Senior Director, People, Culture + Justice (f/m/d)

Join Patagonia as Senior Director, People, Culture + Justice (f/m/d)

Patagonia is an outdoor apparel company founded in 1973. At a time when all life on earth is under threat of extinction, we aim to use the resources we have—our business, our investments, our voice and our imagination—to influence changes needed to protect our planet. A registered B Corporation and founding member of 1% for the Planet, Patagonia is recognised internationally for its commitment to product quality and environmental activism, contributing over $145 million in grants and in-kind donations to thousands of grassroots environmental groups around the world.

Your role:

We’re in business to save our home planet. This role is responsible for the EMEA people and organization strategy, overseeing all aspects of the employee lifecycle to deliver effective, equitable, people-minded, and compliant practices, while stewarding an entrepreneurial spirit and Patagonia’s flair. Partnering closely with the EMEA Leadership Team, this role translates business needs into people practices, drives organizational effectiveness and employee experience, cultivates conditions for a vibrant culture, and builds long-term capabilities to enable our goals, drive quality growth and impact, and uphold our purpose and values across a multi-country footprint.

As a member of the EMEA Leadership Team, this role transcends functional strategist responsibilities to collaborate with the ELT on leading Patagonia EMEA. This role is an enterprise collaborator, accountable for co-building high level strategy with the ELT, translating strategy into executional plans and implementing them with key stakeholders, taking decisions for Patagonia EMEA that have long-term impact, and shaping culture and organizational success.

Main tasks:

• People, Culture + Justice organization: build the PC+J organization, managing resources and shaping culture and ways of working for innovation, co-creation and cross-functional collaboration, scalability, and nimbleness. Lead, manage, and develop an engaged and high-performing team through clear priorities and goals, feedback, and regular coaching and mentoring, to nurture leadership, enable professional development, drive clear accountability, and deliver objectives.

• People, Culture + Justice strategy: shape the people and organizational strategy, in integration with EMEA long range strategic planning and stakeholders, and in alignment with global PC+J agenda, to enable EMEA business and impact priorities and goals. Translate the strategy into an actionable roadmap and tactics and oversee the execution, ensuring quality and consistency of delivery and service.

• Organizational effectiveness: manage, plan, and evolve strategic workforce planning, staffing budget forecasting and management, and change management practices to enable nimbleness, resilience, and efficient and effective use of our resources. Advise on, plan, and evolve organizational structures with agility. Enable our business to deliver on our goals and our purpose and be financially healthy while preserving Patagonia’s values and nuanced ways of operating.

• Culture, justice, and employee experience: cultivate the conditions for a vibrant, inclusive, entrepreneurial, and collaborative culture that resonates across a multi-country region, where every employee can feel connected to our purpose, collaborate effectively, be empowered and rewarded to innovate and do their best work, and have impact. Advance justice and equity, diversity and belonging, activism, connection to sports, and wellbeing across the employee experience and journey, through PC+J programs, practices, services, and policies.

• Development, growth, and leadership: ensure the organization is equipped with the right skills and capabilities and nurtures our culture to succeed in the short, medium, and long-term and serve our purpose. Orchestrate and lead our efforts to attract, develop, and retain people, and provide mobility and growth pathways. Prepare for the future and enable business continuity and resilience by cultivating current and future leadership aligned to our values, planning, developing, and managing talents, and planning succession in critical roles.

• Leadership advisory: listen to General Managers and EMEA Leadership Team peers’ organizational and people needs, challenges, and concerns, and advise them to make well-informed and balanced decisions. Coach leaders on organizational, talent, performance, engagement, and wellbeing matters.

• Operational capabilities: ensure HR operations run with accuracy and timeliness and there is continuous innovation in practices, strive for better service and people empowerment, and improvement of operational capabilities. Ensure data is leveraged to understand workforce trends, assess the impact of programs and initiatives, and provide insights to inform PC+J decisions.

• Compliance and risk management: ensure adherence to local labour laws in partnership with EMEA General Counsel, ensuring programs and practices comply with local standards and regulations in every jurisdiction, while proactively managing people-related risks.

• Collaboration: act as connector between Global (U.S.) and International PC+J teams and EMEA organization, collaborating cross-functionally and regionally to ensure consistency in people practices, share insights and best practices, and contribute to global programs and decisions with regional insights.

• EMEA Leadership Team: actively participate in the ELT, shaping the long term EMEA strategy and vision for the future, fostering cross-functional alignment and collaboration, and driving key business decisions to support responsible business, financial health, culture, and organizational priorities.

What we’re looking for:

• Minimum 8 years’ experience in HR leadership, preferably in regional roles

• Humility, empathy, and courage

• Full expertise enabling a regional business through end-to-end ownership of people practices

• Full expertise in executive business partnering, with strong strategic communication and stakeholder engagement skills

• Full expertise in navigating diverse cultural, legal, and social contexts across EMEA, with sensitivity to local nuances

• Full expertise in change management, ensuring organizations are equipped to absorb, adopt, and benefit from transitions

• Advanced ability to shape long-term strategy while overseeing tactics and short-term execution

• Advanced ability to deal with and lead through ambiguity

• Advanced team management skills, nurturing common culture and identity, fostering collaboration and integration, setting clear priorities and goals

• Advanced talent management and development experience and skills, driving growth and results by empowerment, ongoing feedback, and coaching

• Advanced collaboration and co-creation mindset and skills

• Advanced ability in navigating disagreements and facilitate convergence and decision-making

• Advanced ability in navigating complexity and influencing outcomes

• Advanced ability to oversee and improve core people processes, with a focus on accuracy, efficiency, scalability

• Full understanding of organizational design and workforce planning, with experience evolving team structures and planning talent needs aligned with business goals

• Strong command of talent management, succession planning, and total rewards practices, with commitment to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and just culture

• Experience and knowledge of evolving justice & belonging practices

• Good knowledge of European employment laws and labour relations to ensure compliance and mitigate people-related risks

• Strong connection to the outdoors and Patagonia’s purpose and values

What Success Looks Like:

• People and organizational practices aligned with business goals, enabling business, community, environmental activism, and people priorities

• Leaders confidently owning, navigating, and managing people, talent, organizational, and performance matters

• A vibrant culture that holds the tensions between purpose and for-profit business

• A distinctive employee experience, that delivers value to employees while holding true to Patagonia’s culture

Other important details:

• We have a hybrid work model, working from home for maximum 3 days per week