Global Director Human Resources Cochlear Implants

The Global Director HR for Cochlear Implants & Advanced Bionics is accountable for end to end HR business partnering with the President CI BU and CI leadership team.

 

The role is accountable for fit-for-purpose organization design, workforce planning, the capabilities and talent build out, and the culture/change adoption required for CI BU to enable the market growth.

 

The incumbent will role-model future thinking, commercial HR: strong business acumen, high standards, and a deep commitment to people, culture of transparency and accountability and highest performance.

 

In this role, you`ll partner closely with Regional/Country HRBPs/People Partners and HR shared services in the countries where CI teams are present for the employee life cycle management.

 

The position is located in Valencia, CA, CI HQ with full time presence at the site and 30% international travel, including CI's main locations globally.

 

More about the role:

 

Organizational Development and Transformation

• Drive organizational effectiveness and business readiness to enable growth in CI BU.
• Provide strategic organizational design guidance to CI BU leadership, ensuring structures and capabilities support business strategy, scalability, and efficiency.
• Use data and employee insights to identify organizational bottlenecks and design interventions that improve agility, collaboration, and decision-making.
• Coach and challenge CI leadership on organization design, change leadership, talent, and complex employee relations topics.
• Embed a culture of high performance, accountability/transparency/collaboration, customer excellence. Drive the leadership accountability for employee engagement.

 

Talent, Skill and Leadership Development

• Own CI BU talent and workforce strategy in partnership with the HR CoEs: strategic workforce planning, critical roles, succession pipelines, and build/buy/borrow decisions (in partnership with Talent/TA COE).
• Define and build future CI core unique capabilities (sales, marketing/product mngt, etc). Partner with global functional HRBPs to ensure that the right R&D, Operations and Quality and Regulatory capabilies in line with CI BU strategy are available/ embedded in BU.
• Strengthen leadership capability at all levels—combining future CI business expertise with high-quality people leadership and team effectiveness.
• Create career paths and capability journeys for key CI functions, enabling internal mobility, progression, and transparent development pathways.
• Scale upskilling/reskilling through digital and blended learning solutions and targeted developmental experiences/development programs to enable a skills-based organization, unique to CI BU strategy execution. Leverage to a maximum all of the Sonova solutions created in Talent and Org development COE. Optimize training and development budgets, focusing on impact and measurable outcomes.

 

Total Reward and Compliance

• Partner with Group Total Rewards to ensure unique competitive, equitable and sustainable total rewards programs (with particular focus on sales incentives) within CI BU where relevant to CI BU strategy/competitvness and partner with the Regional/Country HRBPs for local compensation practices in the markets where CI presence is limited.
• Ensure a robust HR compliance framework adoption in CI BU in alignment with Group policies/governance and standards regional Sonova practices, employment regulationsm etc while allowing for CI BU innovation where it creates customer value in compliant way.

 

Digital HR and Process Excellence

• In partnership with Global COEs, harmonize and simplify unique CI BU HR processes into fit for purpose, tech-enabled journeys for employees and people leaders, balance global frameworks and BU specific needs. Drive continious improvement of HR processes.
• Drive adoption of Sonova standard HR digital tools, including self-service, automation, and AI-enabled solutions, to free up HR capacity for strategic work.

 

HR Team Leadership & Capability Building

• Lead, coach, and develop, set collaborative ways of working for BU HR team, aligned with business strategy and Group HR direction.
• Build contemporary HR Business Partnering capabilities (if relevant for specific BU HRBP roles), ie data literacy, consulting skills, change management)) and foster a culture of learning, experimentation, and continuous improvement within the team.
• Role-model cross-functional collaboration, ensuring HR acts as “one team” across all Sonova presence in the Region.

 

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