Exec Director HR - Total Rewards (Human Resources)

Exec Director Hr - Total Rewards (Human Resources)

We are seeking an Executive Director HR - Total Rewards who will provide strategic leadership for Johns Hopkins University's compensation and benefits programs. This role is responsible for aligning these programs with the University's mission and goals while enhancing the overall employee experience.

The successful candidate will be a hands-on leader who thrives in highly decentralized environments with competing priorities and complex stakeholder needs. This role serves as a key collaborator and people leader, fostering excellence, transparency, and innovation across Human Resources.

This is an on-site leadership role requiring presence in the office 3-4 days per week or more, as business needs dictate.

Specific Duties & Responsibilities

Compensation Strategy & Career Architecture Integration

• Lead the design, governance, and communication of competitive and equitable compensation programs that drive candidate attraction, staff retention, internal mobility, and fiscal responsibility.
• Introduce a proactive approach to market benchmarking and internal equity reviews, enabling ongoing visibility into pay competitiveness and fairness across job families and levels.
• Oversee and lead the annual merit increase review process, including planning, analysis, budgeting, and execution to ensure alignment with compensation strategy and organizational objectives.
• Serve as executive leader for the institution's Career Architecture (myCareer), ensuring its long-term sustainability and integration with talent management programs, including performance, development, and workforce planning.
• Provide strategic guidance to HR partners and senior stakeholders on compensation structure, job classification, and pay decisions.
• Oversee executive compensation planning and materials preparation for Compensation Committee review.
• Proactively manage review and approvals for family members of Disqualified Persons.
• Operate fluently in Workday, leveraging compensation-related tools and, ideally, Advanced Compensation functionality to optimize salary and bonus planning processes.

Benefits & Work Life

• Oversee strategy planning and execution for annual benefits renewals across staff, students, and learners, ensuring programs remain competitive, cost-effective, and aligned with University objectives.
• Coordinate budget development, vendor management, and multi-audience communications.
• Lead the design and administration of a wide variety of inclusive, accessible benefits programs that serve the diverse needs of employees, students, and other learners.
• Ensure programs are compliant, cost-effective, and responsive to evolving workforce and population health and wellbeing needs.
• Collaborate with internal and external partners to enhance offerings across health, retirement, wellness, work-life, community-focused and voluntary benefits.

People Leadership & Team Development

• Lead a high-performing, cross-functional team across compensation and benefits.
• Foster a culture of accountability, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
• Provide direct mentoring and coaching to team leaders, supporting professional development and cross-functional collaboration.
• Drive alignment between team goals and broader institutional priorities.

Strategic Alignment & Partnership

• Align Total Rewards strategies with institutional values, workforce needs, and financial realities.
• Build and maintain strong collaborative relationships with other HR functional leaders and staff, ensuring cohesive strategy execution and shared ownership of outcomes.
• Establish and monitor key performance indicators to assess program effectiveness and progress toward strategic goals.
• Collaborate across HR and with key university and health system stakeholders to evolve programs and ensure operational and cultural fit.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Human Resources, Business, Analytics, or a related field.
• Minimum of 15 years of progressive experience leading compensation and benefits teams, ideally, within large, decentralized institutions or academic/healthcare environments.
• Additional education may substitute for required experience, and additional related experience may substitute for required education beyond a high school diploma/graduation equivalent, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's Degree or HR certification (e.g., CCP, CEBS, SHRM-SCP).
• Well versed in executive compensation design and administration including cash and deferred incentives.
• Deep experience in market benchmarking, compensation compliance, benefits regulations, and data governance best practices.
• Exceptional leadership, coaching, and communication skills, with the ability to manage large teams through times of rapid change and complexity.
• Experience with Workday HCM, with preferred experience using Advanced Compensation modules for planning and administration is strongly preferred.

Please be aware that our employment offer is contingent upon the successful completion of our pre-employment process, including criminal background, education, employment, and reference checks. This will require you and your references to answer questions regarding substantiated findings of serious misconduct.

The expected base pay salary range for this position is $225,000 - $300,000.