About the role
Liven is seeking a hands-on, commercially sharp Global Head of Payroll & Total Rewards to own how we pay, reward, and scale talent across Southeast Asia and APAC. As Liven continues its rapid growth, payroll accuracy, regulatory compliance, and structured remuneration frameworks are mission-critical to enabling speed without sacrificing governance.
Reporting to the Chief People Officer, this role is the single point of accountability for global payroll execution and total rewards strategy. You will design scalable compensation frameworks, ensure full statutory compliance across markets, and partner closely with Finance and Talent to embed financial discipline into every hiring and remuneration decision.
This is a builder role suited to a senior contributor or 2IC ready to own the function end-to-end in a high-growth SaaS environment.
What you'll do
- Own end-to-end global payroll execution across Indonesia, Australia, India, Singapore, and EOR markets
- Ensure 100% payroll accuracy, compliance, and audit readiness across all jurisdictions
- Govern employment tax, superannuation, statutory benefits, and regulatory obligations
- Own and optimise payroll systems (Rippling), controls, SOPs, and reconciliations
- Design and maintain global salary bands, job architecture, and leveling frameworks
- Lead market benchmarking using tools such as Pave, Mercer, Radford, or equivalent
- Design and operate short-term incentives, sales commission structures, and bonus plans
- Build and manage long-term incentive programs and employee equity/share plans
- Act as final approver for offers, promotions, and salary adjustments
- Lead annual and ad-hoc salary review cycles aligned to performance outcomes
- Partner with Finance on workforce planning, headcount cost governance, and margin discipline
- Build dashboards and reporting for compensation, equity exposure, and remuneration analytics
- Establish governance frameworks that ensure pay-for-performance is transparent, consistent, and scalable
- Build and scale a high-performing payroll and rewards capability as the company grows
Qualifications
- 610 years experience in global payroll and/or total rewards
- Strong hands-on payroll execution experience across Southeast Asia and APAC
- Deep knowledge of employment tax, statutory compliance, and multi-country payroll governance
- Experience designing variable compensation, sales incentives, and equity plans
- Proven ability to build scalable compensation frameworks in high-growth environments
- Strong financial acumen with ability to partner closely with Finance
- Experience with payroll systems such as Rippling (or similar platforms)
- Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, or related field
- CPA / CA qualification or strong employment tax expertise highly regarded
- Experience in SaaS, technology, or high-growth businesses
Good to Have
- Experience scaling total rewards in a multi-entity, cross-border structure
- Advanced compensation analytics and BI dashboard development experience
- Exposure to ESOP structuring and global equity governance
- Experience implementing or transforming payroll systems across regions
