Head People Partner, India Full Time

Location: Hyderabad, India

About The Role

Novartis India is a significant part of the global Novartis network, contributing to various business units and strategic priorities. Novartis Hyderabad is the largest global Operations capability center, supporting domains such as Data Digital and Information Technology (DDIT), People & Organization (P&O) Services, Procurement, Financial Reporting and Accounting (FRA), Development and Research. The site has over 9200 employees largely based in Hyderabad with the commercial business operating out of Mumbai (approx. 700 employees). The Hyderabad site focuses on driving productivity, innovation, and simplification by nurturing an ecosystem of agile inter-team collaboration and leveraging partnerships with external innovators. There are two offices in Hyderabad – Novartis Healthcare Private Limited at the Sattva Knowledge Park as well as our research center in Genome Valley. We also have an office for the commercial business in Mumbai with around 700 plus employees.

The People Partner head plays a critical role within the India operations for Novartis, closely works with the country P&O Head in delivering the people plan across all our sites, in partnership with the COE’s and BP’s. This role also plays a critical role working closely with the Global People Partner Head based out of Switzerland as well as is a part of a broader community of People Partner Head operating out of the large Novartis offices in US, Switzerland, China, Japan and Germany. In this role you will be part of India P&O Leadership team and drive One P&O (People & Organisation) mindset across all the P&O functions in India (approx. 400 FTE) and has direct reporting accountability of 25 plus People Partners with a layer of management.

About The Role

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the India People Partnering organization (~25) as a leader of leaders (~3+), building a high-performing cross-divisional team that delivers consistent, credible, and end-to-end P&O support to 9,000+ employees.
• Strengthen the One P&O mindset by harmonizing People Partnering processes, standards, and ways of working across business units, while collaborating with Country P&O, Business Partners, Global Business Partners, COEs, and site leaders to deliver integrated people solutions.
• Shape and execute the India People Partnering agenda in alignment with business priorities and global P&O strategy, driving key people initiatives, organizational change, culture and people experience efforts, compliance, and future-ready capability building.
• Build and sustain a high performing India People Partnering team, fostering a collaborative and accountable culture that enables impact, agility, and an enterprise mindset in an evolving organizational landscape.
• Lead leaders effectively by setting clear direction, building capability, driving accountability, and ensuring outcomes are delivered through empowered, high performing teams.
• Role model and strengthen the “One P&O” ethos across People Partnering and the broader P&O ecosystem, enabling seamless collaboration across country, regional, and global stakeholders.
• Engage proactively with site leaders and key stakeholders, building strong partnerships to clarify expectations, shape priorities, and ensure consistent execution of people initiatives.
• Influence without authority in a matrixed environment by cultivating strong global and local partnerships with COEs, Business Partners, Global Business Partners, and other critical internal and external stakeholders.
• Sponsor, lead, and inspire country level people initiatives, ensuring strong alignment with business priorities and disciplined execution across sites and functions.
• Identify and manage interdependencies across cross functional teams and COEs, driving clarity, connecting the dots, and enabling integrated planning, timely execution, and organizational agility.
• Provide leadership on India wide labour compliance, institutionalizing robust governance, audit discipline, and risk mitigation frameworks in close partnership with cross functional teams.
• Own and lead P&O policy at the country level, shaping line manager and employee experience; act as the single point of contact for standards, controls, and risk management, and serve as the escalation point for exceptions, deviations, and appeals.
• Lead the local implementation of large scale organizational changes, including structural transformations, transitions, and integrations, ensuring effective change management, business continuity, and alignment with country policies.
• Demonstrate a growth mindset and exploratory approach to challenge the status quo, leveraging AI tools, agents, and emerging capabilities to drive efficiency and elevate value creation. Continuously reassess practices to stay relevant, while adapting to new ways of working and role modelling curiosity and experimentation.
• Leverage data, insights, and metrics to anticipate demand trends, assess team capacity, identify risks, and ensure the People Partnering team is equipped to meet evolving business needs.
• Act as a critical liaison with the global people partner excellence teams driving the implementation of global initiatives at a local level, ensuring there is a good understanding of local implications on people and operating models for successful global roll outs (e.g EPIC, India labour code etc)

Essential Requirements

• 20+ years of experience in HR partnering role/s with strong experience in people management.
• MBA or equivalent in Human Resources is preferred.
• Ability to partner with senior business leaders and HR peers to deliver the talent agenda, with strong stakeholder management and influencing capabilities.
• Role‑model self‑awareness and a growth mindset through continuous learning, acknowledging gaps, and personal accountability.
• Enterprise mindset with a decisive bias for action.
• Business acumen – connecting the dots to balance strategic and operational priorities.
• Lead as a coach and servant leader, enabling others to succeed.
• Exceptional stakeholder management with strong influencing capability.

Desirable Requirements

• Experience in leveraging AI to simplify people processes, reduce duplication, and shift team capacity toward higher impact, value adding work.
• Experience in Global/ MNC and complex & matrixed organizations.

Why Novartis: Helping people with disease and their families takes more than innovative science. It takes a community of smart, passionate people like you. Collaborating, supporting and inspiring each other. Combining to achieve breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Ready to create a brighter future together? https://www.novartis.com/about/strategy/people-and-culture

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