Job Description

About ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) helps ensure a stable, secure, and unified global Internet. ICANN coordinates and supports the Internet’s unique identifier systems and operates as a global nonprofit public benefit corporation with a community of participants from around the world. ICANN’s work is rooted in collaboration, inclusion, accountability, and service to the global public interest.

The Senior Director, Global Talent Acquisition & HR Business Partner (HRBP) leads ICANN's global talent acquisition strategy while serving as a strategic HR business partner to leaders across the organization. This role is responsible for building an integrated, data-informed, and globally consistent approach to attracting, assessing, selecting, and onboarding exceptional talent in support of ICANN's mission and long-term organizational priorities.

The Senior Director partners closely with executive leaders, people managers, Human Resources, Finance, Legal, Communications, and external partners to ensure workforce planning, hiring strategies, and people practices align with ICANN's strategic objectives.

The successful candidate brings strong business acumen, deep recruiting expertise, cultural fluency, and the ability to operate effectively within a globally distributed, mission-driven, multistakeholder environment.

This role requires a leader who can balance strategic vision with operational execution by:

• Developing modern talent acquisition practices
• Enhancing the hiring manager and candidate experience
• Strengthening employer brand and talent pipelines
• Providing trusted HR partnership to assigned client groups

Key Responsibilities

Talent Acquisition Strategy & Operations

• Lead the design and execution of ICANN's global talent acquisition strategy, ensuring hiring plans align with organizational priorities, workforce planning, budget, and long-term capability needs.
• Partner with senior leaders and hiring managers to understand business objectives, anticipate talent needs, define role requirements, and develop effective sourcing and selection strategies.
• Oversee full-cycle recruitment for staff and leadership positions, including:
  • Workforce planning input
  • Requisition intake
  • Sourcing strategy
  • Assessment design
  • Interview process
  • Offer development
  • Onboarding coordination
• Develop scalable, consistent, and inclusive recruiting processes that improve quality of hire, speed, transparency, compliance, and candidate experience.
• Build diverse global talent pipelines across technical, policy, operations, stakeholder engagement, government engagement, corporate, and leadership functions.
• Strengthen ICANN's employer value proposition and recruitment marketing in partnership with Communications and internal stakeholders.
• Manage and optimize relationships with executive search firms, recruitment agencies, job boards, sourcing platforms, assessment providers, and other external partners.
• Utilize recruiting metrics and labor market intelligence to advise leaders on:
  • Talent availability
  • Compensation competitiveness
  • Hiring effectiveness
  • Workforce risks
• Ensure recruiting practices comply with employment laws, data privacy requirements, ICANN policies, and equitable hiring standards across multiple jurisdictions.

HR Business Partnering

• Serve as a strategic HR business partner to assigned executive leaders and business units to support the achievement of business objectives.
• Partner with leadership and provide practical guidance on talent development, workforce planning, and succession planning.
• Translate business priorities into people plans that enable organizational effectiveness, leadership capability, and high performance.
• Coach and advise managers on effective people leadership to improve collaboration and performance while enhancing staff experience.
• Collaborate and partner across HR teams to deliver integrated people solutions.
• Support leaders through organizational change, including communication planning, stakeholder alignment, change readiness, and adoption.
• Identify and escalate workforce trends, employee relations risks, and organizational health issues, partnering with appropriate HR, Legal, and leadership stakeholders.
• Collaborate with the regional HR team to share best practices, synchronize policies, and ensuring alignment with global HR strategy.

Leadership, Process Improvement & Analytics

• Lead, mentor, and develop Talent Acquisition and HR team members while fostering a collaborative, service-oriented, and accountable culture.
• Establish service standards, governance, process documentation, and performance metrics for talent acquisition and HR business partnering.
• Develop dashboards and reporting on:
  • Hiring activity
  • Time-to-fill
  • Quality of hire
  • Source effectiveness
  • Diversity of candidate slates
  • Candidate experience
  • Hiring manager satisfaction
  • Workforce trends
• Continuously improve recruiting technology, workflows, interview practices, hiring manager enablement, and onboarding transitions.
• Champion:
  • Inclusive hiring
  • Structured interviewing
  • Skills-based assessments
  • Consistent candidate evaluation
• Stay current on:
  • Global talent trends
  • Labor market dynamics
  • HR technology
  • Employment law
  • Best practices for distributed and mission-driven organizations

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, Psychology, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Typically 12+ years of progressive Human Resources experience, including significant experience in both talent acquisition and HR business partnering.
• Demonstrated success leading recruitment strategy and execution within a global, distributed, matrixed, or otherwise complex organization.
• Proven ability to partner with executive leaders and translate business priorities into actionable people strategies.
• Experience recruiting across multiple functions and organizational levels, including executive leadership, technical, professional, and specialized positions.
• Strong knowledge of:
  • Full-cycle recruiting
  • Sourcing strategies
  • Structured interviewing
  • Candidate assessment
  • Offer management
  • Onboarding
  • Employment compliance
• Experience using applicant tracking systems (ATS), HR information systems (HRIS), recruiting analytics, dashboards, and reporting tools.
• Strong consultative, analytical, communication, facilitation, and relationship management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to manage confidential and sensitive matters with sound judgment and professionalism.
• Experience leading teams, cross-functional initiatives, projects, and external vendors.
• Cultural fluency with demonstrated success working across regions, time zones, languages, and diverse stakeholder groups.
• Commitment to ICANN's mission, values, multistakeholder model, and global public-interest responsibilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Psychology, or a related discipline.
• Professional HR certification such as:
  • SHRM-SCP
  • SHRM-CP
  • SPHR
  • PHR
  • CIPD
  • Equivalent international certification
• Experience working within nonprofit, mission-driven, technology, Internet infrastructure, standards, policy, international, or multistakeholder organizations.
• Experience with:
  • Executive search
  • Succession planning
  • Leadership assessment
  • Workforce planning
  • Employer branding
• Knowledge of employment practices across multiple countries and jurisdictions.
• Experience modernizing recruiting operations, implementing talent acquisition technology, or redesigning recruiting processes.