Director of HR

The Executive Leadership Council is the preeminent member organization for the development of diverse global leaders. Comprised of more than 800 current and former corporate CEOs, board members and senior executives at Fortune 1000 & Global 500 companies, entrepreneurs leading top-tier firms, and recognized thought leaders, we open channels of opportunity for the development of executives to positively impact business and communities.

We are currently seeking a Director of Human Resources (HR) to join the Member Services team in our Washington, DC office.

Position Overview

The Human Resources Director is a senior people leader responsible for designing, governing, and advancing HR practices that strengthen organizational performance, equity, and engagement. Reporting to the Chief Legal & Human Resources Officer, this role serves as a strategic partner to leadership while owning the infrastructure, systems, and programs that support the full employee lifecycle.

This position is ideal for an enterprise-focused HR generalist with depth in compensation and benefits, organizational design, performance management, and change leadership, who thrives in a lean, high-impact environment and enjoys both strategic thinking and hands-on leadership. This role works in close partnership with an HR Business Partner, ensuring HR programs are effectively executed and embedded across the organization.

This role will play a pivotal role in shaping a people and culture function that is modern, equitable, and deeply aligned with mission and impact-partnering closely with senior leadership and helping build a scalable, high-performing organization.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS & KEY OUTCOMES

STRATEGIC HR LEADERSHIP

• Partner with senior leadership to translate organizational priorities into scalable HR programs and people solutions.
• Serve as a trusted advisor on workforce strategy, organizational effectiveness, and leadership capability.

COMPENSATION, BENEFITS & TOTAL REWARDS

• Own compensation and benefits program design and administration, including job architecture, salary structures, and annual compensation cycles.
• Partner cross-functionally to ensure competitive, equitable, and compliant total rewards programs.
• Manage benefits vendors and ensure a strong employee experience.

ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN, PERFORMANCE & CHANGE

• Lead organizational design initiatives, workforce planning, and structural alignment.
• Design and govern performance management frameworks, goal-setting processes, and calibration practices.
• Support enterprise change initiatives with strong planning, communication, and leader enablement.

HR OPERATIONS, INFRASTRUCTURE & ANALYTICS

• Oversee HR systems, data integrity, metrics, and reporting to support informed decision-making.
• Ensure consistency, equity, and excellence across HR practices and systems.
• Ensure compliance with employment laws and HR best practices.
• Drive continuous improvement across HR processes and technology.

TALENT & LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

• Partner on succession planning, leadership development, and capability-building initiatives.
• Support internal mobility and career pathing aligned with organizational needs.

GENERAL DUTIES

• Contribute to the achievement of established department goals and objectives and adhere to department policies, procedures, quality standards, and safety standards.
• Maintain current professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops, reviewing professional publications, establishing professional networks, and participating in professional associations.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced office environment, demonstrating a flexible approach with short deadlines.
• Promote a culture of high performance and continuous improvement that values learning and a commitment to quality improvement.
• Create and manage a seamless information sharing workflow within the HR department and the overall organization.
• Perform other duties as needed.

EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE & CREDENTIALS

• A Bachelor's Degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, or another relevant academic discipline. Master's Preferred.
• A minimum of 8-10+ years progressive HR experience, with demonstrated expertise in compensation, organizational design, and performance management.
• A minimum of 2-4 years of progressive benefits & total reward administration experience.
• Experience partnering with senior leaders and leading HR programs in a dynamic environment.
• Strong judgment, discretion, and the ability to engage credibly and effectively with senior leaders.
• One professional SHRM Certified Professional (SHRM-CP), SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP), Certified Professional Human Resource (PHR) or Certified Senior Professional Human Resource (SPHR) credential or ability to obtain certification within one year of employment
• Certified Payroll Professional (CPP) and/or Certified Benefits Professional (CBP) preferred.

COMPETENCIES

• Mission Alignment & Awareness: Has a passion for and commitment to opening channels of opportunity for the development of Black professionals to positively impact business and local communities; contributes to the organization by understanding and aligning actions with the organization's goals, core functions, and values.
• Enterprise Perspective & Systems Thinking: Brings an enterprise-focused approach to designing and governing HR frameworks, understanding organizational interdependencies, scalability, and long-term impact.
• Strategic Execution: Translates people strategy into practical, scalable programs and ensures disciplined, consistent execution across the organization.
• Human Resources Knowledge: Has a foundational understanding of concepts and practices across most functional areas of human resources; understands and interprets employment law statutes.
• People Leadership: Inspires, motivates, and empowers people to deliver organizational goals, while also delivering value back to employees, including coaching, mentoring, and monitoring employee performance; demonstrates ownership and accountability for team outcomes and develops an environment where others also assume full responsibility for personal and team outputs; motivates others to improve, develop, and become more confident in their capabilities and the capabilities of others; aware of employee engagement and morale and seeks for opportunities for improvement; effectively balances people issues with strategic and operational business priorities; fosters excitement and enthusiasm in employees by appropriately rewarding organizational, team, and individual successes; effectively deals with poor performance and complex performance management issues.
• Change Leadership: Leads and enables organizational change through clear communication, stakeholder engagement, and structured implementation.
• Professional Judgment & Risk Management: Demonstrates sound professional judgment in complex and sensitive situations, balancing employee experience, legal considerations, and organizational priorities.
• Consultative Partnership: Builds trusted relationships with senior leaders and peers, providing thoughtful counsel and influencing outcomes through credibility and insight.
• Data-Informed Decision-Making: Leverages HR metrics and insights to identify trends, assess risk, and inform strategic and operational decisions.
• Planning & Results Orientation: Organizes and executes work to meet organizational goals and objectives while meeting quality standards and following organizational processes; ensures individual performance does not negatively impact the performance of others; recommends additional resources that would improve effectiveness and helps others access required resources; identifies opportunities to improve work processes and efficiency; contributes to setting work priorities and direction; identifies in advance when intended results may not be achieved; takes initiative; is not satisfied with the status quo.
• Teamwork & Collaboration: Works well cross functionally and with others on the team to achieve personal goals, team goals, and organizational goals; takes responsibility for individual actions in order to achieve consistent results; fosters team camaraderie, collaboration, and cohesion; understands the impact of one's actions on the ability of their team members to do their jobs; respects the differences other team members bring to the table by openly seeking others' opinions; makes suggestions to improve team engagement and effectiveness; supports implementation of team decisions; professionally gives and seeks feedback in order to achieve common goals.
• Problem Solving & Decision-Making: Identifies problems and uses logical analysis to find information, understand causes, and evaluate and select best possible courses of action; seeks information and input to fully understand the cause of problems; takes action to remove obstacles and address problems before they impact performance and results; initiates the evaluation of possible solutions to problems; assesses risks before making a decision; does not take unnecessary risks; effectively navigates through ambiguity, using multiple data points to analyze issues and identify trends.
• Creativity & Innovation: Thinks beyond the confines of traditional models to recognize opportunities and find new and better ways of doing things; questions common practice and contributes to improvement of processes and outputs; proposes novel ideas; utilizes appropriate brainstorming techniques to generate ideas; researches current thinking and shares ideas; explores different alternatives that would achieve a similar output, with the goal of achieving process simplification or efficiencies.
• Resilience & Managing Uncertainty: Adjusts thinking and behavior in order to adapt to changes in the job and work environment with limited stress; is able to work effectively in an unstructured environment; actively promotes and advocates the advantages of changes when new and credible information emerges; acknowledges uncertainty and shares constructive coping strategies with team members.
• Communication & Interpersonal Effectiveness: Effectively and appropriately interacts and communicates with others to build positive, constructive, professional relationships; tailors communication style and messages based on the audience; seeks to understand others' points of view, observes verbal and non-verbal cues to encourage open and honest discussions; uses clear, precise, and error-free language; invites and encourages others to participate in discussions; identifies and helps to resolve interpersonal conflict between team members; does not jump to conclusions or act on assumptions.
• Customer Focus: Identifies, considers, prioritizes, and takes action on the needs of both internal and external customers; uses knowledge about the customer to inform decision making and problem solving; strives to provide additional value to the customer experience; actively solicits internal and customer feedback in order to improve the relationship; suggests ways to improve the customer experience.
• Technology: Advanced proficiency with Microsoft productivity suite, human capital management systems, and other functional software relevant to area of responsibility with the ability to develop executive-ready analyses, presentations, and documentation.

WORKING CONDITIONS

• Work is performed in an interior office setting which has no adverse environmental conditions expected.
• Hybrid Role requiring a minimum of 4 days a month in office with travel up to 15% of the time in the field and/or for meetings, trainings, or organizational events based on organizational needs.
• Role may require flexibility in work hours at times to accommodate organizational priorities or critical issues.
• Work involves frequently sitting for extended periods of time, frequently talking or hearing, frequently operating a computer, and occasional light physical effort (lifting, pushing, pulling, carrying, etc.) objects weighing up to 25 lbs.
• Work requires frequent ability to comprehend direction and adhere to policies or established procedures, ability to use logic to make sound decisions, ability to interpret and analyze data, ability to gather and organize information for a wide variety of audiences, ability to read and write a variety of materials, and ability to adapt well in the face of workplace stress.
• Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the role.

The Executive Leadership Council is an Equal Opportunity Employer. It is our policy to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment based on an individual's race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age, personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family responsibilities, matriculation, political affiliation, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic as defined by federal, state, and local law