Global Payroll Director, UK & EMEA

Locations: London, UK

Time type: Full time

Posted on: Posted 5 Days Ago

Job requisition id: R2996

Business Unit: Human Capital Group

Industry: No Industry

Overview

Houlihan Lokey, Inc. (NYSE:HLI) is a leading global investment bank recognized for delivering independent strategic and financial advice to corporations, financial sponsors, and governments. With uniquely deep industry expertise, broad international reach, and a partnership approach rooted in trust, the firm provides innovative, integrated solutions across mergers and acquisitions, capital solutions, financial restructuring, and financial and valuation advisory.

Scope

The Global Payroll Director will lead payroll operations for the UK and EMEA, ensuring compliance, process improvement, and seamless service delivery during a period of transition to new payroll technologies. The role of Global Payroll Director is a working director, leading the processing of payroll and managing a diverse team of payroll professionals in UK and Europe.

The Global Payroll Director will work within the Global Payroll Leadership team to ensure day-to-day payroll tasks are accomplished, compliance is maintained, and processes evolve, while payroll platforms transition to new consolidated end-to-end program through Workday and Strada Global Payroll. This position is a critical link between outsourced and co-sourced payroll service delivery teams and firm Human Resources, Finance, and IT teams globally. This is a hybrid working position which requires a minimum of 2 days working in our London or Manchester office.

Responsibilities

• Lead processing of monthly payrolls for UK in Workday
• Oversee processing of monthly payrolls in EMEA in legacy systems and Strada Global Payroll, currently France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
• Ensure timely and accurate net pay, tax funding and governmental filings
• Comply with GDPR regulations and maintain payroll confidentiality
• Day to day management and support of career development for UK and EMEA payroll team members, including mentorship of indirect reports
• Support Payroll team as escalation point for employee and non-employee inquiries, including using ServiceNow system on a regular basis
• Coordinate responses to internal and external audit requests, delegating and validating as appropriate based on request, and partnering with Global Payroll Leadership team to ensure alignment of responses
• Partner with Employment Tax Director to ensure compliance with employment reporting and Global Mobility taxation
• Remain up to date on responsible countries’ regulations and actively share knowledge with Payroll team and Human Capital Group (HCG) partners in Operations, Benefits, Compensation, Legal, etc.
• Collaborate with IT Workday and HCG Workday Solutions team members on Workday feature enhancements and configuration updates to support changes in regulation or CBAs
• Prepare or approve monthly general ledgers and payroll account reconciliation for select countries as assigned
• Develop and document new payroll procedures, guidelines, and best practices as countries transition off legacy payroll solutions to Strada Global Payroll, driving to create solutions that are beneficial to payroll team and employees
• Maintain strong and collaborative cross functional working relationships with HCG, IT, Finance, and lines of business colleagues, ensuring a people-focused and compliant Payroll mentality
• Attend and schedule collaborative meetings with departments
• Manage payroll vendor relationships for UK and EMEA, participating in regular payroll processing and strategic meetings

Basic Qualifications

• 10+ years of advanced payroll experience in UK, including leading a team across multiple countries
• Demonstrable experience & knowledge in working with Workday, in-house payroll systems and local in-country partners
• Strong knowledge of tax and wage laws in UK and EMEA (e.g., benefits in kind, statutory pay calculations)
• Working knowledge of shadow payrolls
• Degree level education in Accounting, Finance or Business administration preferred, or equivalent experience
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English
• Intermediate to high level Excel skills essential
• Proven planning and organizational skills
• Proven analytical and critical thinking skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Additional Payroll certifications
• Experience in Payslip, Strada Global Payroll, and ServiceNow ticketing system
• Additional fluency in Spanish, French, German, or other European language
• Experience in financial services or similar industry

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.