Director, Global People Operations & AI

About the role

Ethos is building a People organization that scales through both talent and technology, and this role sets the direction for how we get there. As Director, Global People Operations & AI, you'll own how People services are delivered worldwide: the Global People Services team, the operating model that supports every employee, and the automation and enablement strategy for the entire People organization. You'll define and stand up a tiered service model that moves work fluidly from self-service, to shared services, to experts, and you'll set the vision for where AI agents and automation handle repeatable work so our people can focus on judgment, complexity, and experience. You'll lead a growing team, partner with HR Technology, IT, Legal, and People leaders across regions, and build the governance and controls that let us scale responsibly. This is a strategic, hands-on leadership role for someone who can design an operating model and then make it real.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Own the strategy and multi-year roadmap for Global People Operations, defining how the People organization delivers services across all regions.
• Lead the Global People Services team, setting standards, service levels, quality, and coverage across geographies.
• Set the direction for automation and enablement across the global People organization, establishing an operating model where AI agents and automation carry repeatable work and people own judgment and experience.
• Design and implement a tiered service model spanning self-service (knowledge, portals, and AI assistants), shared services (People Ops handling routine and mid-complexity cases), and experts (centers of excellence and senior partners for complex work), with clear routing and escalation.
• Build the governance framework for AI and automation in People Ops: guardrails, human-in-the-loop controls, privacy, security, auditability, and compliance across jurisdictions.
• Define and own the metrics that measure success: service levels, case deflection, cycle time, cost-to-serve, accuracy, and employee experience, reporting outcomes to leadership and using them to prioritize investment.
• Lead and coach the People Operations team, including the People Product Managers, building capability in process design, agent oversight, and service delivery.
• Partner with HR Technology, IT, Legal, Finance, and People leaders to align global systems, data, and processes, and to advance operations through automation.
• Own change management and adoption for new processes, automations, and the tiered service model across regions and cultures.
• Ensure global compliance and data governance across the markets where Ethos operates.
• Manage vendors, budget, and the tooling roadmap for People Operations and shared services.
• Continuously scale and improve the operating model as Ethos grows and enters new markets.

Qualifications and Skills:

• 10+ years in People/HR Operations, shared services, or people/business operations, including several years leading teams.
• Proven experience building or running a People/HR shared services function and a tiered service model (self-service, shared services, experts).
• Track record setting automation and enablement strategy and deploying AI or agentic solutions in an operations context.
• Strong operating discipline: service-level management, metrics, cost-to-serve, and capacity planning.
• Experience operating globally across multiple countries, with a working knowledge of regional compliance and data-privacy requirements.
• Excellent leadership, stakeholder-management, and executive communication skills.
• Working understanding of AI governance: privacy, fairness, security, auditability, and human oversight designed-in from the start.
• Change-management expertise, with the ability to drive adoption at scale across a distributed organization.
• Sound judgment in handling sensitive, confidential, and high-stakes situations.
• Bachelor's degree required; relevant certifications preferred.

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