Head of People & Talent

Head of People & Talent Location: Remote - Europe or Canada preferred
Type: Full-time
Reports to: CEO
Team: Leadership Team About BrandBastion BrandBastion is a global AI-powered social media engagement platform helping some of the world's leading brands manage, understand, and engage with their audiences at scale. We work with global brands including Adobe, Sephora, Uber, and The North Face, combining advanced AI technology with deep expertise in social media engagement and brand safety. Founded in 2013, BrandBastion has grown into a profitable, international SaaS business with a globally distributed team. We're entering an exciting new phase of growth, expanding our product capabilities and the markets we serve. About the role We're looking for an exceptional Head of People & Talent to join our leadership team and work closely with our CEO to build a world-class, globally distributed organization. This is not a traditional HR role. We're looking for someone who is passionate about identifying exceptional talent, building high-performing teams, and creating the people strategies and infrastructure that enable a business to scale. Talent acquisition will be at the heart of your role. You'll take ownership of our recruitment strategy, partner with leaders across the business to define what great talent looks like, and personally drive hiring for critical positions. Beyond recruitment, you'll help shape our organizational structure, compensation strategies, performance management, onboarding, and international employment practices. As a member of our leadership team, you'll be expected to bring ideas, challenge assumptions, and proactively identify ways to strengthen the organization. We're looking for someone who can move seamlessly between strategic discussions with the CEO and hands-on execution. Someone who is equally comfortable developing a global compensation framework, interviewing a senior candidate, or figuring out the best way to hire someone in a new country. What you'll do 1. Lead talent acquisition and build exceptional teams

• Own BrandBastion's global recruitment strategy and hiring processes, from workforce planning through sourcing, assessment, offers, and onboarding.
• Partner closely with the CEO and functional leaders to identify talent needs and define the skills and capabilities required as the business grows.
• Personally lead recruitment for strategic and senior positions, including proactive sourcing, interviewing, and closing candidates.
• Build strong talent pipelines across Sales, Customer Success, Product, Engineering, AI, Marketing, and Operations.
• Develop effective approaches to evaluating talent, including structured interviews, assessments, scorecards, and reference checking.
• Create an exceptional candidate experience while maintaining high standards and efficient hiring processes.
• Continuously improve how we source and evaluate candidates, leveraging AI, automation, data, and modern recruiting tools.

2. Be a strategic partner to the CEO and leadership team

• Act as a trusted advisor on organizational design, leadership capabilities, succession planning, and team effectiveness.
• Proactively identify gaps in the organization and recommend how to address them through hiring, development, or structural changes.
• Help leaders make better decisions about team composition, seniority, responsibilities, and reporting structures.
• Bring market intelligence and an external perspective on talent availability, organizational practices, and compensation.
• Challenge assumptions constructively and help us maintain a high-performance, accountable organization.
• Translate business priorities into practical people and hiring plans.

3. Build and manage our international people operations

• Develop scalable processes for managing a globally distributed workforce across different countries, employment models, and time zones.
• Work closely with Finance and external partners to manage international employment arrangements, including direct employment, Employer of Record (EOR) solutions, and independent contractors.
• Help determine the most effective and appropriate hiring structures when entering new markets.
• Oversee people processes across the employee lifecycle, including contracts, onboarding, performance management, role transitions, and offboarding.
• Ensure appropriate coordination with local legal, payroll, and employment experts to maintain compliant and effective operations.
• Improve our people systems, documentation, and workflows without introducing unnecessary bureaucracy.

4. Develop compensation, performance, and career frameworks

• Design and maintain competitive, commercially sustainable compensation structures across international markets.
• Partner with leadership on salary benchmarking, incentive plans, commission structures, and performance-based compensation.
• Establish clear frameworks for performance reviews, career development, promotions, and compensation adjustments.
• Help managers set expectations, provide meaningful feedback, and address performance challenges.
• Build thoughtful and consistent practices that support fairness, accountability, and high performance.

5. Create an exceptional employee experience

• Build onboarding experiences that help new hires become productive, connected, and successful quickly.
• Support managers in developing, retaining, and motivating high-performing teams.
• Help maintain a strong, collaborative culture across our distributed organization.
• Identify opportunities to improve employee experience, communication, and engagement in ways that deliver measurable value.
• Ensure our people practices evolve alongside the business rather than slowing it down.

Requirements What we're looking for

• 7+ years of relevant experience spanning talent acquisition, people operations, and/or people leadership, ideally in a high-growth SaaS or technology business.
• A strong track record of personally recruiting exceptional talent, including senior and hard-to-fill roles.
• Experience operating as a strategic partner to founders, CEOs, or executive leadership teams.
• Meaningful experience working with internationally distributed teams across multiple employment jurisdictions.
• Familiarity with different employment models, including EOR providers, international contractors, and direct employees.
• Experience designing or improving compensation structures, recruitment processes, performance frameworks, and onboarding programs.
• Strong commercial judgment and an understanding of how people decisions contribute to business performance.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills, with the confidence to challenge, influence, and advise senior leaders.
• A highly proactive, resourceful, and hands-on approach. You see problems, propose solutions, and take ownership of execution.
• Comfort working with modern HR and recruiting technology, including AI-powered tools and automation.
• Excellent written and spoken English.

You might be a particularly strong fit if:

• You've built or significantly improved the talent and people function at a fast-growing international company.
• You started your career in recruitment or talent acquisition and expanded into broader people leadership.
• You've worked in a globally distributed, remote-first company and understand the complexities that come with it.
• You enjoy the pace, ownership, and variety of an entrepreneurial environment.
• You care deeply about hiring outstanding people and believe that building an exceptional team is one of the most important drivers of company success.

How to apply We'd love to hear about what you've built, not just where you've worked. When applying, please share your CV or LinkedIn profile and tell us briefly about an example where you personally helped a company significantly improve its ability to attract, hire, or retain exceptional people. Benefits Why join BrandBastion?

• Direct impact: Work closely with the CEO and leadership team, influencing some of the company's most important decisions.
• Real ownership: Shape and lead our global people and talent strategy rather than simply executing established processes.
• International scope: Work with talented colleagues across multiple countries, cultures, and functions.
• AI-driven innovation: Join a profitable, growing SaaS business at the forefront of AI-powered social media engagement.
• Remote-first flexibility: Work from Europe or Canada as part of an internationally distributed team.
• Opportunity to build: Help shape our next chapter of growth and develop a people function that can scale with the company.