Global Payroll Lead

Media help partners understand the changing advertising landscape. Specialising in audience measurement, consumer targeting and in-depth intelligence into paid, owned and earned media, their global coverage and local expertise enable better understanding of media audiences and their relationships with brands.

Kantar Media is a wholly owned but operationally independent part of the Kantar Group.

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Job Details

As people increasingly move across channels and platforms, Kantar Media’s data and audience measurement, targeting, analytics and advertising intelligence services unlock insights to inform powerful decision-making.

Working with panel and first-party data in over 80 countries, we have the world’s fastest growing cross-media measurement footprint, underpinned by versatility, scale, technology and expertise, to drive long-term business growth for our clients and partners.

Job Title: Global Payroll Lead

Location: London, Grays Inn Road
Full time/Permanent/Hybrid  

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Role Description   

Kantar media is on the search for a Global Payroll Lead. In this role you will spearhead a global payroll strategy aligned with Kantar Media’s business, HR, and finance goals. Streamline and standardise payroll operations across multiple countries, leading compliance, automation, and standard processes to deliver seamless, secure, and efficient services.

Bring your expertise in multi-country payroll, vendor management, and transformation to lead a high-performing team. Innovate, build sophisticated analytics capabilities, and strengthen stakeholder relationships to deliver impactful, compliant, and employee-focused payroll solutions.

This is your chance to influence global strategy and drive operational excellence at Kantar Media—join us and make your mark!

Role Responsibilities: 
Strategy

• Define and deliver the global payroll strategy in partnership with internal and external team members
• Ensure the payroll strategy retains alignment with business goals at a global and local level 
• Ensure the payroll strategy retains alignment with HR and Finance strategy
• Maintain broad oversight of the external environment that impacts payroll in the countries of operation e.g. legislation and regulation, and ensure the payroll operations and the wider business is kept well informed and ready to respond
• Lead the payroll engagement and contribution to business change projects, e.g. mergers and acquisitions or disposals, ensuring payroll impacts are evaluated and lead appropriately to support successful change delivery 
•  Maintain oversight of global payroll market best practices and developments and identify opportunities which could offer value to Kantar Media
• Operations
• Drive the standardisation and automation of payroll processes globally, whilst allowing for run localisation where required by local business needs 
• Ensure the payroll governance and controls are in place in all countries to ensure secure, accurate and compliant payroll services are delivered, factoring in corporate governance needs, external audit requirements, regulatory and legislative controls  
• Take accountability for the global payroll processing infrastructure, ensuring vendor and system agreements are managed effectively and renewed or renegotiated when required and ensure adequate protections are in place to keep Kantar Media’s data protected and secure 
• Plan and lead the budget for global payroll operations
• Lead all aspects of payroll-related communications to employees and business leaders
• Ensure consistent standards and KPIs are agreed with process partners and actively assessed, and any breaches are resolved satisfactorily
• Drive a culture of continuous improvement, working with colleagues in HR, Finance, Tax, Legal and Treasury to optimise the end-to-end payroll process 
• Ensure employees are supported with payroll issues and queries, demonstrating the corporate knowledge-content tools and ticketing system to ensure smooth resolution and issue analysis
• Lead the development of a global payroll analytics capability, where data from multiple partner platforms can be efficiently assembled,handledd and analysed to inform future business optimisation and decision making
   

Relationship Management

• Manage the vendor relationships with the portfolio of 3rd party partners in the payroll process including selection, contract negotiation, consolidation, and management of vendors
• Partner with colleagues in HR, Tax, Legal, Reward and Finance to ensure accurate and compliant reporting, support global payroll tax and other audits, ensure mandatory controls are maintained and tracked, and compliance is achieved in every country where KM operates

Leadership

• The post holder will be a leader within the HR/Finance Senior Leadership Team and will manage a team of regional payroll co-ordinators to deliver the payroll service to the business 
• Promote the payroll operations function and the Kantar Media business internally and externally, to attract new talent and to identify and exploit teamwork opportunities
• Grow the knowledge and awareness of payroll matters within the business at all levels, and ensure people-managers within the business are aware of their roles and responsibilities in payroll processing

Required: 

• Knowledge and understanding and preferably experience of the private equity ownership model and its influence on the corporate strategy of PE-backed businesses
• Global strategy development and leadership, but with the ability to drive tactical solutions as situations demand
•  Knowledge and experience of a multi-country, outsourced payroll environment and the inherent challenges it brings in terms of governance, controls and indirect management
• Vendor management of multi-country, multi-vendor outsourced operations
• Experience of business transformation and owning the move from local, stand-alone process and operations to a standardised, global model
• Stakeholder relationship management with the key upstream and downstream groups within the payroll ecosystem, including HR, Business Operations, Finance, Tax, Treasury, Legal, Procurement and external parties including Government Agencies and Pensions and Benefits providers
• An exemplar in working to fixed deadlines within a controlled environment, demonstrating high attention to detail, rigorous management of risk and controlled agility in delivering balanced solutions
• Innovation and the ability to engage with external peer groups and thought leaders to identify and use good practice from outside of the organisation
• Experience in developing teams within a global organisation and in a global context, taking account of cultural differences, language barriers and the logistical challenges of remote management

At Kantar we have an integrated way of rewarding our people based around a simple, clear and consistent set of principles. Our approach helps to ensure we are market competitive and to support a pay for performance culture, where your reward and career progression opportunities are linked to what you deliver. 

We go beyond the obvious, using intelligence, passion, and creativity to inspire new thinking and shape the world we live in. Apply for a career that’s out of the ordinary and join us. 

We want to create an equality of opportunity in a fair and supportive working environment where people feel included, accepted, and are allowed to flourish in a space where their mental health and wellbeing is taken into consideration.  We want to create a more diverse community to expand our talent pool, be locally representative, drive diversity of thinking and better commercial outcomes. 

At Kantar, the diversity of our employees provides a richer environment for our employees and broader depth and breadth of thinking for our clients.  Kantar is committed to inclusion and diversity; therefore, we welcome applications from all sections of society and do not discriminate based on age, race, religion, gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, marital status, or any other legally protected characteristics.

Privacy and Legal Statement
PRIVACY DISCLOSURE: Please note that by applying to this opportunity you consent to the personal data you provide to us to be processed and retained by Kantar Media. Your details will be kept on our Internal ATS (Applicant Tracking System) for as long as is necessary for the purposes of recruitment, which may include your details being shared with the hiring manager(s) and for consideration for potential future opportunities by Kantar and its affiliate Kantar group companies. For full details of our privacy policy please visit www.kantar.com

Country

United Kingdom

Why join Kantar?

We pride ourselves on understanding people, and what makes us think and act the way we do.

And because we know people, we like to make sure our own people are being looked after as well. Equality of opportunity for everyone is our highest priority and we support our colleagues to work in a way that supports their health and wellbeing. While we encourage teams to spend part of their working week in the office, we understand no one size fits all; our approach is flexible to ensure everybody feels included, accepted, and that we can win together. We’re dedicated to creating an inclusive culture and value the diversity of our people, clients, suppliers and communities, and we encourage applications from all backgrounds and sections of society. Even if you feel like you’re not an exact match, we’d love to receive your application and talk to you about this job or others at Kantar.