Director, People Business Partner – APAC PDO

Summary

As the Director, People Business Partner (APAC), you will lead the People strategy for key business units across the region, driving the alignment of HR priorities with business goals in a fast-paced, innovation-driven environment.
You will act as a trusted strategic advisor to APAC business leaders — ensuring our people strategies enable business growth, enhance performance, and strengthen our culture. At the same time, you will play a unifying role across the broader People team, collaborating globally to build scalable frameworks while tailoring them locally to meet regional needs and deliver meaningful outcomes for our employees and customers.
This role requires a leader who can balance strategic foresight with practical execution, ensuring our People initiatives are globally consistent yet locally relevant, fostering both operational excellence and employee engagement across diverse markets.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Partnership & Business Alignment

• Partner with senior business leaders across APAC to align People strategies with business objectives, ensuring workforce capabilities meet current and future business demands.

• Drive strategic initiatives around workforce planning, organisation design, and leadership development to support scaling across new markets and business lines.

• Translate business insights into actionable people plans that enhance both employee experience and customer impact.

• Act as a thought partner to the Global People leadership team, contributing an APAC perspective to global strategy discussions.

• At Guidewire, we foster a culture of curiosity, innovation, and responsible use of AI—empowering our teams to continuously leverage emerging technologies and data-driven insights to enhance productivity and outcomes.

Global Collaboration & Local Impact

• Work in close partnership with global and regional People leaders (Talent Acquisition, Total Rewards, L&D, DEI, and People Operations) to ensure cohesive, one-team execution of our People strategy.

• Balance the need for global consistency with local flexibility — designing and implementing regionally relevant programs that resonate culturally, drive engagement, and deliver measurable business outcomes.

• Champion regional insights and employee feedback to shape global People initiatives, ensuring programs are grounded in real-world impact for employees and customers alike.

• Lead initiatives that connect regional People teams under a unified "One People Team" approach, fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing, and alignment to company values.

Talent & Leadership Development

• Build and execute strategies to identify, develop, and retain top talent across APAC.

• Partner with leaders to build strong succession pipelines and accelerate leadership capability at all levels.

• Drive talent reviews, performance management, and leadership development programs that enhance engagement and organizational capability.

Organizational Effectiveness & Change Leadership

• Partner with business leaders to design agile structures and operating models that enable efficiency, innovation, and growth.

• Lead and support organizational transformation and change management efforts across the region, ensuring clarity, communication, and adoption.

• Use data and analytics to measure the effectiveness of People programs and continuously refine strategies to improve performance and employee experience.

Culture, Engagement & Employee Experience

• Embed a culture of inclusion, trust, and continuous improvement across all teams and levels.

• Lead regional engagement strategies that strengthen belonging and empower employees to perform at their best.

• Serve as an advocate for both employees and business outcomes — ensuring that People initiatives drive positive impact for our teams and our customers.

Qualifications & Experience

• 15+ years of progressive HR leadership experience, including significant People Business Partnering exposure in complex, matrixes, or high-growth organisations.

• Experience working across multiple APAC markets with demonstrated ability to navigate cultural, legal, and organisational differences.

• Proven success in aligning global People strategies with local business priorities and delivering measurable results.

• Strong background in organizational design, leadership development, and talent strategy.

• Strategic thinker with strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder management abilities — capable of influencing at all levels.

• Demonstrated ability to embrace AI and apply it to your current role as well as data-driven insights to drive innovation, productivity, and continuous improvement.

About Guidewire

Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. More than 540+ insurers in 40 countries, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, run on Guidewire.

As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation track record with 1600+ successful projects, supported by the largest R&D team and partner ecosystem in the industry. Our Marketplace provides hundreds of applications that accelerate integration, localization, and innovation.

For more information, please visit and follow us on Twitter: @Guidewire_PandC.

Guidewire Software, Inc. is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. We are committed to an inclusive workplace, and believe that a diversity of perspectives, abilities, and cultures is a key to our success. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, marital status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, or disability. All offers are contingent upon passing a criminal history and other background checks where it's applicable to the position.

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