People Development Director

Main Tasks

Key Responsibilities

1. Talent Development Strategy & Operating Model

• Define and execute the COM China people development strategy aligned with ZEISS 2030, business growth priorities, global talent principles, and local organizational realities.

• Build an integrated talent development operating model covering talent review, succession planning, leadership development, career development, critical capability building, and development governance.

• Translate business challenges—multi-business growth, matrix collaboration, innovation, digitalization, and new-business expansion—into clear capability priorities and development roadmaps.

2. Succession Pipeline & Critical Talent Acceleration

• Lead the annual and quarterly talent review and succession planning process for critical roles, ensuring rigorous calibration, fact-based potential assessment, and actionable development follow-up.

• Build targeted development journeys for HiPos, successors, key experts, and emerging leaders through coaching, mentoring, cross-BU exposure, stretch assignments, rotation, and global connection.

• Partner with business leaders to make talent development a leadership accountability, not an HR activity, with measurable progress on readiness, movement, retention, and impact.

3. Leadership & Culture Development

• Design director-level and senior-leader development solutions aligned with ZEISS core competencies: customer focus, innovation, collaboration, accountability and results, trust, communication, diverse high-performing teams, developing others, and decisiveness.

• Strengthen leadership capabilities required for COM China’s next stage: strategic thinking, matrix leadership, empowerment, change leadership, commercial acumen, global-local collaboration, and execution discipline.

• Embed a learning culture that encourages ownership, feedback, mutual trust, cross-team collaboration, and continuous improvement.

4. AI-Enabled Learning & Skills Intelligence

• Build an AI-enabled learning ecosystem that uses data, skills intelligence, personalized learning paths, AI coaching, content curation, learning analytics, and workflow-based learning to improve development effectiveness.

• Drive enterprise AI literacy and human-AI collaboration capability, enabling leaders and employees to use AI responsibly in decision making, productivity improvement, customer insight, knowledge management, and capability building.

• Explore and govern AI use cases in talent development, including skills mapping, capability diagnosis, learning recommendation, talent analytics, assessment support, and development-plan generation.

5. Learning Portfolio, Vendor & Program Management

• Build a coherent learning portfolio across leadership, business capability, digital/AI, onboarding, coaching, culture, and career development.

• Manage internal and external partners to ensure high-quality design, delivery, localization, scalability, and business relevance.

• Establish learning impact measurement, moving beyond satisfaction scores to behavior change, capability uplift, business outcomes, and talent movement.

6. Stakeholder Partnership & Governance

• Act as a trusted advisor to CMB/Eagle Team, BU/function heads, HRBPs, and global talent stakeholders on talent development priorities and solutions.

• Build governance mechanisms that clarify ownership, decision rights, cadence, data transparency, and follow-up discipline for talent development.

• Serve as a bridge between global frameworks and China execution, ensuring consistency with ZEISS principles while adapting to local business needs.

Qualifications & Experience

• Master’s degree or above preferred; major in HR, psychology, organizational development, business, education technology, or related fields is a plus.

• 12+ years of HR, talent management, leadership development, learning, OD, or related experience; 5+ years in a leadership role; experience in complex multinational matrix organizations preferred.

• Proven track record in building talent review, succession, leadership development, HiPo acceleration, learning academies, or capability-building systems at scale.

• Strong business acumen and ability to translate strategy into people capabilities, organization routines, and measurable development actions.

• Solid understanding of modern talent development practices, including skills-based talent management, learning experience design, coaching, assessment, people analytics, and AI-enabled learning.

• Hands-on experience or strong literacy in applying AI/digital tools to learning, capability diagnosis, talent analytics, personalized development, or knowledge management.

• Strong executive presence, stakeholder influence, facilitation, structured problem solving, and cross-cultural communication; fluent English and Mandarin required.

What Success Looks Like

• Stronger succession readiness for critical roles and visible movement of internal talents into key positions.

• Leadership capability uplift in strategic thinking, matrix collaboration, empowerment, innovation, AI literacy, and execution.

• Clearer talent data, governance, and accountability rhythm across BU/function leadership teams.

• Learning solutions that are more personalized, business-linked, AI-enabled, and measurable in impact.