About the role
A Series B-funded, AI-driven information security and data analytics company serving government, defence, and enterprise clients across India, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Its platforms are deployed in mission-critical environments, including national security agencies. The company is scaling toward an IPO and expanding internationally.
The Head of HR will lead and elevate the company's existing HR function for a ~350-person, high-growth, security-conscious organisation. This is a leadership role — equal parts strategic partner to the founders and hands-on owner of HR delivery. The candidate will inherit and build upon an existing team rather than build the function from scratch, and must be equally comfortable setting strategy and getting into operational detail.
Responsibilities:
- Team Leadership: Lead, mentor, and develop the existing HR team across recruitment, HR operations/compliance, and employee relations. Assess current team structure and capability; re-organise, upskill, or expand as needed.
- Strategic HR Leadership: Partner with founders/CXOs on people strategy aligned to growth, international expansion, and IPO-readiness. Design org structure and leadership bench as the company scales past 350+ employees. Build HR governance frameworks suited to a company serving government/defense clients.
- Talent Acquisition and Workforce Planning: Own hiring strategy across engineering, R& D, sales, and international teams. Build employer branding and pipelines in a competitive AI/cybersecurity talent market. Oversee background verification and security-clearance-adjacent hiring processes.
- Compensation, Benefits and HR Operations: Design structured pay bands, ESOP frameworks, and benefits for a pre-IPO company. Ensure payroll, HRIS, and compliance systems scale cleanly. Own statutory compliance (labour law, POSH, data protection norms relevant to security-sector employers).
- Performance and Culture: Build performance management systems suited to R& D-heavy, product engineering teams. Drive retention strategy in a high-IP, security-sensitive environment. Shape culture as the company internationalises.
- Employee Relations and Governance: Act as senior escalation point for employee relations issues. Support leadership on org restructuring, disciplinary matters, and change management.
Requirements:
- 8-10+ years in HR, including experience managing/leading a team — not purely an individual contributor background.
- Prior experience in a tech/product company; exposure to defence, BFSI, or other compliance-heavy, security-sensitive sectors is a strong plus.
- Experience scaling HR infrastructure in a startup (Series A/B to pre-IPO stage) preferred.
- Strong grasp of Indian labour law and statutory compliance.
- Comfortable operating hands-on while leading a team — not purely strategic/advisory.
- Excellent stakeholder management; this role reports directly to founders.