vendors, and regional stakeholders. Support transition from implementation to steady-state operations while helping establish a scalable, compliant, and future-ready payroll function.
• Oversee end-to-end payroll operations across the region, ensuring payroll is accurate, timely, compliant, and delivered in accordance with country-specific requirements.
• Lead and develop regional payroll resources, providing direction, coaching, and support to local payroll teams while ensuring consistent service delivery and operational execution.
• Manage day-to-day relationships with payroll vendors, including ADP and TMF, ensuring service levels, contractual commitments, and country-specific requirements are met.
• Act as the primary escalation point for regional payroll issues, coordinating resolution across vendors, local teams, and internal stakeholders.
• Partner closely with HR, Finance, Tax, Legal, Controllership, and business leaders to ensure alignment on payroll inputs, outputs, funding, reporting, and compliance requirements.
• Support the implementation and maintenance of payroll controls, governance processes, standard operating procedures, and audit requirements.
• Monitor payroll performance metrics, vendor performance, compliance risks, and operational effectiveness, driving continuous improvement across the region.

What Makes You the Right Fit

• Extensive payroll experience with significant multi-country EMEA payroll leadership responsibilities.
• Strong experience managing payroll operations across multiple countries, including oversight of payroll vendors and local payroll teams.
• Demonstrated experience supporting payroll implementations, transitions, or transformation initiatives within complex multinational organizations.
• Strong understanding of payroll compliance, controls, governance, statutory requirements, and country-specific payroll practices across the EMEA region. Experience supporting payroll operations within environments subject to collective bargaining agreements, Works Councils, labor unions, and other employee representative bodies, with an understanding of their impact on payroll administration, compliance, and operational processes.
• Experience managing vendor-led payroll delivery models and driving vendor accountability against service levels and operational performance expectations.
• Proven ability to manage multiple priorities, stakeholders, risks, and operational activities in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to partner effectively across HR, Finance, Legal, Tax, IT, and business leadership.
• Experience leading teams, coaching payroll professionals, and creating a culture of accountability, service excellence, and continuous improvement.
• Strong communication in English, as well as problem-solving, execution, and organizational skills.

How Would You Stand Out?

• Prior experience working with ADP, TMF, or similar global payroll providers.
• Experience leading payroll stand-up, carve-out, separation, or transformation activities, and operating within a shared services, global business services, or outsourced payroll environment.
• Experience within a manufacturing, industrial, food, ingredients, or similarly complex operational environment.

Why Choose Us?

• Be part of a meaningful business transformation with global reach and impact.
• Play a key role in building and stabilizing payroll operations across one of the most complex regions in the organization.
• Work closely with global payroll leadership and senior stakeholders to shape a future-state payroll organization.
• Lead regional teams and vendor partnerships while driving operational excellence and service delivery.
• Join a purpose-driven organization focused on innovation, collaboration, and operational excellence.
• Your potential is our inspiration.

Important Information Regarding This Position

For your awareness, IFF has announced its intention to sell its Food Ingredients Business to CVC Capital Partners. The sale is presently expected to close in the first half of 2027, pending regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. The Food Ingredient business unit will remain a part of IFF until close and, at such time, it will transition to CVC Capital Partners. In applying for this position, you acknowledge your awareness that the position is a part of the Food Ingredient business unit and has been identified to transition to CVC Capital Partners.

We are a global leader in taste, scent, and nutrition, offering our customers a broader range of natural solutions and accelerating our growth strategy. At IFF, we believe that your uniqueness unleashes our potential. We value the diverse mosaic of the ethnicity, national origin, race, age, sex, or veteran status. We strive for an inclusive workplace that allows each of our colleagues to bring their authentic self to work regardless of their religion, gender identity & expression, sexual orientation, or disability.

Visit IFF.com/careers/workplace-diversity-and-inclusion to learn more