Job Title: Senior HR Operations Manager - EMEA

Salary: Up to £150k + bonus

Location: Central London - Onsite (5 days per week)

Hawkwood is partnering with one of the world’s most sophisticated multi-strategy investment platforms to hire a Senior HR Operations Manager for EMEA.

With 5,000+ employees globally and offices across the US, Europe and Asia, this role will have a truly global scope. It is a super high-performing organisation operating at the intersection between financial services and technology.

This hire will play a critical role in a global HR operating model redesign, helping modernise, optimise and future-proof HR across EMEA within one of the most technically advanced hedge funds in the market.

The Opportunity

You will lead and evolve the EMEA HR Operations function as the firm transitions toward a more integrated, globally aligned service model. Acting as the strategic partner, you will sit between global shared services and senior regional stakeholders, translating complex business requirements into scalable operational solutions.

You will lead a London-based team and drive operational excellence across the full employee lifecycle, while also shaping process architecture, governance and service design.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

• Own and optimise EMEA HR operations delivery. Lead a high-calibre team focused on precision, efficiency and service quality.
• Partner with the Global Head of HR Operations to shift the function from reactive processing to proactive, front-facing advisory support. Redefine workflows, SLAs and accountability frameworks.
• Manage technically complex lifecycle events including trading team builds, strategy launches, cross-border transfers, restructures and spin-outs in a fast-moving, multi-strategy environment.
• Act as a trusted operational partner to HRBPs, Business Managers and senior leaders. Align HR operations with commercial priorities and investment platform needs.
• Drive continuous improvement across their People infrastructure. Identify automation opportunities, optimise case management flows and enhance data integrity. Champion data-led decision making.
• Collaborate closely with counterparts in the US and APAC, as well as the Global Service Centre, ensuring global consistency while protecting regional nuance.

What You Bring

• 10+ years in HR Operations or HR Advisory, with at least 6 years leading teams in high-performance environments.
• Experience within hedge fund, private equity, technology, or similarly complex financial services organisations where accuracy, discretion and pace are critical.
• Strong understanding of service model design, process optimisation and risk management in regulated environments.
• You know that systems scale, but relationships unlock influence. You are credible with senior stakeholders and trusted by your team.
• You operate effectively where structure is evolving and complexity is the norm. You can balance standardisation with intelligent exception management.
• Advanced user of core HRIS platforms - ideally Workday and ServiceNow. Comfortable using data to drive performance insights and operational decisions.

We recognise how challenging this current job market is for candidates, and Hawkwood are therefore striving to provide the best candidate experience we can.

If you are interested in this opportunity, we kindly request that you apply via this LinkedIn advert, as opposed to sending us an email or LinkedIn direct message. We are eager to ensure that each candidate application is considered fairly, and receives a consistent experience.

Unfortunately, we cannot ensure this standard if you inquire about a role via email or LinkedIn message, as it falls outside of our established process.