Senior People Business Partner in Bristol

We are seeking a Global Senior People Business Partner to play a pivotal role in driving organisational performance, growth, and scalability across DNV’s Digital and Data Solutions Business Unit. As a strategic partner to senior leaders, you will help translate business priorities into people strategies that accelerate growth, strengthen leadership capability, and enable long-term success.

Partnering with senior leaders across Commercial functions and Software Development, you will support a globally distributed organisation spanning APAC, Europe and the United States. Your focus will be to align strategy, people and capability; ensuring the organisation is equipped to scale and succeed.

At the core of this role, you will act as the connector of future performance—bringing together leadership, structure and culture to enable sustainable growth. You will ensure people remain at the heart of the organisation, strengthening leadership capability and preparing the business for continued global expansion.

Blending strategic business partnering with organisational design, talent and performance management, and workforce planning, you will help create clarity, focus, and impact in a fast-evolving environment. In doing so, you will contribute to a high-performing global People & Culture function that enables teams to thrive at scale.

Inspired by diversity, you lead with inclusion, creating an environment where individuals can perform at their best and where a consistently strong employee experience underpins success across all regions.

What will you do:

• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders, providing strategic guidance on performance, leadership, organisational design, and culture.
• Enable the execution of the Digital and Data Solutions strategy, supporting the scaling of business units through strong leadership, clear structures, and consistent performance.
• Lead organisational design and transformation initiatives, creating lean, scalable operating models while guiding leaders through transitions and structural changes with clarity and alignment.
• Drive capability building and Future Fit initiatives, ensuring the organisation develops the technical and leadership skills required for sustainable growth.
• Strengthen leadership effectiveness and performance by embedding robust performance management practices, facilitating talent and performance dialogues, and building capabilities that drive accountability and results.
• Drive annual HR processes with business leaders, including salary adjustments, and support them in managing HR and HSE cases effectively.
• Lead strategic workforce planning, talent management, and succession planning for critical engineering and product roles, ensuring the right capabilities, capacity, and leadership pipelines required to deliver current and future business objectives.
• Collaborate closely with the Global People team and Centres of Expertise to ensure consistent, scalable deployment of people processes and strong alignment across regions.
• Foster a high-performance, inclusive culture by supporting leaders in embedding DNV’s values and creating psychologically safe, engaging, and results-driven environments.

This role involves some international travel to engage with global stakeholders, support organisational development, and strengthen collaboration across the People & Culture community.

Responsibilities

We value all our people and the contributions they make to our business, so it’s important that our rewards make us all feel valued here. That’s why we offer a flexible reward and benefits package, allowing you to choose the things that matter most to you, including:

• Exceptional Development and career progression opportunities with regular development discussions with your manager.
• Non-contractual Profit Share Scheme.
• Lifestyle benefits: 26 days annual leave + bank holidays, opportunity for up to 10 days unpaid leave, sabbatical leave, flexible working options.
• Wellbeing benefits: (including Private Medical, Dental Insurance, Health Assessments, Gym allowance). Company contribution towards eye tests and glasses (for computer/laptop users), and Flu Vaccinations. Also, our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) provides free and confidential support for issues including work, family, relationships, money and health and we provide free fruit in our offices.
• Financial Benefits: including a Pension Scheme with employer pension contributions up to 9%, Life Assurance and Income Protection.
• Travel benefits: Season Ticket Loan, Cycle to Work Scheme, Electric Vehicle Salary Sacrifice Scheme (for personal use).
• Re-imbursement of relevant Professional Membership Fees (up to £570).
• Access to employee retail discount site for high street and online shopping.

DNV is an Equal Opportunity Employer and gives consideration for employment to qualified applicants without regard to gender, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, cultural background, social group, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, age or political opinion. Diversity is fundamental to our culture and we invite you to be part of this diversity.

Qualifications

What do you bring:

• Master’s degree in Human Resources, Psychology, Business Administration, Law, or a related field.
• Significant experience as a Senior People / HR Business Partner in a global, matrix organisation, ideally within technology, software, or engineering-driven environments.
• Strong expertise in UK & Ireland labour law and HR practices is preferable, with the ability to navigate cross-border complexities and enable sound, business-focused decisions.
• Proven track record in organisational design, transformation, and leadership development within complex, fast-evolving environments.
• Demonstrated experience in talent management, workforce planning, and succession planning, with the ability to build scalable and future-ready organisations.
• Strong analytical capability, leveraging data, insights, and workforce analytics to identify trends, influence decisions and drive continuous improvement.
• Experience working across multiple regions and cultures, with a global mindset and the ability to operate effectively in distributed organisations.
• Ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on execution, delivering impact across both long-term initiatives and day-to-day business needs.
• Partner with leaders to anticipate future workforce and capability needs arising from digital transformation, AI adoption, and evolving customer demands.
• Act as a trusted advisor and strategic sparring partner to senior leaders, bringing insight, clarity, and the confidence to challenge constructively.
• You operate as a collaborative partner in a global context, aligning stakeholders and driving consistent impact across the People & Culture function.
• You bring a strategic, results-oriented mindset, connecting people and business priorities to enable scalable growth, while promoting operational excellence through lean and effective structures.
• Decisive and outcome-focused, you act as both a capability builder and change leader—strengthening leadership effectiveness and future-ready skills while guiding the organisation through transformation with clarity and pace.
• You are performance-driven, ensuring accountability and follow-through, while also acting as a culture steward—fostering trust, psychological safety, and strong alignment with DNV’s values.

Security and compliance with statutory requirements in the countries in which we operate is essential for DNV. Background checks will be conducted on all final candidates as part of the offer process, in accordance with applicable country-specific laws and practices.