Role Purpose:

The Head - Talent Acquisition will build and lead the organisation's enterprise-wide talent acquisition agenda during a significant phase of product, workforce and market expansion. The role will own TA strategy, workforce planning, R&D and engineering hiring, commercial hiring, campus and early-career programmes, employer branding, talent intelligence, recruitment operations, technology, analytics and partner governance.

As a senior member of the HR leadership team, the incumbent will partner closely with the SVP - Human Resources, founders, engineering and product leaders, manufacturing and supply-chain leaders, commercial leadership and corporate functions. The role requires a leader who can combine strategic thinking, market insight and function building with strong execution discipline.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Talent strategy, workforce planning and talent intelligence:

- Translate the organisation's business, product, engineering and commercial roadmap into annual and quarterly workforce plans.

- Develop hiring forecasts by function, level, skill, location and product programme, with clear assumptions and scenario options.

- Establish robust requisition, prioritisation and demand-governance mechanisms with business and HR leaders.

- Identify critical capabilities and determine the appropriate build, buy, borrow, campus, contract or partner strategy.

- Provide talent-market intelligence covering talent availability, target organisations, compensation, competition and location dynamics.

- Create succession and external-pipeline strategies for critical leadership and specialist positions.

- Align internal recruiter capacity, embedded resources, RPO support and specialist search partners to forecast demand.

- Build an annual TA plan and budget linked to business priorities, productivity expectations and measurable outcomes.

Talent Intelligence & Market Mapping:

- Develop evergreen talent maps for business-critical capabilities rather than starting every search from zero.

- Build communities of engineers, product specialists, commercial leaders, alumni and future-ready early-career talent.

- Use external market evidence to advise leaders on role design, location, compensation, timelines and talent trade-offs.

- Create competitor and talent-flow insights that support workforce planning, retention and capability-building decisions.

2. Commercial & Market-Expansion Hiring:

- Build hiring strategies for national and regional sales, dealer and channel development, retail, experience centres and service operations.

- Support hiring across customer experience, after-sales, marketing, digital growth, product marketing, business development and partnerships.

- Develop multi-location sourcing and assessment models that can support rapid market launches without diluting quality.

- Build pipelines for commercial leadership, field management and specialist go-to-market roles in current and future markets.

- Partner with business leaders to define productivity, ramp-up and retention measures for commercial hires.

3. Campus, Internships & Early Careers:

- Create a tiered campus strategy across engineering, design, management, technician and apprenticeship institutions.

- Develop structured internships, graduate engineer programmes, management trainee programmes and pre-placement pathways.

- Build partnerships with Formula Student, SAE, EV, robotics, embedded-systems and specialised research communities.

- Establish campus-assessment standards and track internship completion, PPO conversion, joining, performance and retention.

- Use campus and early-career programmes to build long-term capability in skills that are difficult to buy laterally.

4. Employer Branding & Talent Marketing:

- Develop a differentiated employee value proposition for engineering, commercial and early-career talent segments.

- Build a year-round content engine featuring products, engineering challenges, innovation, laboratories, employee journeys and leadership perspectives.

- Strengthen careers-site discoverability, social talent channels, employee advocacy, technical communities and referral campaigns.

- Ensure that the external talent promise is reflected in interview quality, communication, decision speed and onboarding experience.

- Measure employer-brand effectiveness through reach, qualified applications, source conversion, offer outcomes and candidate experience.

Experience & Track Record:

- Approximately 14-18 years of progressive experience in Talent Acquisition, with meaningful in-house leadership responsibility.

- Proven experience leading a significant TA portfolio, business unit, geography or enterprise function.

- Track record of supporting high-growth, high-volume or transformation-oriented workforce plans.

- Strong experience hiring product, R&D, embedded, electronics, automotive, industrial or deep-technology talent.

- Demonstrated exposure to commercial, sales, retail, service, operations, customer or field-hiring portfolios.

- Direct ownership of campus, internships, early-career or university-relations programmes.

- Experience building or materially improving employer branding, talent marketing or employee value propositions.

- Evidence of building, restructuring or scaling a TA team, operating model, technology stack or partner ecosystem.

- Strong executive stakeholder capability, including partnership with founders, CXOs, engineering leaders and commercial leaders.

- Comfort using analytics to improve source, speed, conversion, cost, quality and candidate experience.