Director, Global Payroll

Zendesk is seeking a strategic, hands-on Director of Global Payroll to lead our payroll operations across the globe. This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for overseeing a global team of payroll professionals spanning the globe.

You will be accountable for ensuring timely, accurate, and compliant payroll processing for thousands of employees while driving process improvements, scaling global operations, and partnering closely with Finance, HR, Legal, and external vendors.

Responsibilities:

• Lead and manage a disbursed global payroll team of 10+ professionals across the US, LATAM, APAC, and EMEA
• Oversee end-to-end payroll payroll operations for all global entities, ensuring compliance with local regulations, labor laws, and tax requirements
• Establish and maintain standardized payroll processes and controls across all regions while balancing local requirements
• Work closely with HR, Finance, Legal, and Compliance to support business needs and employee experience
• Represent Payroll in M&A activities, entity expansions, policy rollouts ensuring seamless integration and execution
• Serve as the subject matter expert and escalation point for complex payroll inquiries and global pay related issues and policies
• Partner with IT teams to optimize integrations between payroll systems and platforms
• Drive global process improvements that scale Zendesk’s growth that reduce manual effort and errors
• Own global reporting, forecasting and analytics providing insight and visibility into payroll costs, and trends
• Prepare and present executive-level reporting on global payroll operations, risks, and strategic initiatives

Requirements:

• 15+ years of experience in a global payroll leadership role, preferably in tech or a high growth environment
• Strong expertise in global payroll systems (Workday, Cloudpay, ADP)
• Exceptional people management, cross cultural communication, and stakeholder engagement skills
• Skilled at balancing strategic leadership with operational excellence

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The US annualized base salary range for this position is $158,000.00-$238,000.00