Senior Director, Human Resources Business Partner

Place in the Organization

At uniQure, we are delivering on the promise of gene therapy and delivering hope for patients facing urgent unmet medical needs. Every role in our organization carries profound purpose; whether you're in research, operations, access, or support, your contributions impact patients. We're seeking passionate professionals who thrive in high-stakes environments, uphold rigorous quality standards, and share our relentless commitment to transforming the lives of patients. Join us in making the impossible possible, where your expertise becomes a catalyst for life-changing treatments.

We are looking to appoint a strategic HR leader and trusted advisor to Commercial, Medical Affairs, and Legal leadership, elevating people strategy to enable growth, performance, and engagement in a fast-paced, high-growth, matrixed biotech
environment. The Senior Director, HRBP sets and executes multi-year HR strategies; builds scalable, consistent practices and drives organizational effectiveness.

This role reports to the VP, Global HR, and requires a minimum of 3 days per week in the Lexington office with up to 15% travel.

Key Result Areas (major duties, accountabilities and responsibilities )
Strategic leadership and people strategy

• Define and execute a 1–3 year people strategy aligned to business goals across workforce planning, org effectiveness, culture, and capability.
• Advise senior executives using data-driven insights; translate business needs into HR priorities and measurable plans.
• Own the annual people operating rhythm: goal setting, check-ins, calibrations, talent reviews, succession, promotions, and compensation cycles.

Organization design, workforce planning, change

• Lead org design to optimize roles, spans/layers, and agility.
• Build short- to mid-term workforce plans and succession plans for critical roles; develop talent pipelines.
• Lead complex change initiatives (e.g., operating model shifts, integrations, site changes) using inclusive, compliant practices.

Talent, leadership, and culture

• Embed talent strategies that advance diversity, inclusion, engagement, and belonging.
• Oversee leadership and manager capability building, team effectiveness, and new leader integration; target L&D based on diagnostics.
• Lead culture and engagement listening (surveys), convert insights to action plans, track adoption and impact.

Performance, rewards, and employee lifecycle

• Raise performance management quality: clear goals, coaching, calibration, consequence management.
• Partner with Total Rewards on compensation architecture, offers, retention, competitiveness; ensure equity and compliance.
• Oversee critical lifecycle moments (onboarding, mobility, development, offboarding); identify and close process gaps.

Employee relations, risk, and compliance

• Provide counsel on complex ER matters; ensure consistent, fair, compliant outcomes across jurisdictions.
• Mitigate people/organizational risk, partner with Legal on policies and regulatory requirements.

HR operations, analytics, and continuous improvement

• Partner with HR Operations to drive excellence in systems, processes, and vendor partnerships; ensure scale, quality, audit-readiness.
• Use people analytics/KPIs (attrition, time-to-fill, diversity, engagement, productivity) to guide decisions and track organizational health.

Cross-functional partnership and communication

• Partner with Total Rewards, L&D, and Talent Acquisition to align HR priorities and deliver integrated solutions.
• Communicate clearly with senior leaders on policies, programs, and changes; build adoption and accountability.

Leadership and role modeling

• Set high standards and role-model ONEuniQure values: passionate, honorable, tenacious, exceptional.

Qualifications

• 10–15+ years progressive HR experience with significant HRBP leadership.
• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree (HR/OD/Business) preferred.
• Proven impact influencing leadership and delivering business outcomes in a US, high-growth, matrixed organization.
• Deep expertise: org design, workforce planning, talent management, leadership development, change management, employee relations.
• Strong compensation/rewards fluency; effective partnership with Total Rewards.
• Solid US employment law and HR compliance knowledge; global exposure (EU/other regions) preferred.
• Exceptional communication, executive presence, stakeholder management; decisive and adept at difficult issues.
• Analytical and data-driven; strong HRIS/people analytics proficiency.
• Biotech/pharma or life sciences experience required; experience supporting Commercial and Medical Affairs.