The Director, Performance & Growth is responsible for leading and managing the organization’s strategies related to skills and capability development, performance and talent management, future leadership potential programs, leadership and executive development, assessment and succession planning.
This role cultivates high-performing teams’ skills capability assessment and development to ensure a robust pipeline of leadership talent that aligns with the organization's strategic goals. The ideal candidate will have a thorough knowledge of performance and talent management. They should be able to adapt conventional theories to modern practices suited for a creative, technology-driven environment. The role also requires expertise in executive development and a dedication to promoting a culture of ongoing learning, accessibility, inclusion, and leadership excellence.
What you'll do:
Organizational Performance:
- Lead and continuously improve SMG’s enterprise-wide performance optimization and growth programs, with a focus on clarity, creativity, inclusion, accessibility and impact across 6,000+ global employees in more than 50 countries.
- Design and implement performance frameworks that enable clarity, ongoing feedback in service of growth, drive accountability and enable high performance.
- Performance optimization: Oversee and design the company’s performance optimization framework and annual/bi-annual process to reflect the company values, creative and tech-forward approach, globally impactful, whilst supporting business and individual growth.
- Employ data and analytics to influence decisions and continuously evaluate the efficacy of performance reviews, talent management and leadership development programs
- Lead global initiatives like role/skills framework architecture and competency rollout
- Collaborate with The Learning Collective team, Total Rewards, PXBPs, and business leaders to build scalable performance enablement resources (e.g., people leader trainings, toolkits, e-learnings).
Strategic Talent Management:
- Design and implement a global, integrated talent management strategy, encompassing needs identification, selection, assessment, calibration reviews, global talent pools, leadership development plans, and succession planning.
- Collaborate with PX Business Partner teams to create development plans and programs that build leadership capability, address business-critical requirements and highlight current and future external talent needs to Talent Acquisition.
- Partner on the design of our Future Leaders Programs with the Learning eXperience Curators and Program Designer.
- Serve as a trusted advisor and thought leader on talent management approaches and practices, providing insights and recommendations to PX business partners and senior leadership
- Advocate for inclusion in all executive talent management processes, ensuring access to opportunities.
- Design and build the approach to Career Maps, Global Mentoring Program and other Sony wide talent development high performance programs
Succession Planning & Talent Review:
- Establish and manage a robust succession planning framework for key leadership and executive roles across the organization.
- Identify and assess high-potential leaders within the organization, creating tailored development plans to prepare them for future leadership opportunities.
- Regularly review and update succession plans in collaboration with PX senior leadership to ensure readiness for future leadership transitions.
- Promote initiatives that support a diverse global leadership pipeline and foster an inclusive organizational culture
- Partner with Total Rewards leadership to ensure appropriate reward, benefits and relocation provisions are in place to facilitate global succession needs
Leadership Selection:
- Partner with the VPs Head of Talent Acquisition and SVPs People eXperience (Americas and International) collaborating with senior leadership and external partners to identify and attract top executive and future leadership talent.
- Develop and implement selection criteria and assessment tools that align with the organization’s strategic objectives and culture.
- Ensure a fair and transparent selection process that emphasizes objective skills assessment and accessible practices.
Leadership Development:
- Identify specific development needs for leaders and executives to create personalized growth plans that include coaching, mentoring, and bespoke development opportunities.
- Foster a culture of continuous learning by promoting participation in industry conferences, workshops, and networking events.
- Capability Assessment & Executive Coaching: Diagnose senior leaders’ capability gaps and tailor individualized and group solutions through tools such as executive assessments, 360-degree feedback, and structured executive coaching engagements.
- Evolve internal and external coaching strategies to drive measurable growth in leadership behaviors and business performance.
Organizational Change & Cultural Transformation:
- Provide expertise in change management and cultural transformation, ensuring alignment with our organizational values.
- Understand and ensure alignment to local cultural nuances and respecting local cultural dynamics, practices and employment laws.
- Validate and respect the existing culture, while thoughtfully introducing necessary changes.
- Ensure alignment between performance and talent management programs and SMG’s values and behaviors.
- Partner with the People Brand and Communications team to reinforce the tone, consistency, and impact of performance messaging.
Data Analysis and Reporting:
- Utilize data and analytics to assess the effectiveness of executive talent and learning initiatives, making data-driven recommendations for improvement.
- Provide regular reports to senior leadership on key metrics related to leadership onboarding, development, selection, and succession
- Apply behavioral science and data insights to increase performance transparency, employee engagement, and leadership capability.
- Monitor and report performance health metrics, calibration patterns, and adoption KPIs to key stakeholders including the PX SLT, and executives
Who you are:
- You are a strategic and data-driven leader with a passion for talent management. You excel at building high-performing teams and achieving measurable outcomes.
- You have demonstrable impact at a company level in Organization Development, Talent Management, or related roles in a global, matrixed company.
- You hold comprehensive knowledge and application of organizational development tools, change management methodologies, and talent management principles.
- You have the ability to translate vision and strategy into actionable, measurable goals.
- You have the exceptional ability to build and nurture global relationships, influence stakeholders, and enable collaborative work environments.
- You have experience as a change agent in high-growth industries, bringing about successful transformations and achieving significant results
- You are skilled at driving business outcomes through targeted learning interventions; comfortable influencing leaders on the appropriate use of learning to drive business outcomes.
- You are change-savvy, data-literate, and deeply curious—you leverage analytics, evolving technology, stakeholder feedback, and future-of-work trends to drive better outcomes.
- You have a deep commitment to inclusion, accessibility and employee growth.
- You are known for your excellent leadership, coaching and team management capabilities, creating an inclusive environment that fuels excellence and elevates each other.
- You are experienced in leveraging leadership assessments (e.g., Hogan, Insights Discovery, Korn Ferry, 360-feedback) and integrating executive coaching programs to drive measurable executive growth.
- You are a passionate learner staying current on research, emerging trends, and best practices talent management, performance and in leadership and executive development.
What we give you:
- You join a vibrant global community with the opportunity to channel your passion every day
- A modern office environment designed for you, empowering you to bring your best
- Investment in your professional growth and development enabling you to thrive in our vibrant community
- The space to accelerate progress, positively disrupt and create what happens next
- We give you the platform to champion positive change, with the opportunity to contribute to our social impact, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives
- We provide an excellent range of benefits like private medical cover, a generous pension scheme, life assurance, income protection, plus loads of music industry perks. There’s also time off over winter break
