Portfolio HR Director – EMEA & APAC

Job Summary:

Maternity Cover | June 2026 – March 2027 (10 months)
Location: UK (Remote) | Minimum 30 hours per week

The Opportunity
This is a high-impact HR leadership role working directly with CEOs across a portfolio of software businesses, helping them build stronger organisations and leadership teams in a fast-paced, acquisition-driven environment.
You will join a small, strategic Portfolio People Team supporting around 10 businesses across EMEA and APAC.

This is not a traditional HR role; you won’t be building centralised process or managing a large HR function. Instead, you will work directly with business leaders to solve real problems, improving leadership capability, strengthening teams, and supporting better people decisions. Some businesses have HR on the ground. Others have none.

This is a hands-on role requiring consistent engagement with the businesses. While we offer flexibility on hours, we are looking for someone who can take ownership, build strong relationships and see things through.
We are also operating in a context where AI is reshaping how work gets done. This role will play a part in helping leaders think differently about organisation design, capability, and talent, ensuring they build high-performing teams that can fully leverage AI.

Job Description:

What You’ll Be Doing

You will partner directly with CEOs, leadership teams and local HR (where it exists) to improve organisational effectiveness and leadership performance.

Leadership & Organisation

• Advising CEOs on organisation design and leadership structure

• Strengthening leadership teams through better talent and succession decisions

• Improving leadership effectiveness and team performance

Operational HR

• Supporting leaders through complex employee situations (e.g. grievances, investigations, redundancies)

• Providing clear, practical guidance to leaders with varying levels of people management experience

Portfolio Alignment

• Driving adoption of portfolio approaches to performance, talent and leadership

• Bringing consistency without creating unnecessary process

M&A

• Supporting HR due diligence pre-acquisition

• Leading or supporting people integration post-acquisition

HR Leadership Support

• Partnering with HR leads in some businesses

• Providing direct HR support in others

What Success Looks Like

• CEOs trust you and actively seek your input on people decisions

• Leadership teams are stronger, clearer structure, better talent, improved performance

• Leaders are increasingly making better decisions about roles, skills and team structure in an AI-enabled context

• Employee issues are handled confidently, fairly and pragmatically

• Portfolio frameworks are adopted where they add value

• HR capability is strengthened across the businesses you support

Who This Role Suits

This role is best suited to a pragmatic, commercially minded HR leader who enjoys working directly with business leaders and taking ownership for outcomes.

• Comfortable advising and constructively challenging CEOs

• Strong commercial judgement and credibility with leaders

• Experienced across both strategic HR and operational delivery

• Comfortable operating without heavy infrastructure or large HR teams

• Able to navigate ambiguity across businesses at different stages of maturity

• Takes pride in solving real problems and making things better

• Has a keen interest in how AI is reshaping work, and is able to help leaders make better decisions about roles, skills and team structure in that context

What We Offer

• Circa £100,000 FTE salary (pro rata)

• Bonus up to 20%

• Fully remote flexible working (minimum 30 hours p/w, with some travel as required)

• Private health insurance

• Health cash plan

• Pension

• 36 days annual leave (including public holidays)

Worker Type:

Temporary (Fixed Term)

Number of Openings Available:    

1