Head of People

Department: HQ

Location: Paris

Description Upway is looking for its first Head of People, someone who will partner with the Co-founders and the rest of the leadership team to build and scale the People function. This role sits on the leadership team and participates in company-level strategic decision-making.

This role is not about building “perfect” HR systems. It is about bringing clarity, judgment, and leadership on people and organizational topics in an environment where things evolve quickly and are not always fully defined.

The Head of People role will be a highly strategic position within Upway, a founder-led scale-up, and therefore the candidate will be someone who is pacy, action orientated, pragmatic and results driven.

Key Responsibilities Partner with founders & leaders

• Act as a close partner to the founders on People, org design, and leadership topics
• Bring structure and perspective to people decisions as the company scales
• Create a pragmatic People operating rhythm (cadence, prioritization, leadership alignment, communication)
• Challenge assumptions when needed, always in the interest of the company’s long-term health

Build simple, scalable people foundations

• Translate business priorities into a clear HR roadmap (6–12 months) and execute with speed.
• Own the TA strategy and delivery end-to-end: workforce planning, role definition, sourcing strategy, interview design, hiring manager enablement, and offer approach.
• Personally drive critical hires and raise hiring standards while maintaining speed.
• Build scalable recruiting infrastructure (tools, playbooks, metrics, partner management).
• Coach leaders on hiring discipline and set clear measures of success (quality, time-to-hire, funnel health).
• Avoid over-engineering: bring “just enough process” to strengthen accountability and execution without slowing the company down.

Handle sensitive topics with judgment

• Personally handle complex employee relations and sensitive situations
• Step into difficult conversations directly, balancing empathy and firmness
• Support organizational changes and transitions with clarity and calm

Enable managers and leaders

• Help managers grow into their roles by setting clear expectations
• Build lightweight people analytics to steer decisions (headcount, attrition, hiring velocity, performance signals).
• Raise the overall quality of people management across the company
• Model strong leadership behaviors: clarity, accountability, and courage

Operations, systems & employee relations

• Build and run the operational backbone of People in all the regions: contracts, onboarding, policies, payroll/benefits coordination, and scalable employee experience for both office and frontline populations.
• Select and deploy systems that scale (HRIS, ATS, onboarding tools) with a bias toward simplicity and adoption.
• Ensure strong compliance and risk management across geographies (France as the anchor, multi-country exposure valued).
• Be hands-on on employee relations: performance/disciplinary processes, conflict management, exits, sensitive cases, and partnership with external counsel/advisors.
• In France, lead constructive social dialogue (CSE/employee representation) with rigor and pragmatism

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise What we're looking for

• Built and scaled a People function from scratch or through a major inflection point (hypergrowth, international expansion, new sites/regions), including structuring the team, operating model, and priorities
• Partnered directly with founders/executives in high-intensity contexts and handled sensitive decisions (org changes, underperformance, leadership transitions, restructurings when applicable) with rigor and pace
• Operated across multiple countries (Europe and/or U.S.), balancing global principles with local compliance and execution realities.
• Demonstrated a low-bureaucracy approach: shipped “minimum viable” People processes quickly, iterated based on feedback, and protected business agility while reducing risk.
• Hands-on experience with employee relations (e.g. CSE/Works Council) and labor law (incl. France required)
• Natural authority and assertiveness, without being rigid or dogmatic
• Fluent in English (French is a plus)