People Program Manager - Market Expansion

About the job

Responsibilities

• Own the People workstream for multiple market expansions, from initial scoping and planning through launch and operational handover.
• Translate expansion plans into clear roadmaps, milestones, dependencies, decision points, and accountable owners.
• Coordinate delivery across People Operations, People Tech, Reward, Talent Acquisition, Legal, Finance, and external partners.
• Establish governance and operating rhythms to create visibility, accelerate decisions, and keep delivery on track.
• Track progress, risks, and interdependencies across markets, escalating blockers early and driving them to resolution.
• Define People-readiness criteria for each launch, covering employment setup, payroll, benefits, policies, systems, employee data, onboarding, and internal communication.
• Clarify ownership across central teams, local stakeholders, and external providers to ensure nothing falls between functions.
• Build and continuously improve a scalable market-expansion playbook, including standard plans, checklists, templates, decision logs, and handover requirements.
• Ensure new processes are operationally viable, documented, and handed over cleanly to post-launch ownership teams.
• Prepare clear updates and decision material for senior stakeholders, making complex issues easy to understand and act on.
• Use insights from each launch to simplify future expansions, reduce manual coordination, and improve speed and quality.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in program management, PMO, transformation, international expansion, People projects, or another complex cross-functional environment.
• Strong track record of leading projects with multiple workstreams, stakeholders, dependencies, and deadlines.
• Exceptional ability to turn ambiguity into structured, executable plans.
• Strong project-management discipline combined with the judgment to adapt when priorities or assumptions change.
• Experience coordinating senior stakeholders and driving progress without relying on formal authority.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to translate complex topics into clear decisions, actions, and narratives.
• Proactive approach to identifying risks, resolving blockers, and ensuring accountability.
• Strong documentation skills and experience building practical playbooks, governance structures, and repeatable ways of working.
• Comfort operating at pace in an environment with multiple high-priority initiatives running simultaneously.
• High ownership, sound judgment, and an uncompromising attention to delivery quality.
• Experience with international employment, entity setup, payroll implementation, global People Operations, or market expansion is highly valuable.
• Experience using AI tools or building agentic workflows to improve program delivery is a plus.
• Ability to bring the right experts together, ask insightful questions, and drive complex work to completion.