Sr Director, Talent Acquisition & Employer Brand, Greater China

POSITION SUMMARY

As a member of the Greater China Talent leadership team and the global Talent Acquisition Center of Expertise, the incumbent provides specialized expertise and consultative leadership to shape, lead, and deploy an integrated Talent Acquisition (TA) and Employer Brand agenda across Greater China. This role is accountable for setting the continent TA strategy and translating it into scalable, centralized TA services and solutions that enable consistent delivery, strong governance, and an excellent candidate and hiring manager experience. The position partners closely with HR leadership, business leaders across brands and disciplines, and vendor partners to assess short- and long-term talent needs; design and deploy programs, tools, and service delivery models; and drive adoption to maximize the value and usage of TA platforms and solutions. The incumbent coordinates with Global TA and Employer Brand teams to ensure alignment with global strategy and systems while representing Greater China market needs and localization requirements.

SCOPE

Lead talent acquisition, employer brand/marketing and talent planning function in support of the full portfolio of hotels across Greater China.

EXPECTED CONTRIBUTIONS

Talent Acquisition and Employer Brand Leadership 

• Provides thoughtful leadership on talent acquisition and employer brand strategies, policies, and solutions to meet GC’s current and future talent needs. Leads the development of an integrated multi-year strategy in partnership with the continent leadership team, and working with the global COE to develop localized solutions, leveraging global programs, resources and appropriate global and local platforms.
• Partner with GC leadership team to identify short- and long-term talent needs and develop strategic plans for the division and regions. Provide leadership and input in the design, update and execution of global programs.
• Provides consultation to the businesses on talent acquisition and employer brand strategies targeted to meet specific talent needs, completing need assessment and gap analysis, evaluating alternatives, and developing programs to be deployed in market. Partners with the HR leadership team on the right mix of strategies and optimal recruiting delivery model to support the business recruiting needs, inclusive of in-house solutions, recruiting partners and outsourcing options.
• Drive and communicate talent acquisition strategies for the continent, partnering with Area leaders on the implementation, and on post-launch sustainability plan for new programs, measuring effectiveness, and business impact.
• Performs historical trend analyses; monitors business priorities, unit growth, and key talent metrics to forecast future hiring needs and ensures strategies are in place to meet the needs and positively impact talent metrics.
• Partners with GC HR business partner and COEs to align TA strategy and process within the talent management efforts. Coordinates with other HR work streams, as needed, for planning, design and development of policies and practices.

Centralized Talent Acquisition Services Leadership

• Leads the design and deployment of a centralized Talent Acquisition Services model for Greater China, including service scope, service catalog, roles and responsibilities, and governance to drive consistency, scalability, and quality.
• Defines and monitors service standards and SLAs (e.g., responsiveness, time-to-shortlist, candidate communication standards), partnering with HR and business stakeholders to drive continuous improvement.
• Builds an operating rhythm and governance (intake, prioritization, escalation, performance reviews) to ensure predictable delivery and a strong customer experience for hiring managers and HR partners.
• Optimizes the recruiting delivery mix across centralized services, property/market recruiting, and outsourcing partners; ensures the right resourcing and capability-building plan is in place across markets.
• Leads vendor strategy and performance management for TA services and tools, including contract alignment to outcomes, compliance, and ongoing optimization.

Talent Acquisition Solutions Deployment and Adoption

• Drives deployment of TA platforms and solutions across Greater China (e.g., ATS, CRM, assessment/selection tools, reporting dashboards), ensuring clear requirements, localization, user readiness, and post-launch stabilization.
• Leads change management and capability-building to maximize usage and adoption, including communications, training curriculum, job aids, and ongoing coaching for property, market and above-property recruiting teams.
• Establishes and monitors adoption and value metrics (e.g., platform utilization, funnel conversion, time-to-fill, quality of slate, candidate NPS/experience indicators, data quality) and drives actions to improve outcomes.
• Ensures disciplined process execution and data integrity by defining standards, audit mechanisms, and corrective actions; partners with HR and compliance stakeholders to address risk and policy adherence.
• Acts as the primary Greater China voice to Global COEs on TA systems roadmap, enhancement prioritization, and reporting needs to ensure solutions support local hiring realities and regulatory requirements.

Recruiting Operations Oversight and Governance 

• Ensures that a robust recruiting process is properly executed across GC, processes, policies and roles are clearly understood and users have the right tools and skills to play their part. Monitors compliance with process and applicable policies and addresses gaps.
• Supports Regional HR Leaders in the assessment of hotel needs and recruiting capabilities required to meet those needs. Support market recruiting efforts by ensuring the right deployment model is in place and appropriate training and tools are available to property and offices teams.
• Oversees the recruiting process for GMs and Senior Executives positions, working closely with the executive recruiter and responsible HR partner to ensure the process is properly executed, a diverse candidate slate is presented, and best candidate is selected.
• Evaluates the effectiveness and business impact of existing recruiting strategies and delivery models. Drives continuous improvement in all aspects of the recruiting funnel, from candidate attraction and engagement to selection, pre-hire check, offer and onboarding.
• Monitors and reports on key talent acquisition analytics to measure the effectiveness of process and programs, ensuring HR partners have access to online reports to monitor performance.

Partnership with the Global Center of Expertise (COEs)

• Proactively partners with the global TA and Employer Brand COE to shape global agenda and priorities to address global and local market needs. Uses continent need analysis, local market trends and business dynamics to inform the global COE Talent acquisition priorities and influence the design, development and deployment of systems and solutions to meet GC’s needs.
• Partners with the global COEs on the development/upgrades of global talent acquisition and selection policies, procedures, systems and programs. Leads the development and roll out of continent specific procedures. Keeps up to date knowledge of relevant employment laws, ensuring global and continent specific policies are in compliance with local laws across GC. 
• Contributes to the development of global recruiting metrics and reporting to meet local data analytics needs.
• Provides input to Employer Brand & Marketing team on the company’s global social media strategy development; develops and drives the execution of the continent locally relevant social media strategy with a focus on driving candidate engagement and attraction.

Candidate Engagement and Generation Programs

• Leads the design, develop and launch of new TA programs, tools and solutions to meet specific talent needs in the continent, in partnership with other HR functions and/or external vendors.
• Monitors internal and external trends and best practices in recruitment and candidate generation; benchmarks best practices in and outside of the industry and explores new approaches and technologies to attract, recruit and hire talent. Identifies and evaluates emerging technologies and vendors in the TA space; proactively shares benchmarking and best practice with HR colleagues.
• Researches and evaluates the viability of new innovative recruiting resources and sourcing channels, as well as candidate engagement digital solutions in each key GC market.
• Defines the overall university relations and recruiting strategy and deployment model in partnership with the HR and discipline leaders. Communicates, gets alignment, and monitors execution of those strategies to ensure Marriott remains an employer of choice among university graduates.
• Partners with market leaders to define recruiting strategy and resourcing model to support localization and equity requirements. 

Team Leadership

• Manages a team of above property talent acquisition and employer marketing professionals.
• Establishes a strong community of talent acquisition professionals on an above property that are directly or indirectly supervised to deliver against the business recruiting needs.
• Develops operating plans and related operational processes for own department in alignment with broader business objectives. Responsible for selection, supervision and development of professionals in the team, and the development of property and market-based recruiting and employer marketing professionals.

CANDIDATE PROFILE 

Education

• University degree required, and advanced degree preferred.

Experience

• Minimum 15+ years of experience in HR, recruitment and/or business consulting in large complex organizations with progressively expanding responsibilities required. 10+ of those years in a managerial or project leadership role with demonstrated success managing in a multi-cultural environment.
• Previous experience in hospitality, service, or retail industry with multi-national company in Mainland China
• Willingness to travel throughout the region.
• Experience with both leading projects and local vendor relationship management.
• Knowledge of talent acquisition technologies and systems, with bias towards those prevalent in Mainland China.
• Fluent in written and spoken Chinese (Putonghua) and English

Skills and Attributes

• Proven success creating and implementing talent planning, sourcing, recruiting and deployment strategies for global organizations.
• Possesses strong consulting skills and the ability to quickly assess situations, identify gaps and possible solutions. Proven record consulting with HR colleagues and business leaders on complex business issues.
• Possesses strong leadership ability; can quickly analyze situations, clearly articulates what needs to be done, and mobilizes others in the right direction; is able to influence without authority in a matrix organization.
• Demonstrates strong project management skills including needs analysis, budget and resource management and project planning.
• Develops and maintains effective relationships with a broad group of stakeholders in order to foster trust and influence key decisions, vendors and project teams; sells ideas persuasively, collaborates and addresses conflict resolving issues on a timely and effective manner without damaging relationships; can be direct and forceful while remaining diplomatic.
• Effective problem-solving and decision-making skills; can choose a course of action amongst options involving uncertainty or risk; encourages new innovative solutions when appropriate. Engages in fixing the problem; makes decisions using data.
• Is results oriented, works independently, delivers results under difficult conditions and demonstrates balanced judgment under pressure.
• Initiates, implements and supports change within the organization; proactively removes barriers and accelerates its pace. Comfortable challenging organizational norms and accepted thinking to drive effectiveness.
• Possesses strong knowledge of talent acquisition processes and systems and overall talent management practices. Stays current with HR and business trends and best practices.
• Effective negotiation, influencing and conflict management skills to engage internal stakeholders as well as global business partners and gain sponsorship for solutions to business challenges.
• Proven ability to use metrics and data analysis to identify and resolve process efficiency issues. Ability to evaluate business trends, determine applicability to Marriott and modify business strategies accordingly
• Financial management skills e.g., ability to analyze P&L statements, develop operating budgets
• Strong communication and presentation skills (verbal, listening, writing)
• Actively seeks learning and exposure to new ideas and practices. Enhances personal, professional and business growth through new learning and experiences; pushes the organization to learn from other industries’ practices.
• Always maintains a positive attitude and professional demeanor, especially if ideas or recommendations are met with resistance; is persistent at driving ideas and effective at addressing difficult issues and guiding others toward the accomplishment of identified goals.
• Makes decisions in a timely manner and with limited information. Possesses strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities and resources
• Demonstrates a high degree of integrity in dealing with sensitive information.
• Understands how to manage in a culturally diverse work environment and is a champion for diversity effectiveness in the organization.
• Strong management skills with excellent coaching and mentoring skills.
• Embraces technology and other innovative solutions to increase workflow efficiency and quality.