The posting
People & Culture Director
Reports to: Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), transitioning to a direct CEO reporting line as the function matures
Subordinates: To be defined and built by the role-holder
Work Location: Beirut, Lebanon / Limassol, Cyprus / Dubai, UAE
Who We Are
Swiss Butter is a fast-growing casual steakhouse brand focused on delivering exceptional dining experiences across the globe. Our mission is to create memorable moments for our customers through our signature dishes and strong connection to the communities we serve. Join us as we continue to grow into a globally recognized and loved brand.
Summary of Position
The People & Culture Director is the architect of the people systems that enable Swiss Butter to scale across multiple countries as a company-owned, decentralized operating group.
The role designs and governs the organizational infrastructure that lets each Head of Department own people execution within their function, while ensuring consistency, quality, and leadership readiness across all markets.
Core mandates include organizational design, compensation architecture, manpower planning, succession systems, Academy governance, HRIS and ATS infrastructure, and decentralized accountability frameworks.
The People & Culture Director ensures the organization is structurally ready to expand, with leadership capacity established ahead of opening cadence rather than in response to it.
The guiding principle of the function is clear:
People & Culture owns the system; operators own the people.
Operating Model & Centralization Boundary
Swiss Butter is a company-owned, decentralized operating group.
People & Culture is decentralized by default: hiring, promotion, performance management, exit, and day-to-day people decisions are owned and executed by Heads of Department and market leads, within group standards.
The function centralizes only what must be centralized to control audit, statutory, and group-consistency risk.
Centralizing the system of record and the standard is not the same as centralizing the decision.
The Director centralizes the record and the standard, and pushes every decision that can be safely distributed to the operator who owns the outcome.
The following boundary is a non-negotiable feature of the role, not a phase-one compromise.
Centralized by Mandate (P&C owns the system, the standard, and the record)
- Employee master data and the single HRIS system of record. One record per employee, one set of service dates, one leave-balance ledger across all entities. Operators write into it; they do not keep parallel or local records. This is the primary audit control.
- Statutory liability and compliance tracking: end-of-service, leave, GOSI and social security, visa and work-permit validity, and the underlying calculations. These are accounting liabilities and cross-jurisdiction compliance obligations, not people-management choices, and they must be owned centrally and reconciled to Finance.
- Grading and pay-band architecture: the levels and bands, the compensation philosophy, and the benchmarking method are designed and governed centrally. Pay decisions within an approved band are an operator decision.
- Group standards for hiring, succession methodology, and SB Academy certification: the definition of what good looks like, so a certified leader means the same thing in every market. Selection and development against those standards are executed by operators.
Decentralized to Operators (Heads of Department and Market Leads own the people)
- Who to hire, promote, and exit, within group standards and approved bands.
- Day-to-day performance management, coaching, and team development.
- Running the market-entry hiring playbook locally, and owning their own succession depth, held accountable centrally but executed locally.
Key Performance Areas (KPAs)
- Organizational Design & Operating Model
- Compensation Architecture & Manpower Planning
- People Systems & Data Infrastructure
- Talent Acquisition & Workforce Readiness
- Leadership Development & the Academy
- Succession & Leadership Pipeline
- Performance Management & Calibration
- Decentralized Accountability & Governance
- Expansion & New-Market Readiness
Duties & Responsibilities
Organizational Design & Operating Model
- Design the decentralized operating model, defining decision rights, guardrails, and escalation paths across all functions and markets.
- Establish the framework through which Heads of Department own people execution within their areas of responsibility.
- Maintain organizational clarity across entities, ensuring structure keeps pace with expansion.
Compensation Architecture & Manpower Planning
- Develop and govern a global grading and pay-band structure, mapped and benchmarked across all operating markets.
- Define the compensation philosophy and ensure pay decisions remain consistent, competitive, and defensible.
- Build the manpower planning model, aligning headcount and hiring lead times to the expansion pipeline, in partnership with Finance.
People Systems & Data Infrastructure
- Implement our in-house HRIS and ATS platforms to replace manual processes with scalable infrastructure.
- Establish a single, reliable source of employee data across all markets.
- Build reporting that supports leadership-level workforce and people-cost decisions.
Talent Acquisition & Workforce Readiness
- Define hiring standards, selection criteria, and certification gates applied consistently across markets.
- Establish a market-entry people playbook covering hiring, onboarding, and opening readiness for each new location.
- Ensure operators are equipped to source and select talent within agreed standards.
Leadership Development & the Academy
- Govern the SB Academy as the group's leadership development and operational certification function.
- Establish operational certification and train-the-trainer systems that replicate leadership capability across markets.
- Align Academy output to expansion demand, measuring certified leadership capacity produced against opening requirements.
Succession & Leadership Pipeline
- Establish the succession methodology and review cadence covering all critical roles.
- Ensure every critical role has an identified and developing successor.
- Hold Heads of Department accountable for maintaining leadership depth within their functions.
Performance Management & Calibration
- Design the performance management and calibration framework applied consistently across all markets.
- Ensure managers run performance cycles on time and link outcomes to development decisions.
- Connect performance results to promotion, succession, and pay decisions.
Decentralized Accountability & Governance
- Establish the standards, reporting, and accountability mechanisms that govern people management across the group.
- Monitor adherence to people standards and address gaps with the relevant Heads of Department.
- Ensure governance enables operators rather than centralizing routine people decisions.
Expansion & New-Market Readiness
- Ensure each new market is staffed, led, and people-ready ahead of opening.
- Translate expansion plans into workforce and leadership requirements by market and timeline.
- Undertake any other responsibility assigned by Management.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- No store opening delayed by leadership-pipeline or manpower-readiness gaps.
- Internal fill rate for leadership roles, trending upward.
- Certified leadership capacity produced against expansion demand.
- Succession coverage maintained across all critical roles.
- Heads of Department meeting defined people-ownership standards.
- Regretted attrition tracked and trending downward.
- Accuracy and integrity of people data across all markets.
- Compensation maintained within approved bands and benchmarks.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Organizational Development, or a related field (Master's degree is a plus).
- 10+ years of progressive experience in People & Culture, Human Resources, or Organizational Development, including senior leadership scope.
- Proven experience building people functions and systems in scaling, multi-site operational environments (hospitality, retail, or similar).
- Track record of operating across multiple countries and markets, ideally across MENA, Europe, and Anglophone regions.
- Strong command of organizational design, compensation structures, and workforce planning.
- Experience operating within founder-led, high-growth organizations.
- Strong strategic, analytical, and stakeholder-management capabilities.
Core Competencies
- Systems Thinking
- Organizational Architecture
- Strategic Leadership
- Commercial Judgment
- Execution Discipline
- Influence & Stakeholder Management
- Builder Orientation
Technical Skills
- Strong knowledge of HRIS, ATS, and people-data and reporting systems.
- Experience designing compensation, grading, and benchmarking frameworks.
- Familiarity with leadership development, certification, and succession systems.
- Ability to analyze workforce and people-cost data and derive actionable insight.
- Understanding of multi-country employment practices and organizational compliance.
