Director – Rewards & Performance 100% (m/f/d)

Arcera Life Sciences is growing its global people function and is looking for a Director of Rewards, Performance and People Analytics. This senior role concentrates on designing, implementing, and refining Arcera’s worldwide Total Rewards, Performance Management, and People Analytics frameworks, so rewards, performance processes and workforce insights actually move the business forward. The role reports to the VP People & Culture – Total Rewards & Technology and sits onsite in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, with a 100% on-site arrangement and is open to candidates of all genders (m/f/d). It’s a fit for someone who loves turning strategy into practical programs that leaders across regions can use and trust.

Arcera is building out this function to harmonize pay, performance, and people insights across geographies. The director will help drive strategic transformation initiatives, including global rewards harmonization, job architecture and grading, performance processes and incentive design, workforce analytics, and HR technology implementations. If you enjoy shaping global programs that are equitable, data-informed, and aligned with business goals, this is a role where your impact will be visible at many levels of the organization.

In this position you’ll engage with senior leaders and HR partners to ensure rewards and performance work hand in hand with organizational strategy, workforce planning, and governance. You’ll help create and maintain the practices, tools, and dashboards that make it possible to compare markets, measure outcomes, and support smarter decision making across a complex, matrixed organization.

Day-to-day impact in rewards and performance

On a daily basis, you’ll shape how global compensation and benefits are designed, governed, and updated, leading benchmarking efforts and market analyses to keep salary structures competitive and aligned with business priorities. You’ll manage annual compensation cycles, including salary reviews, incentive payouts, and reward governance, while supporting both short-term and long-term incentive programs so payout outcomes reflect performance and value delivered.

You’ll also drive the evolution of performance management, guiding goal setting, calibrations, reviews, and ways to differentiate top talent. In addition, you’ll develop practical tools, guidelines, and manager capability programs that strengthen how leaders drive performance, and you’ll monitor outcomes to provide actionable insights to executives and governance groups.

Part of your remit will be to support organizational design efforts and maintain a robust global job architecture and grading framework, collaborating with HR business partners and business leaders to ensure organizational effectiveness aligns with strategic needs. You’ll build and maintain workforce analytics dashboards, surfacing trends in performance, compensation effectiveness, and organizational health so the business can act with confidence. When important HR projects arise, you’ll lead or contribute to transformation efforts and work with HR technology teams on system selection, implementation, and optimization, always aiming to improve governance and process efficiency across Rewards and Performance.

Stakeholder management sits at the core of the role. You’ll act as a trusted advisor on rewards, performance, and workforce effectiveness, partnering with regional HR teams to ensure global frameworks are applied consistently and communicated clearly. You’ll present recommendations and insights to senior leadership and governance forums, helping the company translate data into strategy and action.

Must-have experience and nice-to-haves

What you bring to the table should include substantial experience in global people programs and a proven ability to translate between strategy and practice. The must-have list includes a strong blend of education, experience, and capabilities tailored to this role:

• A bachelor’s degree in human resources, business administration, finance, economics, psychology, or a related field
• A master’s degree (MBA or equivalent) is preferred
• Professional certifications in Rewards, Compensation, Job Evaluation, HR Analytics, or Organization Design are a plus
• 10 to 15 years of progressive work in Total Rewards, Performance Management, Organization Development, or general HR
• Experience running global or multi-country rewards and performance programs
• Hands-on experience with compensation benchmarking, incentive plan design, job evaluation, and initiatives that improve organizational effectiveness
• A track record supporting large-scale HR transformation and change initiatives
• Strong analytical skills with experience using HR data, dashboards, and workforce analytics tools
• Experience in complex, matrixed, multicultural organizations

• Nice-to-haves include exposure to maintaining governance for global job architecture and grading structures
• Experience collaborating with HR technology teams on system selection, implementation, and optimization
• Ability to deliver governance improvements and process enhancements across rewards and performance
• Proven capability to present insights and recommendations to senior leadership and governance forums

Pay, benefits and practical details

The role is full-time and onsite in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The description confirms the location and arrangement but does not specify salary, benefits, schedule, travel expectations, or work authorization details beyond the onsite requirement.

Advice for applicants

First, put your global rewards and performance leadership up front. Lead with your track record designing, implementing, and governing global compensation and performance programs, highlighting how you balanced competitiveness with equity across geographies and how you handled STI and LTI programs.

Second, show how you turned data into decisions. Bring examples of dashboards you built, workforce analytics you produced, and specific actions those insights enabled, especially around compensation effectiveness and organizational health. If you can reference tools or platforms you’ve used, even better.

Third, prepare to discuss a concrete transformation you led or supported. Talk through the end-to-end process, the governance improvements you put in place, and how you partnered with HR technology teams to select and implement a system that improved outcomes.

Finally, have a crisp question ready for the panel. A strong one is about how the company plans to harmonize rewards across regions in the next 12 months and what governance changes would accompany that effort, tying it to the role’s responsibilities in job architecture and analytics.