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Upway is seeking its first Head of People to build and scale the People function from the ground up. This is a strategic leadership role reporting to co-founders, sitting on the leadership team and participating in company-level decision-making.
Key responsibilities include partnering with founders on organizational design and people strategy; translating business priorities into a pragmatic 6–12 month HR roadmap; owning talent acquisition end-to-end (workforce planning, sourcing, interview design, hiring manager enablement, offer strategy); personally driving critical hires while raising hiring standards; building scalable recruiting infrastructure (tools, playbooks, metrics); coaching leaders on hiring discipline and success metrics; handling complex employee relations and sensitive situations with judgment and empathy; enabling managers to grow into their roles through clear expectations and lightweight people analytics; and building the operational backbone of People across regions (contracts, onboarding, policies, payroll/benefits coordination, HRIS/ATS deployment, compliance, and employee experience for both office and frontline populations).
The role requires multi-country experience, with France as the anchor and exposure to European and/or U.S. operations. Specific expertise in French labor law, CSE/Works Council dynamics, and constructive social dialogue is essential. The ideal candidate has built and scaled a People function from scratch or through a major inflection point (hypergrowth, international expansion, new sites); partnered directly with founders/executives in high-intensity contexts; handled sensitive decisions (org changes, underperformance, leadership transitions, restructurings) with rigor and pace; demonstrated a low-bureaucracy, pragmatic approach (shipping minimum viable processes quickly, iterating, protecting business agility); and brings natural authority and assertiveness without rigidity.
English fluency is required; French is a plus. This is a hands-on, action-oriented role in a founder-led scale-up where clarity, judgment, and leadership on people and organizational topics are paramount in a fast-evolving environment.
