Payroll Leader APAC

ABOUT THE WELLA COMPANY Together, WE enable individuals to look, feel, and be their true selves. Wella Company is one of the worlds leading beauty companies, comprised of a family of iconic brands such as Wella Professionals, Clairol, OPI, Nioxin, Briogeo and ghd. With 6,500 employees globally, presence in over 100 countries, Wella Company and its brands enable consumers to look, feel, and be their true selves. As innovators in the hair and nail industry, Wella Company empowers its people to delight consumers, inspire beauty professionals, engage communities, and deliver sustainable growth to its stakeholders. For additional information about the Wella Company please visit www.wellacompany.com. THE ROLE The Payroll Leader APAC is accountable for the end-to-end delivery of accurate, timely, and compliant payroll services across the APAC countries, covering Payroll, Time & Attendance, and Benefits Administration. As a key member of the Global People Support Center, this role ensures operational excellence, robust internal controls, and superior employee experience, while leading and developing a high-performing team of specialists. The role requires a payroll leader who can operate across complex country requirements, manage vendor performance, influence stakeholders, and help modernize payroll and time processes while ensuring day-to-day delivery remains stable. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES PAYROLL OPERATIONS AND SERVICE DELIVERY Lead end-to-end payroll delivery across APAC countries, ensuring accurate, timely and compliant payroll cycles for salaried, plant, sales and other relevant employee populations.Oversee payroll inputs, payroll calculations, validation, approvals, funding, reconciliations, statutory submissions, month-end and year-end activities.Ensure strong governance and audit-ready documentation across payroll, time and benefits processes.Build visibility of payroll performance through KPIs, issue trends, root-cause analysis and service reviews.Partner with local HR, Finance, Total Rewards, Legal, Tax, Mobility and People Systems to ensure payroll outcomes are integrated and compliant.Identify opportunities to standardize, simplify and automate payroll processes across APAC, while respecting legitimate local statutory differences.Maintain and continuously improve internal controls (SOX compliance), documented SOPs, and risk mitigation frameworks. TIME AND ATTENDANCE Oversee accurate administration of time and attendance processes across all countries in scope, ensuring proper integration with payroll systems.Ensure compliance with wage & hour laws, overtime regulations and collective agreements where applicable.Drive process improvements and system enhancements to elevate accuracy and employee experience.Ensure recurring T&A issues are analyzed structurally and translated into process, system or governance improvements. BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION Oversee benefits administration operations (health, retirement, leave programs, statutory benefits) in partnership with Total Rewards and external vendors.Ensure statutory and company benefit deductions, contributions and reporting are processed accurately.Support benefits-related payroll impacts, including leaves, statutory benefits, retirement/social security contributions and country-specific benefit programs.Ensure controls are in place for benefits-to-payroll interfaces, reconciliations and exception management.4. LEGAL, TAX AND COMPLIANCE Serve as the APAC payroll subject matter leader for statutory payroll compliance, tax, social security, labor-related payroll obligations, statutory filings and audit readiness.Monitor legislative and regulatory changes across APAC countries and ensure required updates are implemented on time.Partner with Legal, Tax, Finance and Mobility teams on complex payroll topics, including cross-border moves, expats, tax equalization, equity, severance, terminations and statutory payments.Ensure payroll-related audit requests, regulatory inquiries and internal control reviews are handled with strong evidence and clear ownership.5. TEAM LEADERSHIP AND CAPABILITY BUILDING Lead, coach, and develop a team of payroll, T&A, and benefits specialists, setting clear direction, priorities, and performance expectations.Elevate team capability through structured development plans, technical training, and exposure to best practices.Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, service excellence, and employee-centricity.Drive workload balance, succession planning, and talent retention within the team. STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATION Partner effectively with HR, Finance, Legal, Total Rewards, Mobility, and IT to ensure aligned, integrated service delivery.Communicate clearly and proactively with the employee population on payroll matters, ensuring transparency, timeliness, and a positive employee experience.Manage relationships with external vendors (ADP and others), holding them accountable to SLAs and driving .