Head of People

Description

At Toku, we create bespoke cloud communications and customer engagement solutions that help businesses deliver exceptional customer experiences. Headquartered in Singapore, we continue to expand across multiple markets and jurisdictions while building the next generation of AI-enabled customer engagement technology.

We are looking for a Head of People to lead the next phase of maturity for our People function. Reporting directly to the CEO, you will own the People function end-to-end for a recently publicly listed technology company operating and further expanding across multiple jurisdictions. You will help shape how Toku scales its workforce, develops organisational capability, approaches international growth and prepares for an increasingly AI-enabled future of work.

This role combines strategic leadership with hands-on execution. You will partner closely with senior leadership on workforce strategy, organisational effectiveness and people-related governance, while also building the frameworks, systems and operating foundations that allow a growing international business to scale efficiently, with AI transformation in mind. Success in this role will come from balancing strategic leadership with the ability to enhance practical, scalable solutions that improve how the organisation operates.

Requirements

What you will be doing

·       People Strategy & Organisational Effectiveness: Shape and execute the People strategy in support of Toku’s growth plans, ensuring workforce capability, structure and organisational maturity keep pace with business objectives. Lead workforce planning initiatives and partner with senior leadership on organisational design, Learning and Development initiatives, team effectiveness and organisational scaling.

·       International Growth & Expansion: Bring the People and workforce perspective to international growth initiatives, including employment models, workforce implications, employer-of-record arrangements and market entry considerations. Advise on workforce-related aspects of Centres of Excellence, talent availability and location strategy across multiple markets in partnership with Finance and Legal.

·       Performance, Reward & Career Architecture: Own and evolve the Group reward framework, including compensation benchmarking, salary reviews, career architecture, promotion frameworks and equity programmes. Build performance management processes that support accountability, retention, development and organisational effectiveness while helping leaders make consistent and data-informed people decisions.

·       Systems, Reporting & Operational Excellence: Own and continuously improve People systems, reporting, analytics and operational processes that provide leaders with meaningful workforce visibility and support better decision-making. Drive optimisation across workflows, systems and data, ensuring automation, synchronisation and operational efficiency are maximised before additional manual processes or resources are introduced. Build scalable People infrastructure that supports growth while improving consistency, reporting quality and employee experience.

·       Governance, Compliance & Employee Relations: Maintain employment compliance across multiple jurisdictions, ensuring robust governance, documentation standards and adherence to local regulatory requirements. Lead or support employee relations matters, investigations, grievance handling, whistleblowing reports, disciplinary processes and workplace conduct matters, partnering closely with leadership, Legal and the Board on sensitive issues.

·       AI & Future Ways of Working: Partner with the Head of AI to help shape how people, technology and AI-enabled workflows come together to support organisational effectiveness. Build AI fluency within the People function and identify opportunities to improve efficiency, visibility and decision-making through AI-enabled tools, automation and workflows, while ensuring appropriate governance, transparency and human oversight.

·       Leadership: Lead and develop the People function, including senior HR Operations and Talent Acquisition resources, creating clarity, accountability and scalable decision-making processes. Act as a trusted advisor to leadership while maintaining a hands-on, self-starting and execution-oriented leadership approach that builds capability across the function.

We’d love to hear from you if you have

·       People Leadership Experience: Significant experience leading a People, HR or People & Culture function within a scaling technology, SaaS or high-growth organisation, with ownership across organisational design, workforce planning, performance management and employee relations.

·       Compensation, Performance & Career Frameworks: Strong practical experience designing, improving or governing compensation frameworks, career architecture, progression models, performance management processes and workforce planning initiatives.

·       Systems & Operational Excellence: Hands-on experience building or improving People systems, workforce reporting, People analytics, operating models or organisational processes. Strong analytical capability and a track record of using data and insights to improve organisational effectiveness.

·       International & Multi-Jurisdiction Experience: Experience supporting workforces across multiple APAC jurisdictions, with a strong understanding of employment law, compliance and regional People operations. Exposure to international growth, cross-border workforce considerations or employer-of-record arrangements would be highly valuable.

·       Governance & Executive Partnership: Experience working with senior leadership teams, Boards, governance processes or regulated business environments. Comfortable operating with sound judgement, discretion and accountability in handling sensitive People matters.

·       Technology & AI Mindset: A strong interest in AI, automation and the future of work, with practical experience adopting technology to improve People processes, reporting, workforce visibility or operational efficiency. Experience helping organisations adapt to new technologies, ways of working or workforce transformation initiatives would be advantageous.

·       Leadership Style: Pragmatic, accountable and hands-on, with the ability to move between strategic discussions and operational execution. Strong communication skills, intellectual curiosity, sound judgement and the professional credibility to influence founders, executives and senior stakeholders.

·       Location: This role is based in Singapore and operates on a hybrid working model. Occasional travel is required to support international growth initiatives and workforce planning activities across multiple juristictions.

What success looks like

·       A scalable People function capable of supporting continued international growth.

·       Clear and trusted performance, progression and reward frameworks across the organisation.

·       Improved workforce visibility through meaningful reporting, People systems and analytics.

·       Strong operational foundations supported by modern systems, automation and AI-enabled workflows.

·       Consistent governance and compliance processes across multiple jurisdictions.

·       A leadership team that spends less time managing People process issues and more time focused on business priorities.

·       A workforce equipped to thrive in an increasingly AI-enabled environment.

·       Practical, scalable People frameworks and operating models that support a growing international organisation.

What we offer

·       A foundational leadership role within a publicly listed, high-growth technology company.

·       Direct partnership with the CEO and senior leadership team.

·       The opportunity to influence how the organisation scales across multiple markets and jurisdictions.

·       The ability to shape the future of the People function, its systems, frameworks and ways of working.

·       Meaningful equity participation alongside salary, bonus and benefits.

·       Discretionary annual bonus and salary review.

·       Healthcare coverage based on location.

·       20 days annual leave, plus additional leave benefits.

Toku has been recognised as a LinkedIn Top Startup and by the Financial Times as one of APAC’s Top High-Growth Companies. If you’re excited by the opportunity to build, improve and scale within a growing international technology business while helping shape the future of work in a frontier technology environment, we’d love to hear from you.