Sales HR Business Partner - Conglomerate

Role Overview:

A leading business conglomerate is looking to appoint a seasoned Sales HR Business Partner to partner with its high-growth Response business. The role will have HRBP ownership across two large sales zones, with responsibility for partnering closely with senior sales and business leadership.

This is a high-impact, high-visibility HRBP role requiring someone who can operate effectively in a large and complex organisation, influence strong-willed business stakeholders and drive people decisions with conviction. The incumbent must have the seniority, credibility and organisational maturity to challenge business leadership and influence outcomes, rather than operate as a purely execution-oriented HR partner.

Location: Mumbai, Delhi

Reporting to: Head - HR Business Partnering

Team: 2 Direct Reportees

Key Responsibilities:

• Act as the strategic HR Business Partner for the Sales/Response business across two zones, partnering with senior sales leadership.
• Own the complete HR agenda for the business, including organisation effectiveness, talent management, workforce planning, performance management, leadership development, employee engagement and succession planning.
• Partner with Sales leaders on business growth, productivity, organisation structure, manpower planning and capability building.
• Serve as a strong thought partner and challenger to business leaders on people-related decisions.
• Manage and influence senior, demanding and highly opinionated stakeholders, ensuring HR recommendations are commercially relevant and business aligned.
• Drive talent reviews, succession planning and critical talent interventions for key sales leadership and frontline talent.
• Use business and people data to identify trends, productivity gaps and talent risks and translate them into actionable interventions.
• Lead change-management initiatives arising from business transformation, restructuring, expansion or organisational redesign.
• Partner with COEs and HR leadership to ensure effective execution of enterprise HR programs within the Response business.
• Build a strong HR team and effectively guide 2 direct reportees supporting the business.
• Ensure high-quality execution of employee lifecycle processes while maintaining focus on strategic HR priorities.

What We Are Looking For:

• 10+ years of overall HR experience, with significant experience in HR Business Partnering for Sales/Commercial organisations.
• Strong exposure to large, complex organisations / business conglomerates / media / consumer-facing / FMCG / telecom / BFSI / technology-led businesses would be preferred.
• Experience of partnering with large sales teams spread across multiple geographies/zones is critical.
• Strong experience in dealing with senior business stakeholders, preferably at CXO / Business Head / Regional or National Sales leadership levels.
• Must have the gravitas and influencing ability to challenge and change the thinking of senior business leaders.
• Should be commercially astute and able to understand sales metrics, productivity, revenue pressures, market dynamics and business priorities.
• Strong people leadership capability with experience managing HR teams.
• Should have operated in an organisation with scale, complexity, multiple stakeholders and mature HR processes.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, influencing and stakeholder-management skills.

Critical Success Factors:

• Scale & Bandwidth: Ability to operate across a large, geographically distributed sales organisation without getting consumed by transactional HR.
• Stakeholder Influence: Ability to confidently engage with intimidating, strong-willed senior stakeholders and hold one's ground in difficult conversations.
• Business Acumen: Must understand the commercial reality of a sales organisation and translate HR interventions into business outcomes.
• Courage of Conviction: The role requires someone who can challenge, influence and, when required, override the initial position of senior HR/business stakeholders through strong data, judgement and credibility.
• Organisational Maturity: Experience in a large, professionally managed organisation where navigating matrix structures and competing stakeholder priorities is essential.