Head of People
Employer: GiveDirectly
Location: This role is fully remote but must overlap with an East Africa timezone by at least 3 hours.
Working hours: Full time
Salary:
The United States base salary range for this role is $154,500 - $200,000 depending on level, with an additional 15% bonus.
The Kenya base salary for this role is $120,000 - $145,000 depending on level, with an additional 15% bonus.
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GiveDirectly (GD) aims to reshape international giving – and millions of lives – by providing cash grants directly to the world’s poorest. The Brookings Institution estimates that $70B of cash transfers would be required to eliminate the poverty gap; the aid sector currently spends $135B each year, much of it on evidence-free interventions. GiveDirectly wants to change that, establishing cash transfers as a benchmark for foreign aid – as the index fund is a benchmark for the financial industry – and in the process accelerating the end of extreme poverty.
GD has raised over $1B since launching in 2011, delivered cash to more than 1.5 million people in 15 different countries. We’ve also supported large-scale, experimental research that indicates strong recipient impact of our programs. As a result, GD has been celebrated as one of the most innovative non-profit companies by Fast Company, while the growing cash transfer movement (and GD’s leading role within it) have been featured in the New York Times Magazine, This American Life, Foreign Affairs, and The Economist.
Our culture is candid, analytical, agile, and non-hierarchical. Our global team of ~150, and country operations teams of ~650, together come from 21 different countries speaking 69 different languages. From software engineers to seasoned humanitarian workers, former management consultants to public servants, researchers to field operations -- it’s an incredible group of people.
Our values are central and deliberately opinionated. We genuinely center the people we serve in our decision making, and strive to build an ambitious, dynamic and high performing environment. We strongly encourage you to read through our values carefully, if they reflect how you like to work and energize you, this could be a great fit.
We work hard to create an environment in which all our team members can thrive, succeed and grow. We support flexibility, take care of each other, have fun, and create professional growth opportunities.
Priority application deadline: December 5, or until we've reached a critical mass of applications
Location: this role is remote, but with a very strong preference for candidates located in the EAT timezone and/or in any of GiveDirectly’s countries of operation. If not located in an EAT timezone, the selected candidate will need to overlap at least 3 hours with EAT.
About the role
GiveDirectly is seeking an experienced, business-oriented Head of People to design and run the human systems that power our mission. You’ll connect talent to organizational performance in a global, distributed, and exceptionally lean context—serving as both architect and hands-on operator across talent acquisition, org design, leadership development, performance, rewards, HR operations, and employee relations.
This role is remote with a strong preference for East Africa Time (EAT) working hours and/or candidates based in countries where we operate; if outside EAT, at least 3 hours of overlap with EAT is required.
Reports to: Chief Operating Officer
Travel Requirement: Must be able to travel ~3-4 times per year to one of our countries of operation for team retreats or field visits
Level: We are open to considering exceptional candidates at both the Senior Director and Vice President levels, depending on experience and fit.
What we’re looking for:
People-as-performance operator: Strong business acumen with a track record of treating the People function as a driver of company/organizational outcomes (talent density, speed, quality, and reliability)—not just a compliance, people support, or admin team.
A builder in lean, distributed environments: Demonstrated success building simple, scalable systems (hiring, performance, rewards, workforce models, HRIS) across multiple countries and regulatory contexts—with high judgment on tradeoffs under tight constraints.
Trusted pair of hands for complex employee relations: Depth in sensitive employee relations, risk management, and safeguarding across very diverse contexts and cultural settings; calm, discreet, and principled.
Exceptional leader and manager: Recruits, calibrates, and develops senior talent; sets a high bar; builds a small, high-leverage team and operating cadence that scales.
First-principles, outcome oriented problem solver: Structured, analytical thinker who disaggregates problems, designs from first principles, iterates quickly, and measures results.
Varied context experience: Comfort moving between private sector and NGO settings and between different org sizes; able to bring best-of-both to GD’s model.
What you’ll do:
Make talent a competitive advantage: Raise the hiring bar; build a repeatable “hiring machine” (calibration, principles/values assessment, structured loops, quality-at-30/90 days). Build a proactive network and bench for executive and scarce roles.
Design performance + rewards: Implement a lightweight, high-signal performance system tied to development and consequences; refresh compensation and total rewards to attract and retain top talent in our markets while preserving our lean model and staying economically efficient as an organization.
Be the steady employee relations advisor: Lead on sensitive personnel matters with discretion and fairness; support investigations, safeguarding, crisis response, and change communications.
Coach and level up leadership: Partner with the CEO/COO and executives on org design, succession, and leadership effectiveness; intervene early to raise or replace when needed.
Build scalable global people ops: Improve HRIS/workforce tools; standardize core processes; ensure compliant, efficient operations across countries (subsidiaries, contractors, EOR/PEO) in close partnership with Finance and Legal.
Strengthen culture and engagement: Ensure our values are felt and lived across the organization; that staff are supported to be at their best thanks to inclusive practices that build growth, trust, belonging, creativity, and execution speed.
Own people analytics: Ship leadership dashboards (headcount, hiring velocity/quality, retention, eNPS/voice, performance distribution) to inform decisions and accountability.
Operate with leverage: Keep the People team small, senior, and high-output; set SLAs, clarify ownership, and continuously remove friction for program and fundraising teams.
Compensation
At GiveDirectly we aim to pay generously and equitably. We benchmark total compensation (base + bonus) to the ~75th percentile for comparable roles and maintain a no-negotiation policy to promote equity across staff. The base salary will be benchmarked to the candidate’s location; we will share the relevant salary benchmark during the hiring process. Read more about our compensation philosophy here.
We are open to considering exceptional candidates at both the Senior Director and Vice President levels, depending on experience and fit.
The United States base salary range for this role is $154,500 - $200,000 depending on level, with an additional 15% bonus.
The Kenya base salary for this role is $120,000 - $145,000 depending on level, with an additional 15% bonus.
This role is fully remote, so if you are not based in the US or Kenya, we will share an estimated salary benchmark for the country you are based in during the hiring process.
Why work at GiveDirectly?
At GiveDirectly, we work to ensure that you have everything you need to excel in your role and on your team, including:
A supportive team that works hard and cares hard
A robust health benefits plan (exact details will vary by country)
Flexible paid time off that staff is encouraged to take
Allowances for desk set-up and learning and development
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